Words of Light and Hope from Tony Hawes

Words of Light and Hope from Tony Hawes.

St. Luke.                                                                                                                         

The Gospel according to St. Luke has been called the loveliest book in the world. When once an American asked him if he could recommend a good life of Christ, the theologian James Denney answered, ‘Have you tried the one that Luke wrote?’ There is a legend that Luke was a skilled painter; there is even a painting of Mary in a Spanish cathedral to this day which purports to be by him. Certainly he had an eye for vivid things. It would not be far wrong to say that the third gospel is the best life of Christ ever written. Tradition has always believed that Luke was the author and we have no qualms in accepting that tradition…… Luke was a Gentile; and he has the unique distinction of being the only New Testament writer who was not a Jew. He was a medical man, a doctor by profession (Colossians 4.14), and maybe that very fact gave him the wide sympathy he possessed. It has been said that a minister sees men and women at their best; a lawyer sees them at their worst; and a doctor sees them as they are. Luke saw men and women and loved them all…… Somehow of all the  gospel writers one would have liked to meet Luke best of all, for this   Gentile doctor with the tremendous vision of the infinite sweep of the love of God must have been a lovely individual.

F.W. Faber wrote these lines:                                                                                                                                                                                                          There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,                                                                                                                                                                                             Like the wideness of the sea……                                                                                                                                                                                                     For the love of God is broader                                                                                                                                                                                                     Than the measures of man’s mind;                                                                                                                                                                                                  And the heart of the Eternal                                                                                                                                                                                                               Is most wonderfully kind.

Luke’s gospel is the demonstration that this is true.           William Barclay.