Luke’s account gives more background, careful comparisons and contrasts, poetic expressions, and fully developed characters than Matthew’s. Luke also includes historical details not preserved elsewhere. But above all else, in addition to making clear who Jesus was, Luke gives added testimony as to what He had come to do.
Luke’s story begins with the promise of a child to the elderly Zacharias and Elisabeth, a story that provides a contrast to the promised advent of Jesus. Both conceptions are miraculous: John is born to a barren mother past the age of childbearing and Jesus is explicitly the Son of God and of a virgin. Although John’s birth is relatively quiet, aside from his father, Zacharias, regaining his voice. Jesus’s birth is accompanied by glorious manifestations and angelic proclamations.
Luke is generally assumed to have been a “Greek writing for Greeks.” He is nonetheless familiar with Jewish history and scripture and successfully connects his story with Old Testament scripture. For instance, Luke’s characters are portrayed as righteous Israelites: three pairs—Zacharias and Elisabeth, Joseph and Mary, and Simeon and Anna—parallel Old Testament characters such as Abraham, Sarah, Hannah, Isaiah, and Huldah.
Also, while Luke does not explicitly quote Old Testament scripture in the same way Matthew does, he includes four poetic expressions that take the form of songs of praise or “canticles.” These are known by their traditional names as the Magnificat (Mary, “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” 1:46–55), the Benedictus (Zacharias, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,” 1:68–79), the Gloria in Excelsis (the angels, “Glory to God in the Highest,” 2:14), and the Nunc Demittis (Simeon, “Lord, now lettest thy servant depart in peace,” 2:29–32, emphasis added). These songs reflect the sentiments of those who sang them, yet they also invoke greater meaning by reflecting Old Testament passages.
One of the most beautiful vignettes in Luke’s narrative is his account of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary, known traditionally as the Annunciation (Luke 1:26–38). Containing details that could only have come from Mary herself, this is a tribute to the young girl’s purity, and special mission, and the reality that her child would indeed be the Son of God:
“Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest …
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:31–32, 35).
This touching account is a testament to Mary’s faithful willingness to do whatever God asked: “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38).
Mary’s visit to Elisabeth likewise contains powerful testimony, both of the identity of Mary’s unborn babe and of her own mission and faithfulness. When Elisabeth hears Mary’s greeting, the Holy Ghost causes her own baby to leap in her womb, and she declares Mary to be “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43). Mary replies with an inspired expression preserved by Luke in a well-known canticle: “My soul doth magnify the Lord,
“And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. …
“For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name” (Luke 1:46–47, 49). Mary’s song goes on to describe the mercy and grace that the Lord will accomplish through her son, all of which is in accordance with the promises that God had made to Abraham and the other patriarchs (see Genesis 12:3; Isaiah 49:6; Abraham 2:9–11).
Whereas Matthew’s account dates the birth of Jesus with a reference to the final days of King Herod, thereby putting Jesus’s birth in a Jewish context, Luke connects it with events in the larger Roman world. He does this by mentioning a census, perhaps an enrollment done in preparation for taxation, during the governorship of Cyrenius.
But Luke also uses the enrollment to explain how Mary, the virgin from Nazareth, ended up giving birth in Bethlehem, the City of David. Joseph, being “of the house and lineage of David” (Luke 2:4), took his wife to Bethlehem to be taxed. It was while there that she gave birth to the baby Jesus.
Joseph may actually have been a native of Bethlehem or had relatives living there. He and his little family stayed in a home in Bethlehem until fleeing to Egypt to avoid Herod’s slaughter. It also seems that Joseph intended to return to Bethlehem with his family, but instead retired to Nazareth after learning that Herod’s son, Archelaus, ruled in nearby Jerusalem (see Matthew 2:19–23).
The possibility of Joseph’s kin living in Bethlehem may, in fact, explain the meaning of the word “inn” (Greek katalyma) in Luke 2:7. Traditional pictures of the Nativity portray the young couple arriving in a strange town, where they cannot find accommodations “because there was no room in the inn” (Luke 2:7).
But the word “inn” (Greek katalyma) can also mean “guest room.” This is how Luke uses it in 22:11, referring to the upper room where Jesus and His disciples hold their last supper. Instead of the traditional idea of an inn, complete with a gruff innkeeper shouting “No room!” to the couple, Joseph might have been staying in his own family home or the home of a relative. However, because there were so many relatives visiting for the tax season, he may not have been able to find a private room where his wife could give birth.
Accordingly, the manger into which Joseph and Mary put the newborn Jesus may have been in the animal quarters of a family home, rather than in the stable of an inn or the animal pen of a caravan camp, perhaps to afford them privacy at this special time. Although a manger presupposes the presence of domestic animals, the oxen and donkeys of our Christmas Nativity scenes are actually suggested by Isaiah 1:3: “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib.” The Greek translation of this passage and Luke 2:16 use the same Greek word, phatnē, for “crib” and “manger.” This cross reference emphasizes the fact that Jehovah’s creatures knew and accepted Him whereas His people did not always do the same: while the donkey recognized “his master’s crib, Israel my people doth not consider [understand].”
The two final canticles in Luke emphasize the extraordinary significance of the birth of Jesus. The song of the heavenly host celebrates the peace that Jesus will bring, and the prophecy of Simeon, given when Jesus is presented in the temple, emphasizes that the child came to bring salvation and light to Israelites and Gentiles alike.