Here we enter a different world. The relation of Jesus and his fellow Jews is as close to Luke's heart as to Matthew's; but he writes for the gentile powers-that-be, for the likes of "Your Excellency Theophilus" to whom his gospel is addressed.

Inasmuch as many have set their hands to ordering a narrative of the matters brought to their fulfillment among us, just as those have handed them down who were from the beginning eye-witnesses and ministers of the word, so I have decided in my turn, having followed the whole story from the outset accurately and in the right order to write to you, Theophilus, so that Your Excellency may learn, of the teachings about which you have been informed, that they are well founded.

The Roman Empire had history on its side: ever increasing domains, peace at last within its borders, imperial control so "beneficent" that an Emperor's birthday could be hailed as the "gospel" of a savior's birth.

Luke built history round the story of a different savior. Any "Theophilus" had good reason to be nervous of this Jesus' followers, famous for their fiery language of freedom and of a world turned upside down.

Luke's story spans two books: the gospel and its "sequel," The Mission (traditionally known as The Acts of the Apostles) that tells of the tumultuous foundation of the church. The gospel opens in the Jerusalem temple; Jesus is yet to be born. The Mission ends decades after his death; the last scene shows his missionary Paul in Rome. This Jesus dies at the mid-way point of a larger story, with mercy for those around him and with confidence in God.

Rome: Luke sees here far more than just another city that the church has reached in its westward spread across the Mediterranean. The world had turned on its axis: from an old order to a new; from Jerusalem, ancient center of the Jewish world, to the new hub: Rome itself, capital of the Emperors who had, by the time Luke wrote, razed Jerusalem and its Temple to the ground. Luke chronicles the events of fifty years. But of one thing he is sure: the history of which he tells is like no other history ever told

Within our Luke's horizon lies a huge cast of rich and poor, men and women, Jews and gentiles. He has the historian's eye for the great sweep of history and for its most telling detail. No wonder this gospel has been linked with Paul's companion, the physician Luke. The writer has the compassion of a doctor; so has his Jesus. This is the "revolution," of compassion flowing in a vast tide across the world, that Luke's savior brings.

Mark looked to Jesus for victory; Matthew for instruction. Luke sees in Jesus an insuperable and infinitely attractive example. It can hardly be coincidence that in Luke's testimony, if anywhere, our witness' character and his subject's coincide. Over and again the words and actions that Luke records of Jesus are matched by Luke's own comments, by his "take" on the story. Luke himself is a warm-hearted observer, always alert to those around Jesus; so is that Jesus himself.

The convergence of such a historian and his hero makes of Luke's account our most appealing gospel. Luke's Jesus can be frightening, uncompromising -­ but is always a figure that we would want to meet and hear and get to know.

Of all our gospels, Luke's reads most like a chronicle, a straightforward narrative whose stories construct a historical world such as we inhabit ourselves. There is, as we shall see, more to this narrative than meets the eye; but Luke clearly wants to set his story, and so its church, within the respected mainstream of Greek culture: in stylish Greek, as a sustained and enthralling narrative such as graced the libraries of the Empire's elite.

Thoughtful, educated people had sharp questions to ask. "New" religions were deeply suspect; the church had abandoned its roots in that ancient Judaism of which the whole Empire knew; Jesus' followers were known for their fierce language of freedom and a world turned upside-down. Here, it might seem, was a new sect to be ignored if it was bound to wither away; and to be suppressed if it would not. Beneath Luke's gracious writing there is an urgent need: to reassure his readers that this Jesus and his followers were no threat to Rome. There is in this text an invitation too: for the readers to start for themselves the never-ending journey of which the story tells.

By contrast with Mark and Matthew, our Luke sounds so complacent, so urbane. Has he lost the hard edge of the others' resolute vision? Far from it. Luke flags up the most inflammatory language of the early church -­ and transforms it. His Jesus is no threat to Rome but brings a revolution nonetheless.

In terms and style and structure moulded to his readers' sensibilities, Luke undertakes the central task that he has inherited from Mark: to "unveil" the truth about their enigmatic Jesus. The result is extraordinary. Luke's reader is not invited to observe this story, to sit back and enjoy its adventure as a novel's.

Journeys are under way: Jesus' journey from Galilee to Jerusalem; Paul's from Jerusalem to city after city of the eastern Empire; and finally, the reader's own. Here for the reader is a journey into understanding, commitment -- and the strange "revolution" that Luke's Jesus brings.

Luke's Jesus dies a tranquil death, trusting in his God. Here is no room for torment and despair. Some of the manuscripts recording the story include Jesus' famous words as he is raised on the cross:

Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.

Of the two thieves crucified with Jesus, one takes up the leaders' and soldiers' mocking cry:

"Aren't you the Anointed?" says the thief. "Save yourself -- and us."

But the other shows more understanding:

"Don't you even fear God, when you are under the same punishment as Jesus is? We are quite rightly here, for we have the punishment our crimes deserve; but this man has done nothing wrong."

And he turns to Jesus:

"Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom."

Here in the very last minutes of his life, Luke's Jesus exerts his healing influence.

And Jesus says to him, In truth I tell you, today you shall be with me in Paradise.

And crying out with a loud voice Jesus said, Father, into your hands I commit my life.

Mark and Matthew use the story of one time to drive home its effect on another. Jesus' past and their readers' present are equally in focus; the story, then, of Jesus' past becomes the disclosure of his present ­ and of the readers' too. Past and present are laid one on the other.

Mark takes us at his storyıs end back to its start, to have us read this giant "parable" over and again, and at each re-reading to see more deeply into the mystery of the kingdom of God. Matthew keeps his whole narrative before our eyes: everything is embraced by the statements, at start and finish, of the roles Jesus played ­- then and now.

It is in the stories of Easter that these strategies at last come into view. What, then, of Luke's Easter? He lets the different times of his story stand undisturbed, as they might in a conventional narrative: one after the other. He has no need to double back, to describe the risen Jesus in terms of the earthly or the church in terms of Jesus' own pupils. For he has The Mission in which to tell of Jesus risen and his church; and so can use the gospel to tell of the earthly Jesus alone.

Luke lays Jesus' past and the church's present one after another; and uses the latter to give us the understanding we need of the former. The layers of Luke's story are laid out before us; and so read far more like "history" as we know and read it. But we should not be misled into naivete. Luke tells a beautifully controlled story, shaped so that we can see the pattern in God's plan and take up its rhythm for ourselves. As the story unfolds we come to expect its mirrored motion. Expectations are set up and then unsettled, over and again, on an ever longer swing and broader arc. We have ever more to see; and ever more time to see it.

Then he opened his pupils' minds to understand the scriptures.

How are the readers to come upon this knowledge and its understanding? It is in The Mission that Luke expounds to the readers the passages that he refers to Jesus. The missionaries who had heard Jesus explain the scriptures explain them in turn to Luke's readers. Luke's Easter stories take the reader by the hand. At their end we are ready to recognise the "presence" of Jesus in the gift of power with which his followers will be invested in The Mission. Luke's "sequel" takes us onward, forward -- beyond the gospel itself and into the times and places inhabited by the readers themselves.