Hello Luke, I’m Mary

The Gospel writers Matthew, Mark and John were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus. Luke was not, and in fact does not appear in the Bible until his travels with Paul around 50 AD. And while the other three Gospels are extremely similar, nearly half of Luke’s text is original, and cannot be found elsewhere, including some sixty stories and parables. The nativity scene we worship on Christmas Eve is from Luke. The only reference of Jesus’s childhood, being left at the temple, can only be found in Luke. How does the Virgin Mary’s song, the Magnificat, wind up in the Gospel of Luke? “I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you,” Luke tells us. And he does, with more detail than the other Gospel writers, who trace Jesus’s lineage back to King David. Luke takes it back to Adam and Eve. So how does a man who was not a witness to the life of Jesus, and who does not appear until decades after his death, have the most relevant details on our Savior’s life? There can only be one answer.