Bible in 90 Days - Day 75 (Luke 20:20-John 5)

Lord God,

help us to know your ways; teach us your paths.

Lead us in your truth, and teach us,

for you are the God of our salvation;

for you we wait all day long.

Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

—based on Psalm 25:4-5

In Luke 20:24 Jesus asks whose image and inscription are on the coin. Since the answer is Caesar, it goes to him. But what in this story belongs to God? Where do you find something that bears God’s image? What carries his name? The word for “portrait” here is the same word as “image” in “Let us make man in our image” (Gen 1:26).

I find it interesting that Luke includes details in 21:37-38 about how patterned Jesus was in his last week. Every day he went to the temple (public), and every evening he went back to the Mount of Olives (private). The next scene is Judas looking for a time to betray Jesus. Luke pictures this in such a way that it highlights Jesus’ lack of fear. Jesus makes it easy for Judas to find the right time.

I would argue that John 1:1-14 is similar to Luke’s genealogy in that it traces Jesus right back to the beginning of Genesis. It is different in that it is not so concerned with human lineage. Jesus was present and active at creation, and now the one verse nativity scene comes: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” “Made his dwelling” literally means “tabernacled.” We should see God making his dwelling in the desert with his people in the tabernacle, especially when we read the next part of the verse: “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father full of grace and truth.” God’s people knew the tabernacle (and later the temple) was God’s dwelling when the glory of his presence showed up. All of that is fulfilled in Jesus.

John 1:18 – Jesus is the autobiography of God. All the way through this Gospel John points to the close relationship of Father and Son (the Holy Spirit also is more visible in John than in the other Gospels).