This week's text from Luke aptly demonstrates the genius of the narrative style the author assumes as he tells the miraculous good news. The tenor and timbre of Luke's language is essentially a reflection of the oral nature of his gospel. It is no accident that Luke's Gospel is usually the most popular choice when we want to read the Christmas story aloud. Luke's Gospel is meant to be told, announced and repeated. Its language - even in translation succeeds wonderfully at etching an oral holograph, vividly three dimensional, of the events that transpired so long ago.

Having stressed the oral nature of Luke's writings, it now appears that the first two verses of chapter 3 fly in the face of this fact. Verses 1 and 2 recite a chronology, a log of who was ruling, where and when. Anyone chosen…