In the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius

Emperor. Governor. Kings. High priests. Luke names every powerful person in the land. And then he tells us where God's word actually landed. Not in a palace. In the desert. On a man called John.

About thirty years have passed since the night in Bethlehem. The baby has grown into a man in Nazareth. The shepherds who saw the angels are old men now, or gone. And Luke, who carefully investigated everything from the beginning, wants his readers to know this is not a fairy tale set once upon a time. It happened at a real moment in history, in a real place, with names you could check. So he sets the scene like a historian.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Luke writes. Tiberius was emperor of Rome, master of the whole Mediterranean world. Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea. Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great, was ruler of Galilee. His brother Philip ruled the lands to the north-east. A man named Lysanias ruled Abilene. And Annas and Caiaphas were high priests in Jerusalem. Seven names of power. Rome, Jerusalem, palaces and temple. If you wanted to know where the important things were happening, you would look there.

But then Luke writes: the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. John. The baby born to old Zechariah and Elizabeth, the cousin of Jesus, who had grown up and lived in the desert. Not in the emperor's court. Not even in the temple, where his father had served as a priest. In the wilderness. And John came into all the country around the Jordan River, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Turn around, he said. Change your hearts. Get ready.

Luke says this is what the prophet Isaiah had written long before. “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” In those days, when a king was coming to visit, workers went ahead to fix the road: fill the potholes, cut through the bumps, straighten the bends. Isaiah pictured whole valleys filled and mountains brought low. And Luke quotes Isaiah's last line with special joy. All flesh shall see the salvation of God. Everyone. Not only the powerful people on Luke's list. Everyone.

Luke's names are real. In 1961 archaeologists at Caesarea, on the coast of Israel, found a stone inscription naming Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea. In 1990 a decorated bone box was found in Jerusalem inscribed with the name Joseph son of Caiaphas, which many scholars believe belonged to the high priest. And Roman historians tell us Tiberius became emperor in AD 14, so his fifteenth year falls around AD 28 or 29.

In the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius. You'll find it in Luke chapter three, verses one to six. The promise of Christmas did not stay in a manger. It stepped onto the stage of real history. So here is a question to carry with you. What might need to be straightened out in your own heart, to prepare the way for Jesus?