GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 3:1-2
John the Baptist Prepares the Way
3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea. Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip was tetrarch of the regions of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene. 2 At this time, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
Luke wanted his friend Theophilus to know this date, and so he used the clearest possible reference for a Roman subject: the year of the reign of the Tiberius Caesar. Dates were not calculated in the universal way they are now until about the third century when the church began to calculate time using the approximate year for the birth of Christ as the first “Year of Our Lord,” which in Latin is anno domini, or “A.D.”
The regions mentioned don’t add much to our understanding of the message. When Herod the Great died, his sons ruled over various parts of his kingdom. The one who concerns us most is Herod Antipas, who ruled over Galilee and the land that bordered the central and southern Jordan on the east bank. Formerly called Moab, this area was known as Perea, although in the New Testament the writers consistently say “the other side of the Jordan” (πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, Matthew 19:1; John 1:28; 3:26). Since this was where John was baptizing, it put him under Herod’s jurisdiction, as we will see later in this chapter.
Working through Luke’s pen, the Holy Spirit places Jesus in the middle of his enemies (Psalm 17:9), the very men who would put him to death. His ministry is calculated according to the dominion of the Romans, especially Pontius Pilate who would execute him, and according to the priesthood of Caiaphas and Annas, who would condemn him. In our years, it was 26 AD.
However, Luke doesn’t begin with Jesus’ ministry. He goes back several months before, to the days when John received a message from God. We don’t have a record of John’s vision or dream from God, or of an angel who spoke with him. What we have is the message he preached and the new action he undertook. It was John who began to baptize, and this was something that caught on immediately all over Judea and Galilee. But before we continue with those verses, we will pause in the last word of verse 2: “wilderness.” The word of the Lord came to John there, in the wilderness. Where was this? Since he would come out of this wilderness to preach near the Jordan (verse 3), we are best left with the idea that he was in one of two locations. On the one hand, John may have been in northern part of the Jordan near the Kerith Ravine, where Elijah had been when he was called by God (1 Kings 17:3). Or he might have been in the inhospitable wasteland of Jeshimon, the stony desert where the Dead Sea caves housed their famous scrolls for two thousand years. David his here in his stronghold on more than one occasion (1 Samuel 23:19, 26:1-3). Both of these places were within Perea, the land beyond the Jordan. Like the Israelites entering Canaan from across the Jordan, the Christian faith now began to enter Canaan from the same place. The people were crossing over from death to life, through the water of the Jordan, which was serving for John as the water of holy baptism; the water of life.
We don’t need to go to a special place on earth to become God’s children. The important thing with John, and of course with Jesus, was the message, not the real estate. We come to faith through the message of the Gospel, the promise of forgiveness and a place with God in heaven. These are the words of everlasting life.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota