OCTOBER 18 FEAST DAY OF ST LUKE THE EVANGELIST

Almighty God, who calledst Luke the Physician, whose praise is in the Gospel, to be an Evangelist, and Physician of the soul: May it please thee that, by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, all the diseases of our soul may be healed; through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [BCP 1662]

Almighty God, who didst inspire thy servant Saint Luke the Physician, to set forth in the Gospel the love and healing power of thy Son; Manifest in thy Church the like power and love, to the healing of our bodies and our souls; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [BCP 1928] ============================================================================
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Two books of the New Testament come from the pen of Luke, the physician. He wrote the Gospel and the Acts as he was inspired by the Spirit of the Father and of the Son and thus his writings became part of the Canon of the New Testament.

Because he proclaimed the Gospel in his writing and as traveled with the apostle Paul, he is called an Evangelist. Not an apostle but an evangelist.

His was a physician by training and profession, but in becoming an Evangelist the healing that was uppermost in his mind and central in his vocation was God’s salvation which embraces the whole man, body, soul and spirit. He proclaimed that fullness of healing which is brought to completion with the resurrection of the body and eternal life in the kingdom of God of the age to come.

The EVANGEL (Gospel) that he records is good news from God the Father concerning His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is for all people, the Jew and Gentile, the poor and rich, male and female, young and old. It begins with the Incarnation of the Son of God and includes his ministry, precious death, glorious resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit to create the people of the new covenant, the holy catholic Church. It ends with the continuing advance of the EVANGEL into Rome and to the ends of the earth.

This GOSPEL, though a message of joy, came into being through suffering and death [the passion & Cross of Jesus]; further, it is advanced in the world through witness that often requires and includes suffering and martyrdom.

The HEALING that is offered in the Gospel is not a quick fix for a bodily ailment or pain, but it is the curing of the diseases of the soul by the gift of the Holy Spirit in such a way that the healing power also energizes the body. For Luke there is no mere healing of the body as if a person is primarily a body meant for life only in this world. Rather, man is a whole being for whom healing by the Gospel begins in the soul/spirit and moves to include the body (in part in this life and in full at the general resurrection of the dead).

The emphasis in the Collect for St Luke’s Day in the BCP 1662 emphasizes that healing by the Gospel is of “all the diseases of the soul” by “the wholesome medicine of the Gospel.” Here we are faced with the possibility of being cured of that which can cause eternal damnation.

The emphasis of the 1928 BCP moves to the “healing of body and soul” and this tendency – the psychosomatic --- has accelerated in recent decades. Today the diseases of the soul identified now are often those that are identified and healed by psychotherapy. They seem to be less serious and less harmful diseases - in fact different -- than previous generations identified. The modern ones do not, it seems, cause a person to be damned, only to have an unhappy and confused life here in this world. And there seems to be little or no sense in the modern healing processes that full and complete healing of the body will be achieved only and finally by the resurrection of the body.

In the 1979 prayer book of the ECUSA St Luke is said to set forth “the love and healing power” of Jesus Christ. Of course he did, but only if we understand “Love” and “Healing” in ways that are uncommon today!

Perhaps the best way forward is to READ the Gospel of Luke and then to read the Acts of the Apostles (the two parts of his magnum opus) and after doing this to write down for our edification what Jesus and Peter and Paul, as recorded by Luke, actually said about Love, Healing, Salvation and so on! It may be an eye-opener and a soul-saver!

The Rev’d Dr. Peter Toon October 17,2001