Preaching Luke Backwards

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Some stories are not meant to be read once and in order. Some stories are meant for us to revisit over and over again. The Gospel of Luke is such a story. Our preaching of the Third Gospel can help congregations learn the story of Jesus’s cross and resurrection anew, afresh, and perhaps from a different vantage point.

Thus, the invitation to read Luke backwards. In a world turned upside down by pandemics and politics alike, how might we approach this narrative if we start at the foot of the cross, at the threshold of the empty tomb? And what if we end the story where it starts, in the arms of Mary? From the end to the beginning, Luke narrates a good news that transforms a ruptured world.

Eric D. Barreto is Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary and an ordained Baptist minister. He is the author of Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16 (Mohr Siebeck, 2010), the co-author of Exploring the Bible (Fortress Press, 2016), and editor of Reading Theologically (Fortress Press, 2014).