Luke is the only one of the four Gospels that does not immediately identify itself as a book about Jesus. Mark announces “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Mark 1.1); Matthew presents “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah” (Matt 1.1); and John proclaims “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1.1) and soon identifies the Word explicitly as “Jesus Christ,” through whom grace and truth came into the world (John 1.17). But Luke speaks more vaguely to his friend Theophilus about “the events that have been fulfilled among us” (Luke 1.1) or “the things about which you have been instructed” (Luke 1.4).

Jesus is not mentioned until Luke 1.31 where Mary is promised, “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” But his annunciation is not even the first such promise of a remarkable birth, because an angel has already told Zechariah that “Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John” (1.13). To each of these sons is appointed a great destiny. John “will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (1.15–17). Jesus “will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (1.32–33).

Within half a chapter, Luke has announced the birth of two “great” individuals (Luke 1.15, 32): a great prophet in the spirit of Elijah and a great king in the line of David. But which is to be the main character in the story? Both are named before their conception (1.13, 60; 1.31; 2.21). Both are circumcised after eight days (1.59; 2.21). Both “grew and became strong” (1.80; 2.40). Their roles are not differentiated until chapter three, where “the word of God” comes to John in the desert and confirms him as a prophet (3.1–2), and a voice from heaven confirms Jesus as “Son of the Most High” (1.32) or “Son of God” (1.35) with the words, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (3.22). John, however, is imprisoned by Herod, the ruler of Galilee (3.19–20; compare 3.1), and for all practical purposes disappears from the story (see only 7.18–35). The reader learns of John’s fate when Herod says, “John I beheaded” and when Jesus is rumored to be John risen from the dead (9.7–9). Having gone into great detail about John’s marvelous birth, Luke spares us the particulars of his violent death (contrast Mark 6.14–29). With Jesus’ baptism, John’s prophetic work is done, and Jesus moves center stage (Luke 3.23).

Luke is the only Gospel to show interest in Jesus’ age, telling us he “was about thirty years old when he began his work” (3.23). This notice completes a series of glimpses of Jesus not only at conception, birth, and circumcision (as in John’s case), but also at twelve years of age (2.41–51) and now at thirty. Neither the glance at Jesus’ boyhood, nor the recording of his age when his ministry began, nor the genealogy has any parallel in Luke’s story of John the Baptist. Clearly, Luke’s interest in Jesus runs immeasurably deeper than his interest in John.

The genealogy, which to anyone familiar with Matthew’s Gospel comes rather late in the account (Luke 3.23–38), has the effect of reinforcing the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that Jesus would be called God’s Son (1.32, 35) and would one day reign on “the throne of his ancestor David” (1.32). David is indeed Jesus’ ancestor (3.31), and Jesus is indeed God’s Son (3.38). In itself, the logic of the genealogy could suggest that anyone in the list of names (or indeed any human descended from Adam) is equally a child of God. Yet the placement of the genealogy just after the voice at the baptism reflects unmistakably the Gospel writer’s conviction that Jesus is Son of God in a unique sense.

This is confirmed immediately by the devil’s repeated challenge in the temptation narrative that follows: “If you are the Son of God ...” (Luke 4.3, 9). From the start, Luke has made it very clear not only that Jesus is uniquely the Son of God (1.32, 35) but also that Jesus is fully conscious of that relationship. When his parents came looking for him in the temple, the twelve-year-old Jesus had replied, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father's house?” (2.49). In the temptation scene in the desert, however, Jesus does not take up the devil’s challenge to prove his sonship, nor does he appeal to the Father‑Son relationship in any way. Instead he responds as any devout Jewish person might respond—with words from the Torah: “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone’” (4.4; compare Deut 8.3); “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him’” (4.8; compare Deut 6.13); and “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’” (4.12; compare Deut 6.16). The operative term for God here is not “Father” but “the Lord your God,” in the tradition of Deuteronomy. Despite Luke’s conviction that Jesus is God’s unique Son, appointed to rule on the throne of David, he subordinates that conviction (at least for the moment) to the notion of Jesus as the ideal Jewish person, and consequently as the ideal of what a human being should be.

