The Greatest Story Ever Told: Part Three by Ps Michael Podhaczky

Over the last weeks we have evaluated the question, where does the story of Jesus (that is, the greatest story ever told) begin? This week we will continue by looking at Luke 1:57-58, 64-66, to try to understand the background in preparation for the birth of John the baptiser and then Jesus Christ.

Israel was a nation under the oppression of the rich and powerful, the religious and a foreign culture. The fabric of society was made up of the rich, poor, good, criminals, religious, skeptics, free and slaves. The common people longed for freedom from this oppression. Some tried freeing themselves by violence numerous times, but failed. But they still waited for the coming of the one who would free them, i.e. the promised King Messiah.

So, the oppressors were the rich, the upper class devoted to selfishness, position, and skepticism, living in every kind of excess imaginable. Then there was the religious wasting their time in irrelevant displays of ceremonialism, bragging about being the favorites of God over the common people. They were riddled with self-deception and sin however; saw the common people as a boiling mass of unrestrained sin at the bottom of society. So, Israel was not a religious vacuum when John the baptiser and Jesus were born, but it was a world of, Idolatry, the occult and all sorts of cultic practice imaginable.

The most powerful at the time of John’s birth came from the Roman Empire, which had been the case for about 60 years. The governor at the time was Antipater, and Herod the Great (an Edomite) was appointed a puppet king by emperor Augustus. The culture of the day was a hangover from the Greek period under Alexander the Great. It affected everyday life in Israel like the language, philosophical perspective (Platonism, Gnosticism etc), agriculture, industry, finance, transportation and travel. Consequently, the local world (Mediterranean) had an enforced unification under emperor Caesar. Any communication was via highways and sea routes opened the area. Then there was the local world peace under Roman rule, hence the Roman slogan of Pax Romana, i.e. ‘Peace under Rome.’ These things were used by Jesus Christ and then the church to spread the gospel.

The relevance that this has in our life today is that we can see that not much has changed. So, it can help to see the contextual story of the birth of John ‘Prophet of the Highest’ (Lk 1:76) ‘in the spirit & power of Elijah’ (Lk 1:17). In addition, to see the background to the birth of Jesus Christ, who had come as God the redeemer. God still works in the messy affairs of the world and in your life today. God the redeemer is still the same as in John and Jesus’ day. Sometimes we just need to stop long enough to see the wonder of the greatest story ever told at work in the world around us and in our own lives. As Paul has said,

“He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; He’s near. We live and move in Him, can’t get away from Him!” (Acts 17:28 Message Bible).