The Feast of St. Luke
The Feast of St. Luke, Evangelist
In the twelfth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, the author writes the following,
"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."
From this well-known passage, we are reminded of two foundational aspects of Christian life: recollection and imitation. For some, recollection may be an unfamiliar Christian term, but it is a term related to the spiritual life, often associated with ascetics or the practice of Christian piety.
Simply put, recollection is the practice of being attentive to the presence of God in the soul. It is a discipline, a holy habit to cultivate in life's busyness and earthly distractions. Recollection employs the gift of memory, remembering what God has done for the world and for us in Christ. It commemorates the sweet salvation we enjoy. God, the Father, has visited us in the person, work, and glory of the Son and resides in our hearts by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. He has not left us orphans but has come to us, his bride. He has, is, and will save us.
Memory brings forward the goodness of God and awareness of his loving presence into the now. God comes to us in Word and Sacrament. The Triune God enters into our midst by reading the Holy Scriptures and preaching the Word. And, mysteriously, communes with us through the Holy Eucharist, where he "kisses us with the kisses of his mouth." He manifests his presence through others in the gift of Christian fellowship (and it is a holy gift!); and, as Hebrews reminds us, we earthly saints enjoy fellowship with the saints of heaven, the great cloud of witnesses who are not relegated to being ‘up there' but surround and envelop us in an unseen cloud of celestial friendship.
The second aspect of the Christian life to draw from this passage is imitation. We are told to take our eyes off of self and set them upon Christ, the "author and finisher of our faith." Jesus is the personification of all that we are to be about. We are to become little "Christs" in this world, to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, like Jesus: the Ideal of Perfection. As grace inspires us to live a godly life, love everyone and everything, and do good deeds, there is no more appropriate example to follow than our Lord Jesus Christ. Emulation of the Son generates the light which shines from the church upon all men (Mt 5:16).
And this has been the case throughout the history of the Church. Righteous men and women of every age - whether they be prophets, apostles, martyrs, and champions of the faith - all shine with the beauty of their faith to the extent that they imitate Christ. "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal 3:27). As raindrops show different colors by reflecting the rays of sunlight, so every faithful Christian should reflect the spiritual beauty of Christ.
The Lord provides godly examples worthy of imitation to aid us in this endeavor. This is what St. Paul has in mind when exhorting the Christians at Corinth to imitate him as he imitates Christ (1 Cor 11:1). And to the Philippians, he says, "What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you" ( Phil 4:9). And we, too, are encouraged to embrace one of the most empowering means of Christian discipleship: imitating the life and practice of devout believers. It's a simple maxim: we should imitate faithful followers because they themselves are imitating Christ by endeavoring to live holy lives before God.
The author of Hebrews goes on to further enlarge this theme when, after recording the great heroes of the faith, he writes in chapter thirteen, verse seven, "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith." This past-tense description (…spoke….the outcome…) seems to imply that the leaders are no longer around—either being in exile, in prison, or having been put to death. And we find in the Holy Scripture itself urging each one of us to not only follow the holy lives of devout believers who the Lord puts before our eyes but to recollect or remember the saints who have gone before us, to learn from them, and for encouragement toward Christlikeness.
This is the important benefit of commemorating and celebrating the lives of men such as St. Luke, the Evangelist, who we remember and celebrate today, a man who was sanctified by his labors for Christ's sake and attained everlasting glory. St Luke was Greek by birth and most probably converted to Judaism before coming to believe in Jesus Christ. He was a native of Antioch, Syria, and was ‘renowned [at that time] for the flourishing state of the arts and sciences. [There] Luke had developed his intellect with various scholarly studies. He unquestionably received a quality education, for the superiority of the Greek language he employs is purer and more accurate than that of other New Testament writers. He also shared an extraordinary friendship with the Apostle Paul, who affectionately called him "the beloved physician."