Jesus as Good Samaritan

Luke returns to a Deuteronomic text many chapters later in the setting of the so-called parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10.25–37). Here again Jesus is put to the test. When asked a question (“What must I do to have eternal life?”) by an expert in the law, Jesus’ reply is fully in keeping with his replies to the devil in the temptation account: “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” (10.25–26). But instead of quoting a text himself, this time Jesus elicits the relevant texts from his questioner: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (10.27). Once more the text is from Deuteronomy (6.5), centering on “the Lord your God.” This time it belongs to the Shema (Deut 6.4–6), Judaism’s confession of faith introduced by the announcement, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD is one.” The Jewish legal expert adds to this the words of Leviticus 19.18: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and Jesus applauds him for it: “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live” (Luke 10.28). The right answer, Luke implies, is the Jewish answer, and Jesus, who is the ideal Jewish person, endorses it. But one problem remains. The term “neighbor” requires definition, or so the expert thinks. Luke disagrees, because to define is to limit. Luke therefore sheds doubt on the legal expert’s motives in asking for a definition. He asks because he wants “to show that he knew what he was talking about” (10.29). Yet Jesus answers the request with the story of the Samaritan.

Christian piety and pre-critical biblical interpretation have persistently seen Jesus himself in the figure of the merciful Samaritan. The classic case is Augustine’s much-quoted allegorical interpretation of the parable in the fifth century: “Samaritan means guardian, and therefore the Lord Himself is signified by this name” (as cited in C.H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom [New York: Scribner’s, 1961], 2).

In the seventeenth century John Bunyan, in The Pilgrims Progress Part Two, described a hospitable host named Gaius (compare Rom 16.23; 3 John 5–8) who charged nothing for boarding pilgrims “but looked for his pay from the good Samaritan, who had promised him at his return, whatsoever charge he was at with them, faithfully to repay him” (The Pilgrim’s Progress [Penguin Books, 1987], 337). In the nineteenth century, in the second verse of a well-known gospel hymn, W. Spencer Walton wrote:
    “He washed the bleeding sin-wounds, and poured in oil and wine;
    He whispered to assure me, ‘I’ve found thee, thou art Mine;’
     I never heard a sweeter voice; It made my aching heart rejoice!”
(“In Tenderness He Sought Me,” Worship and Service Hymnal [Chicago: Hope Publishing, 1958], 275).

In such traditional readings, Jesus Christ is the good Samaritan who rescued us from sin and death at his first coming and will provide for our full recovery and reward at his second coming.

Given the hostility between Jews and Samaritans in the first century, it would be ironic indeed if the Lukan Jesus—the ideal Jewish person—were at the same time from Luke’s perspective the ideal, or good, Samaritan. At least two considerations, however, suggest that this could be the case. Unlike other foreigners in Luke’s Gospel (for example the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian in 4.25–27 or the thankful Samaritan leper in 17.12–19), the Samaritan, is not one who receives mercy, but like Jesus is one who shows mercy. And the Samaritan—again like Jesus—is an example to be imitated: “Go and do the same” (10.37). Ironically, the command of Jesus to act like this Samaritan echoes and concretizes the essentially Jewish ideal of love to God and neighbor: “do this and you will live” (10.28).

Assuming that Theophilus (Luke 1.3) was a Gentile, Luke’s irony can be traced to an awareness that Jesus the Jew was as much a foreigner to Theophilus and other Gentiles as the Samaritan in the story was to Jesus’ own (Jewish) audience. Why should a Gentile accept a Jewish Messiah or worship a Jewish Savior? How can a person be saved by a foreigner, a barbarian, an enemy? Instead of assuming that Luke’s single purpose was to broaden the outlook of Jews or Jewish Christians so as to embrace the Gentiles, should we not assume that he also wanted to encourage Gentiles to accept help and salvation from someone of another race? The tacit assumption of the parable is that the man in the ditch was a Jewish person, bypassed by his own religious authority figures and helped by someone of a different religion and race. If this was indeed Luke’s perspective, it is not difficult to understand how Luke’s Jesus can be at the same time both ideal Jew and good Samaritan.

