The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 1 — Section 81

HOMILETICS. Vere. 1-18--7"he forerunner, and his ministry. Some thirty years have passed since the birth of a son of the old age had filled the house of the good priest Zacharias with the voice of rejoicing. The blameless priest and his blameless wife are dood. The son who, when an unconscious babe, was called "the prophet of the Highest," has lived ihe life of a recluse, receiving his inspirations wholly from the study of the Law of the Lord, from lonely communings with God and truth in the great temple of nat.ure. There were many solitaries in that period. There were the Essenes, one of the sects of the Jewish nation. Eremit.es, too, dwelt in dens and caves, fkeing far from the world, with its strife and tumult. But thiij man was no mere Essene, no mere Eremite. There was a vocation before him; like the Master who was to come after him, he was being filled with the Holy Ghost for the work the striking of whose hour is related in the passage_ A man sternly, austerely simple. No phylacteries and fringes about him; no soft clothing and signs of luxurious cult1Ye, For dress there is only the skin of a camel thrown around him and held together by a rough leather band. His sole nourishment is the honey which be gathers in. the moorland, and locusts steeped in wat.er and dried in the sun. He wants nothing which the world can give to him, e.nd he fears nothing which the world can do to him. He can stand alone, for God is with him. To him, in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, comes the Word of the Lord. L Observe, at the outset, THE TIME AND TBB PBOPBETI(J DESIGNATION 011' TBB 1tll!ISTBY. The date bids us back to one of those times of confusion and uncertainty which mark the pass,ng away of the old and the preparation for a new day or period. Note the names in ver. 1. Tiberius, a low, dull, sottish despot; Pontius Pilate, indo- lent, overbearing, greedy; Herod, disgracing hi.I tetrarchate by open licentiousness; Caiaphas and Anna.s disputing for the priesthood, and neither of them worthy of respect. Typical of the world on which from his Judiean retreat the son of Zacharias looked forth. "The godly man ceased, for the faithful were failing from the children of men." Then-reminding us of Elijah the Tishbit.e, who abruptly confronts Ahab in his purple, protesting, "as the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand "-~:m a sudden the popular vision is arrested, the popular imagination is excited, by the figure and preach- ing of John. The evangelist sees in this preaching the fulfilment of the sublime prophecy of Isaiah (xl. 3-5). Looking at this prophecy, we l\re struck with the great- ness of the announcement, and the apparent inijignificance of the fulfilment. There is no1liing incongruollll in applying to John the description, "a voice crying in the en. m. 1 -38.) TUE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BT. LUKE. 73