18 October 2026, Luke the Evangelist, Austwick, Eldroth
So here we are on the feast day of St Luke, the doctor, the evangelist, the patron saint of artists, notaries, bachelors, physicians, goldsmiths, butchers, brewers, and glass workers, among others.
It’s believed that Doctor Luke lived in the city of Antioch in Ancient Syria, born of a Greek family, and that he was clearly well-educated in the ways of both Judaism and of Greek, or Hellenic, culture. He wrote two of the great books of the New Testament: the gospel that bears his name, and the Acts of the Apostles. Both books were directed towards teaching and encouraging a community made up of Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The gospel of Luke testifies to the love of God in Jesus embracing both Jews and Gentiles, and the Acts of the Apostles bears testimony to Luke’s involvement in the missionary activities of the early Christians, who were forever travelling from place to place intent on spreading the faith throughout the Roman Empire.
Luke tells us that he wasn’t an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry, but his gospel richly portrays it all. His intention, he wrote, was “to write an orderly account” of the events of Jesus’ life “as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” He wrote it for a friend, who Luke called “most excellent Theophilus”, of whom we know very little. He wrote it so that Theophilus “may know the truth concerning the things about which (he had) been instructed.”
From his gospel it’s clear that Luke was keenly involved with people: appreciating those who had “handed on” the stories of Jesus, not to him alone, but “to us”, as he put it, the fellowship of believers; and it’s clear that Luke loved people: what generosity to take on the massive task of writing a whole book for a friend, to share his understanding with him. Luke knew, and showed, that he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, be a Christian on his own.
Luke wasn’t an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry, but in the Acts of the Apostles, he repeatedly uses the word ‘we’; showing that he was personally there in the missions led by Paul.
“We,” wrote Luke, met up with the Apostle Paul in Troas to cross to Macedonia and later spend time in Philippi; “We,” wrote Luke, later rejoined Paul to return to Syria and Jerusalem; “We,” wrote Luke, were with Paul on the perilous third missionary journey to Italy, when they were shipwrecked off Malta, and Paul ended up under house arrest in Rome awaiting trial before Caesar.
Paul’s writings show how closely Luke shared with him in supporting and encouraging the common life of these pioneering Christians. In Paul’s letter to the Colossians he writes, “Luke, the beloved physician, greet(s) you”. From prison, Paul wrote to Philemon, a leader in the Colossian church, a letter which begins, “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.” When Paul was nearing the end of his life, he wrote to Timothy, saying “Only Luke is with me”.
Where did this all begin for Luke? I’d say it began when the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry shared their stories with this sociable, inquisitive, doctor. Many verses in Luke’s gospel paint a vivid picture of Jesus the man who thousands of people were excited to follow. This simple verse sums it all up: “The crowds followed Jesus; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.” [2]
He welcomed them – he spoke to them about God’s kingdom – and he healed them if they needed to be cured. Jesus’ behaviour towards the crowds was the model for Luke and every disciple to follow, ever after.
Luke was inspired by an extraordinary God choosing to live among ordinary people. His gospel is the only one whose nativity story features the shepherds and the angels, a pregnant Mary with her faithful Joseph, the swaddling cloths and the manger, Elizabeth and Zechariah, Simeon and Anna.
Luke was inspired by Jesus’ desire to bring healing to those who suffer most in this life. His gospel is the only one in which Jesus sets out his stall at the very start of his ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus told the crowd, “Because he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed.” [3]
Luke was inspired by Jesus’ desire to create a new community of people who would turn around and start to to share their lives in the kingdom of God. Luke’s is the only gospel which details those meals which I often mention because they warm my heart – the ones in which Jesus brings together rich and poor, saints and sinners, the influencers and the outsiders, in fellowship around a common table.
Notice how it is Luke’s gospel only which records Jesus appointing seventy disciples to go out ahead of him in pairs to every town he planned to visit, preparing the ground for his ministry by eating with those who welcomed them through their doors, by curing the sick, and telling them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”
Was Luke one of these ‘seventy’ sent out by Jesus? Some scholars think so, but whether or not that’s true it is clear that Luke took to heart the way that Jesus taught his followers to live. He devoted himself to sharing with others the task of bringing healing to those who needed a cure, and the work of telling the crowds the good news of God’s kingdom.
When we think of doctors we might think of them as having a practice rooted in one place – in their surgery, in their hospital. But, in our day, doctors do often move, from visit to visit and from site to site; and so it seems, in Luke’s day, they did so too.
My final observation is that Luke was always a man on the move. A sizeable part of Luke’s gospel describes Jesus’ long journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, which Luke relates to the exodus of Israel under Moses, a geographical journey freighted with spiritual significance, involving suffering and struggle, ending in redemption.
Life, for Luke, became a journey involving a day-to-day walk of discipleship and witnessing. Maybe inspired by Isaiah’s call to “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees” Luke encourages his fellow-Christians to take up our cross daily, asking God each day for our daily bread to give us the strength we need to do so.
We are pilgrims on a lifelong journey to bring good news and healing to our communities and our world. We can be grateful for the encouragement Luke gives us, to help us on our way together.
Note
[1] Sources for this talk: Wikipedia: Luke the Evangelist; Wikipedia: Epistle to Philemon; John Bowker, The Complete Bible Handbook. ‘The Gospel according to Luke’, pp.310-311.
[2] Luke 9.11
[3] Luke 4.16-30