Throughout Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is consistently presented as one who shows mercy to those who are poor or in some way afflicted. The immediate mission for which he is anointed at his baptism is not to rule as king but to “bring good news to the poor,” to “proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,” and to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4.18–19). This mission he explicitly defines as directed not to his hometown or his own people, but to foreigners (4.23–27). According to Peter in Luke’s second volume, Jesus “went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10.38). The core of Jesus’ ethical teaching insofar as the poor are concerned is to “give alms” in order to gain purity or eternal life (Luke 11.41; 12.33), and insofar as enemies and foreigners are concerned, to “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (6.27–36).

Jesus’ actions in Luke’s Gospel embody the same values as his teaching. He heals the sick, cleanses lepers, and frees those who are possessed by demons, just as he does in Mark and in Matthew. He responds willingly to those who cry out to him for help and mercy (see, for example, Luke 5.12–16; 17.12–19; 18.35–43). Luke quite possibly omitted Mark’s account of Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7.24–30), a story otherwise well-suited to the theme of mercy toward foreigners, because of Jesus’ hesitation before he responded to a foreign woman’s need (see Mark 7.27). When he is rejected in a Samaritan village and his disciples want to “command fire to come down from heaven” to destroy it, Jesus rebukes them (Luke 9.54–55). When he is crucified, Jesus prays for his enemies, just as he had commanded his disciples to do in Luke 6.28: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (23.34, according to many ancient manuscripts).

The world of Jesus’ parables and the world of Jesus’ actions are in many respects the same world. Luke accents this by resuming his account of Jesus’ activities after the parable of the Samaritan in a style reminiscent of the parable itself: “As they went on their way he entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him …(Luke 10.38). And it happened, as he was praying in a certain place, that when he stopped a certain one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray’” (11.1). The repetition of tis, “a certain one,” echoes the certain man, the certain priest, and the certain Samaritan within the parable.

Throughout Luke’s Gospel, the world of Jesus’ words and actions is one in which the lost are found, the weary are refreshed, and those who are far away are brought near—be they foreigners, prostitutes (Luke 7.36–50), beggars (16.19–31), destitute widows (18.1–8), tax collectors (5.27–32; 18.9–14; 19.1–10), or alienated sons (15.11–32). As Peter will proclaim, the message of Jesus is “for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him” (Acts 2.39). Luke’s primary audience, represented by Theophilus, consists of “all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him,” and to such an audience Jesus is a foreigner—a Jewish person—unexpectedly bringing them salvation, even as the “good Samaritan” brought unexpected salvation to a Jewish person in Jesus’ parable.

These considerations suggest that Christian piety followed a sound instinct in viewing the Samaritan in the story as a cameo portrait of Jesus himself—at least the Lukan Jesus. Still, we are dealing here with parable and not allegory. It would be false to conclude that the merciful Samaritan “is” Jesus or even he that “represents” Jesus in any simplistic one-to-one fashion. Few would argue that Luke invented or tailor-made this parable to fit his view of Jesus. The parable is part of Luke’s tradition, and Luke is content to see the parable as an illustration of how Jesus behaved, and wants us to behave, without laboring the point.

In one crucial respect the “good Samaritan” is nothing like Jesus. He is a healer of sorts, but not a “wounded healer” (to use Henri Nouwen’s term). His good deed costs him time and money, but little else. Nothing in the parable anticipates either the suffering, death, or resurrection of Jesus. The passion narrative is as important in Luke as in any of the Gospels, and the longer text of Luke 22.19–20 makes it clear that Jesus’ body was to be “given for you” and his blood “poured out for you.” In Luke’s account of Paul’s farewell speech, God is said to have purchased the church “with his own blood” (Acts 20.28). Still it is fair to point out that the emphasis on the redemptive significance of the cross is somewhat less in Luke than in the other Gospels. Luke is more interested in the fact that “Jesus saves” than in the divinely appointed means by which he saves. Because of this, the “good Samaritan” can exemplify Jesus’ saving activity without literally giving up his life for the man at the side of the road. More important to Luke is the fact that Jesus comes to Gentile readers as a stranger or foreigner, even as he came to his own disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24.13–31). Whether as Jew or Samaritan—or even as Son of God—the Lukan Jesus is the “other,” reminding everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, that they are helpless and cannot save themselves. These are the terms on which, for Luke, Jesus of Nazareth is the bringer of salvation.