No reading of Luke is complete without coming to realize that Luke is concerned that the world understands that Jesus is the hope of the world and that any teaching that leads away from that fact is a false teaching. No matter what, no matter when, Jesus will be there to give us life.

In our own time, there have been those who have predicted that the end was near because of some tragedy that has shaken our world. Each time some doomsday people took from that awful event that God was getting ready to shut down planet earth. There is nothing new in people claiming such knowledge. It happened in the time of Jesus and it will happen again in our time, as well.

In the world in which Jesus lived, there were certain events that seemed to foretell the end of the world. Just such an event was the…