This book was written by Luke, who was a doctor, and in spite of what is commonly understood among most Christians, Luke was most likely Jewish. He was a very close associate of great Rabbi Paul, one of the most important spiritual leaders of the early Messianic Movement. Luke accompanied Paul on many of his journeys, which were so influential in the history of the expansion of the Messianic Jewish movement and Christianity. Besides being a doctor and an evangelist, Luke was an excellent historian. He wrote this book, and the book of Acts – two of the most important and influential historical books ever written.

As a good historian, Luke carefully investigated the available information about Yeshua, including eyewitnesses, and wrote it down in consecutive order. Therefore this book is accurate, good, reliable, truthful history about the Most Important Man Who Ever Lived with the Most Important Life Ever Lived.

The way I want to teach this book will be a little different than the way I have taught a book like this in the past. Instead of commenting on each verse, I intend to focus on parts that I feel are more relevant for the life of our community. So, I may summarize a section, but then give more time and attention to another section.

I’d like to start by summarizing the first two chapters.  God prepared the way for the arrival of Yeshua into this world. His forerunner, the one who would prepare the Jewish people to receive the Messiah at His First Coming, who would help turn many of us back to God – John the Immerser, was born to very godly Jewish parents. His father was a cohen – a priest, and his mother Elizabeth was also a descendant of the coheneem and a cousin of Yeshua’s mother Mary. John’s birth was helped along by divine intervention, since Elizabeth had been barren.

Advance notice about the Messiah’s birth was given to Mary,  who was chosen to be the mother of the Messiah. She was a special Jewish woman and a descendant of King David. She was godly, pious, religious, God-fearing, and knowledgeable about the Scriptures. The great angel Gabriel was sent to her to tell her that she would miraculously be enabled to have a very great Son.

This very special human being was to be called Yeshua – which means salvation or “the Lord Saves”, since that is what He would come into this world to accomplish for a fallen world made of human beings who alienated from God and eternal life, and are in the most desperate need of salvation. Salvation from sin and death and alienation from God is our greatest need, and this is what Yeshua came to accomplish; and only He can accomplish it!

He would be called the Son of the Most High, which means that He would share God the Father’s name and nature, deity and essence. So, this great angelic messenger, who came directly from God to humanity, lets us know that this Special Individual, this Child who is born to us – the Jewish people, this Son who is given to us – the Chosen People of Israel, is fully human, but also fully God.

This unique God -Man will be the legitimate Ruler of the Jewish people, and eventually sit on the throne of his ancestor, King David. Once He begins ruling over the nation of Israel, His supremely glorious and good reign over the Jewish people will last forever. It will have no end.

Zachariah, the father of John the Immerser, was filled with the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of God enabled him to understand that God was at work in a very special way, and that through the Son of Mary, who was a descendant of King David, the Lord God of Israel was about to release the long-awaited and long-promised messianic redemption and salvation for the Jewish people.

Chapter 2

During this crucial period of time, the Roman government providentially issued a decree to everyone in their empire to participate in a census. Joseph, who was also a descendant of King David, was required to go to the city of his family’s origin – to the city of David, to register there for this census.

Mary was already engaged and pregnant, carrying the Messiah, and she accompanied Joseph to Bethlehem. He who is the Bread of Life, who is able to give life and sustain life to the entire world, was born there, in the House of Bread, in the city of David, which is exactly where the Word of God, through the prophet Michah, predicted the Messiah would be born!

There was no room for Joseph and Mary at the inn, so Israel’s greatest King was born in the most humble circumstances, and then placed in a feeding trough for animals. The way He was born – in poor, humble, even desperate circumstances, will characterize His entire First Coming. Even though He is the Son of the Most High, and the greatest Jewish person who ever lived, and King of Israel, and the Messiah, and the greatest human being who ever lived, He came like a lamb, not a lion.

He will be a man of sorrows and acquainted with suffering and grief. He will be despised and rejected by the majority of His own people, then tortured and crucified. He will triumphantly ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, not on a noble stallion. But He will also vindicated by God, and resurrected from the dead, and will come the Second Time as the victorious, powerful, conquering, glorious and honored and eternally ruling King.

At the time of Yeshua’s birth, an angel appeared to some shepherds and informed them that good news that would produce great happiness for the entire nation of Israel had just happened. The Savior, the Lord Messiah, had been born!

The most special of all human beings, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, and empowered by God to be good and holy and righteous, and to be the ultimate teacher and prophet/spokesman for God, who would hear crystal-clearly from God and then communicate what God wanted communicated to us; the ultimate priest – who alone would uniquely be able to bring humanity closer to God, and God closer to us; the priest who would bring perfect and final atonement by offering the perfect sacrifice (Himself); and the ultimate King, and perfect ruler – able, just, fair, incorruptible; the King who will usher in mankind’s golden age – the Lord Messiah had finally come into this world!

Then, Yeshua was circumcised on the eighth day to bring him into the special covenant relationship that God made with Abraham and the Jewish people. Then, around forty days after Yeshua was born, righteous, God-fearing, Torah-observing Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem to fulfill the command of Pidyon HaBen – the Redemption of the Firstborn Son, buying back the firstborn son so that he would not have to be given to God like the Priests and Levites, and so that the Priests and Levites could be given to God to serve the Lord at the Temple in the place of Israel’s firstborn sons. Now Yeshua was free to serve the Lord everywhere at all time throughout the nation and people of Israel.

