Sermon for the Feast of St Luke the Evangelist
Sunday 18th October 2009
St Cuthbert’s, Benfieldside
Acts 16. 6-12a
2 Timothy 4. 5-17
Luke 10. 1-9
St Luke has been more or less a daily companion of
mine for the past week or so, while I thought about
what I might say to you this morning.
He‟s a bit of a mystery man, you know! In my book of
saints, he merits only a short paragraph.
The truth is, very few facts are known about St Luke.
We don‟t know when and where he was born, or
when and where he died, or how he lived his early
life. To look into his history is to find more questions
than answers. Was he a Jew or a Gentile? Was he
born in Greece or Syria? When and where did he
write his Gospel? How did he live out his life after he
wrote the Acts of the Apostles?
And did he actually write the books that are ascribed
to him?
Bishop Tom Wright admits that it is „no more than a
fair guess‟ that the writer of the third Gospel and the
Acts of the Apostles was, in fact, Luke.
On the other hand, another Bible scholar tells us that
no fewer than seven major ancient witnesses assert
that Luke was the writer of both books. “One should
accept the tradition that Luke composed this Gospel”,
he writes, “for there seems no reason why anyone in
the ancient church would invent this”.
Well, I‟m happy to accept his view! And if Luke wrote
the Gospel then we can be certain that he also wrote
its companion volume – the Acts of the Apostles.
This is how Luke introduced his Gospel:
“Many people have tried to tell the story of what God
has done among us. They wrote what we had been
told by the ones who were there in the beginning and
saw what happened. So I made a careful study of
everything and then decided to write and tell you
exactly what took place. Honourable Theophilus, I
have done this to let you know the truth about what
you have heard.”
These first four verses of St Luke‟s Gospel set out
quite clearly the methods and the intentions of its
writer. He ended up writing a story in two halves. The
Gospel sets out “all that Jesus did and taught from
the very first until he was taken up into heaven‟. A
biography of Jesus, if you like. Its sequel, „The Acts
of the Apostles‟, relates the growth of the early
church and the spread of the Christian message,
across the Northern Mediterranean and into the heart
of the Roman Empire, during the 30 years after Jesus
died. These two great works have provided – for
almost 2000 years now – not only a clear historical
account of the life of Jesus and the activities of the
first Christians, but also an inspirational message of
the love and saving grace of God.
If you set out to make a careful study of Luke‟s life
and tried to write his biography, you‟d have just
about enough material to fill the back of an envelope!
To find out more about Luke, you would have to
undertake quite a bit of detective work. Just as Luke
himself would have done before he started writing his
books.
In ancient Palestine, of course, there were few books,
and no newspapers, radio or television. The „news‟
was related by the village storytellers. The story of an
event would be always told in a certain way, however
often it was repeated.
And so we can be sure that as Luke travelled around
the villages of Palestine and Syria, in the second half
of the first century AD, seeking out the evidence
about Jesus, he would hear accurate, trustworthy
accounts of what had happened.
Nowadays, we rely much more on written records for
information gathering.
So in search of Luke we are more likely to turn to
writings that originated during his lifetime. He‟s
actually mentioned three times in St Paul‟s letters, for
example.
At the end of his letter to the Colossians, Paul refers
to „Luke, the beloved physician‟. Since Paul was, at
that time, in prison, perhaps Luke was providing his
medical care.
In his letter to Philemon, Paul again mentions Luke as
a „fellow-worker‟.
And in his second letter to Timothy, written by Paul
when he was imprisoned in Rome, we read that Luke
remained faithful to his friend when other followers
deserted him. „Only Luke is with me‟, wrote Paul.
All of this means that we can be fairly sure that Luke
was with Paul from around 58 to 63 AD.
We also know that there are three sections in the
Acts of the Apostles when the writer reverts from
writing in the 3rd person – „he‟ or „they‟ – as if it
happened to someone else - and starts to tell the
story in the first person - „we‟ – as if he himself is now
involved. Luke, it seems, joined Paul at Troas, on his
second missionary journey, and travelled with him to
Phillipi. Luke joined up with Paul again on his way
back from Greece to Jerusalem. And he was also with
him when he sailed to Rome. There can be few early
writings more compelling than Luke‟s account of the
journey by sea from Caesarea to the Bay of Naples, in
stormy weather, and their dramatic shipwreck on the
coast of Malta.
But Luke was more than a biographer. In writing his
Gospel, his overriding concern was to get at the truth
of what happened in the critical years of Jesus‟
lifetime. He was writing with a purpose – to present
Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and to persuade
people to believe in Him. His account shows - Jesus
as a human being and Jesus, the Saviour of all. In the
same way, the Acts of the Apostles are more than
simple history. They relate the „salvation history‟ of
the first Christians – the story of the word of God at
work in the world.
When we read the books which Luke wrote he
becomes much less of a mystery man.
We become aware of him as a man with a warm
interest in people, especially those who were sick,
poor, outcast or vulnerable. We know him as a
doctor, through the precise way in which diseases are
described. We recognise that he is a cultured,
educated man, „an artist with words‟, who can skilfully
combine accurate reporting with a sensitive,
sympathetic approach. We see that he is a historian
who records facts which are carefully selected and
compiled with meticulous accuracy.
But above all, we come to understand Luke as a
passionate proclaimer of the Good News, the Gospel
of Christ. Today we have the books he wrote as a
constant and permanent reminder of his faith and his
need to share that with others.
And we know, too, that Luke was a missionary in
those early days of the Church, carrying that Good
News to others, and putting himself at risk, as many
have done, for the sake of the Gospel.
Reading the Acts of the Apostles we can regain some
of that sense of urgency, of fervour, of burning need
to spread the word.
Here‟s what one writer has to say:

“There was tremendous versatility in the way [the

first Christians] went about making Christ known…..
the Christians acted like heralds, teachers and
debaters…..Women chattered the good news at the
laundry, philosophers argued it on the street corners,
prisoners told their fellows….People of every culture
and background demonstrated its power by their
transformed lives and their willing acceptance of
hardship and death ….. Nothing could keep them
quiet. They had found the key to life and they would
not be silent.” (Michael Green)

I think I‟ve got to know St Luke much better in the

past week or so. I‟d like to thank him for writing the
books which help us, today, to have a clearer
understanding of what it means to follow Christ. If he
gives us one message of overwhelming importance
that we can take to heart, it‟s this. The Good News of
the Gospel must be shared. Perhaps we can be
inspired by Luke to be „passionate proclaimers of the
Good News‟ ourselves and to declare:

“Nothing can keep us quiet. We have found the key

to life and we will not be silent.”