He was not only a skilled physician but a talented artist as well. Church tradition holds him to be the original "iconographer," responsible for writing the first icons of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the divine child (you'll find one of his icons on the cover of your bulletin). Luke loved our Lord's mother, featuring her in his Gospel more than those of Mark, Matthew, and John. In fact, though women are mentioned frequently in all four of the Gospels, they are especially prominent in Luke’s.
The beauty of his art could only have found its origin in the beautiful mystery of the incarnation, in the obedient handmaid of the Lord, who nurtured our Savior and wept at his death. With a soul alive to the most delicate of divine inspirations, he consecrated his pencil to the holiest use and handed down to the church the features of the Mother of God. It is an illustration worthy of the Gospel, which relates to the divine Infancy, preaching through image, the salvation of God born into this world; salvation, as we are reminded by his Madonna icon, that resides in holy mother church.
He was not only a man of beauty but a man of truth as well. This first-rate theologian and historian painstakingly set down a most detailed and comprehensive Gospel, which he begins,
"For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed" (Lk 1:1-4).
And here we see Luke's Christ-like concern in writing his accounts: that a fellow believer might be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, which he himself has come to believe. Love flows from the physician's pen for the spiritual health of anyone who reads the sacred text.
Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Evangelist recorded and shared the truth of his own salvation, setting down one of the four Gospels found in the New Testament, and in doing so, the great physician delivered the wholesome medicine of Christ for the healing of the nations. For only the truth of the Gospel cures the infirmities of men. And yet, for Luke, the salvific events of Christ's birth, life, death, and resurrection did not close the history of salvation but rather marks the beginning of a new phase, a phase characterized by the mission of the Church, which is called to communicate the fruits of the salvation achieved by Christ to all nations. For this reason, Luke's Gospel is followed by a history of this mission, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.
And yet, today's Gospel was not only written by Luke but presumes to tell us something about the man: he was more than a witness and chronicler of the apostolic mission. Tradition holds that Luke is among the seventy sent by the Lord Jesus himself, as recorded in today’s Gospel,
"After these things, the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come. Therefore, said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few: pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest" (Lk 10:1-2).
The good doctor responded to the missional call of God, for he proved to be an evangelist in the fullest sense of the word: a physician of souls who proclaimed both in word and deed, the healing balm of the love and goodness of Jesus Christ.
After the separation of St. Paul from St. Barnabas, the Evangelist constantly accompanied Paul in his journeyings and missions; and the latter half of the Acts of the Apostles records not only what he heard from others, but the events which had occurred within his own experience while sharing St. Paul's work and dangers. Hence St. Paul affectionately speaks of him as his "fellow laborer" and "the brother whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the churches." Long after the martyrdom of St. Paul, he continued his missionary labors and is believed to have attained his rest through martyrdom, being hanged from an olive tree at eighty years of age. He who had received power from on high took up his cross and employed his life laboring for the salvation of the world.
St. Luke reminds us that the mission of the church is not exclusive to the Twelve Apostles but extended to all who claim to be disciples of our Lord. And his missional zeal is worthy of our emulation, for it is the high and heavenly duty of every baptized Christian to deliver that which by grace has been received; the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The good news, which cures diseases of the soul, is the only medicine that heals the world.
Jesus told the seventy to go as bringers of peace and pronounce the Kingdom's good news. And we too must go, having also been commissioned and sent into the world, compelled to enter into the lives of others, into their confusion, skepticism, worry, and sorrows. Like St. Luke, deep love of Christ must compel our love of the lost, the lapsed, and the low. To expend all we possess and all that we are for the salvation of souls. The total offering of self is but every saint's imitation of their Master.
So, my beloved, I will continue to pray for God to embed a heavy burden for the lost into the heart of this parish. Now, may the recollection of St. James reawaken us to an ever-increasing awareness of the mission that Christ himself has entrusted to us. And may we, the baptized missionaries of Christ, bring many into the family of God through the sacrificial witness of our lives. Amen+
