Luke 3:12-6

Could they be more specific about the when, where, what , and who of this proclamation?  How tedious  I read these lines and was stumped, so I turned to a colleague and challenged him"  write a devotional about this.  He did:

"Poet Robert Frost maintained that God's ultimate act of humility and love was demonstrated in God's substantiation.  There is no doctrine more troubling to those who would be more spiritual than God than the doctrine of the incarnation.  God is not made human by a good idea, as a good speech, but in a historical action.  This is why the Gospel begins at this point--so  seemingly mundane-- with a statement that is purely historical.  'In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, ' God acted here, at this moment, in this place, and God made God's life and love known to us here, at this moment , in this place.  Nothing else reveals fully the love of God but this vulnerable, transient, human act of God.  The Word (eternal, everlasting, worthy of every Latin epitaph we can attach to it) became flesh and dwelt among us, not just as a fact, but as a neighbor.  And God calls us to this same humanity in the neighborhood that knows no bounds." 

I couldn't have done better and told him not to be surprised if he saw his words in print.  Then, as I reread it, I saw, too.  And once mundane historical notations now testified to the re-voicing of Isaiah's prophecy: "...and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." (v.6).  Indeed, we have.

We don't always get it when others do.  May we allow our understandings to be informed and shaped by those around us, for you speak yourself through everyone. 

Jacqueline  Hefley

Austin Seminary Partner

Registrar