Up until this point in the book, we’d been hearing about who this Jesus was. But now, Jesus shows us what it looks like to follow him. And he tells his disciples that if they want to follow a crucified Messiah, they need to take up their own cross, and if they want to find their life they need to lose it for his sake. It isn’t an easy teaching, but this is at the heart of following Jesus, and finding life in his name.

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In these passages, we see Jesus blessing many sick and ceremonially-unclean people who come to him for help. Instead of shunning them, he embraces and heals them. And unlike the religious systems taught, they didn’t make Jesus unclean through touching him; instead, he made them clean.

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When the crowds started flocking around Jesus, he spoke in vivid word images to show that not everyone would receive his word. But that those who did would become his family, bear fruit, and shine the light of the kingdom to the world around them.

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After giving his keynote address on the upside-down life in the kingdom, Jesus finds two unexpected people who have great faith: a Gentile military leader, and a woman everyone only knew as a “sinner.” These two people are examples to the Jewish leaders around them, of the compassion of the Messiah to those who love him and trust in his power.

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As soon as Jesus chooses his disciples, he looks to them and gives them this speech. In it, he’s preparing them for what’s ahead, and all the persecution and temptations they would face. To prepare them, he shows them what it looks like for their world to be turned on its head. He turns their ideas of blessing upside-down, and he turns their ideas of justice upside-down. But Jesus knows that we don’t naturally live like this; he knows that we need to be taught. And so he says that he’s the only teacher who can teach us to live like this, and rest the foundation of our lives on.

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In this section, Jesus starts to gather his disciples, and he gathers the most unlikely people. He shows a fisherman how to catch fish, and asks him to come and become a fisher of people; he calls a tax collector, and eats with him. But in the background, the religious leaders are starting to seethe at how much Jesus was breaking their laws of life, and they’re starting to plot how they might deal with him.

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Jesus had just been baptised, and the Spirit descended on him. And it would seem that immediately, the Spirit leads him into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. The Spirit leads Jesus to suffer and be tempted, and he succeeds like no human has before. Jesus, the second Adam, says no to the temptation of Satan. And Jesus, the promised Saviour, tells us that we are in a time of God’s favour, a time when he is bringing the good news for the spiritually poor.

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John the Baptist, the last Old Testament prophet, spent his life preparing the way for us to worship the Messiah. But then the Messiah quietly stepped onto the stage. And he was exactly who the people weren’t expecting. In this passage, Luke does so much to show us the beauty and glory of this guy: even though he’s the powerful Son of God, he’s also a servant and saviour for us, and this shows us the ultimate example of God’s surprising humility.

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