The Festival of St. Luke, Evangelist
Posted on October 18, 2024 by under
Scripture: 1 Kings 9:1-9 (NKJV)
9:1 And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he wanted to do, 2 that the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 And the Lord said to him: “I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built to put My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. 4 Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, 5 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’ 6 But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, 7 then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 8 And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss, and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 9 Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore the Lord has brought all this calamity on them.’”
Devotion
The Lord God gave a wonderful promise to Solomon and his descendants. But Solomon himself rejected that promise later in life when he worshiped other gods to please his foreign wives (1 Kings 11:4). Most of his sons followed in his footsteps, and so did the nation of Israel as a whole, even when God sent the prophets to warn them to repent. Because they forsook His commands and promises, and ignored His prophets, God finally sent the Assyrians and the Babylonians to cut off Israel from the land which He had given them. He sent them to destroy the temple which Solomon had built.
Yet one of Solomon’s descendants did keep all of God’s commandments: Jesus Christ. His body is the true temple of God, in which the fullness of His Godhead dwells. Solomon’s kingdom was only over Israel, but Christ’s kingdom extends throughout the world, the Gospel invitation being extended to all the Gentiles.
St. Luke was one of those Gentiles, a Greek physician who heard the Gospel invitation and believed. The Holy Spirit then used him to spread that invitation to the entire world, divinely inspiring him to write a Gospel account especially for the Gentiles. St. Luke urges us in his Gospel to believe and to join him at the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom.
Collect: O Almighty God, Who hast instructed Thy holy Church with the heavenly doctrine of Thy Evangelists: Give us grace, that being not like children carried away with every blast of vain doctrine, we may be established in the Truth of Thy holy Gospel; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Collect for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Grant, we beseech Thee, Merciful Lord, to Thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve Thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