While there at the Temple, Shimon, an old and godly Jewish man, who was filled with the Spirit of God, recognized that Yeshua was the Messiah whom he had been promised to see before he died. Shimon declared that Yeshua was the long-awaited and much desired Messiah, and the source of our salvation and help, and the greatest source of honor, fame and glory for the Jewish people; and the greatest source of light and truth and victory and salvation and happiness for the other nations of the world!

All of these amazing events happened within an 18 month period, approximately around 4 BC. Providential decrees of the mighty Roman empire that helped fulfill the plans of God; ancient prophecies fulfilled; powerful truths revealed; angelic visitations experienced; new prophecies given; miraculous births, and new prophets born, and the birth of Lord Messiah, the Son of David and the Son of the Most!  Keep in mind that very little of the miraculous had happened among the Jewish people for hundreds of years. No great prophet had been among us for 400 years, so these supernatural events were even more powerful.

The Jewish people had been informed that God Himself would come to Earth one day. We were expecting God to come, and even though there were hints among the prophecies that God would become a man (Isaiah 9, Jeremiah 23), it was not clear to us that God would come in this way. This was something utterly amazing, something incredible! God had come! The Lord had entered this world! In fact, He had entered humanity itself! This was a new age of history, a new era for the world. We were in the Last Days! These are once-in-the-life-of-the-world kind of events! Our attention, the world’s attention, should be riveted on these events – still, after 2,000 years.

2:41-51

Luke now skips ahead 12 years, to an incident that took place in the late childhood of Yeshua. This is one of the only incidents recorded for us in these God-inspired writings about the childhood of Yeshua, and it tells us who Yeshua understood Himself to be – even from His youth. From His youth Yeshua was aware of Himself, that He was the God-Man.

Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the holiday of the Passover. Jewish men were required to go up to Jerusalem for Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, and Joseph was a God-fearing, Torah-observing man who fulfilled God’s commands.

And when He became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the holiday; and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Yeshua stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it, but supposed Him to be in the caravan, and went a day’s journey; and they began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances. When they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for Him.

To us, 12 year olds are more like children. But at that period of time in that society, 12 years of age was close to adulthood. As he matured, Yeshua became more and more independent of His parents – which is a good, normal, necessary thing.

For reasons not given to us, 12 year old Yeshua stayed behind in Jerusalem, and didn’t leave with his parents when their caravan left to go north. Most 12 year old boys from a small town, if left behind in a big city, away from parental control, would seek out things that are interesting to them – sports, entertainments, girls, alcohol, trouble. But what is fascinating is that when Yeshua stayed behind, He naturally migrated to the Temple, to the House of God, to the place where God’s presence, and God’s teaching, and salvation, was most concentrated on planet Earth. That was where He was most comfortable. That was where He was most at home.

Then, after three days they (they – his parents who must have been frantic and terribly upset) found Him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers.

The rabbis and teachers taught in the Temple complex, and there was 12 year old Yeshua, in the midst of Israel’s great sages, interacting with the wisest of the world’s wise men on their level, listening to their exposition of Tenach and Judaism, and asking them questions and also being asked questions and giving great answers. So, already, by the time He was 12, this Very Special Human Being was the equal of Israel’s Rabbis in wisdom and understanding. And, after this, Yeshua became even wiser!

That tells us that He is the kind of Messiah who really knows the Torah, who really understands all of the Word of God, who deeply and profoundly knows Judaism. Because He is Israel’s Supreme Sage, each one of us who knows Him and believes in Him and is close to Him, can go to Him with our questions, and receive from great Rabbi Yeshua, who is alive now, all of the wisdom, counsel and understanding that we need.

He is Israel’s greatest Rabbi – still!, but He is more than a Rabbi. When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.” And He said to them, “Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them. Yeshua fully understood who He was, even if Joseph and Mary did not. Yeshua was aware about Himself that He was the divine Son of God who came into this world – sharing God’s name and nature, deity and essence.

Joseph and Mary should have understood that Yeshua would be inclined by His nature to be in God’s Holy House, close to God His Father, participating in the godly things that took place at the Temple.

From His childhood, Yeshua was aware that He was the Messiah, the unique God-Man, fully God, and fully human, and who, as a human, was required to live according to the Torah, which meant that He had to honor His human parents, and submit Himself to their authority. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them.

Luke has given us Gabriel’s testimony about Yeshua – that He is the Son of the Most High, and the Messiah. He is the God-Man.

Luke has given us Zachariah’s understanding of Yeshua – that He is the King Messiah who will bring salvation and redemption.

Luke has given us the testimony about Yeshua of the angel to the shepherds, that He is the Lord Messiah, the Savior of Israel.

Luke has given us Shimon’s Holy-Spirit-inspired declaration about Yeshua, that He is the source of salvation for Israel and the other nations of the world.

Luke has given us Yeshua’s understanding about Himself, His self-awareness that God was His Father, and that He was the unique Son of God.

My friends, Yeshua is the Messiah, and the only true Savior, and the only genuine source of help for Israel and the rest of mankind’s most serious problems. He is the source of life and goodness and blessing and help and happiness and meaning.

You must know about Him, trust Him, get connected to and stay connected to Him. You must be focused on Him, and be learning from Him, and continually be following Him. Is that you? Good! If it is not you, meet with me, talk with me, and let’s make sure that it is! This is too important, and you have too much to lose not to!

And, if you know Messiah, won’t you make it one of your very highest priorities to communicate to the rest of a lost and dying world this saving knowledge about Him?

And, won’t you give yourself to build up and strengthen His Community of Jew and Gentiles who know Him, love Him, serve Him and proclaim Him?