Day Seventy-Three -- Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Luke 2:1 to Luke 9:62

The Gospel according to Luke, while recounting many of the same stories as Matthew and Mark, gives us a different voice.  Luke addresses his account to a person named Theophilus (which means "God lover").  This personal approach is carried forward in the 'meeting of the mothers' of John the Baptist and Jesus.  Elizabeth and Mary are just two of the women whom we meet in Luke.  So far there is also Anna, the 84-year old prophet who never left the temple in Jerusalem but worshiped night and day; the unnamed mother-in-law of Peter in Capernaum whom Jesus healed; a widow in Nain whose son was brought back from death by Jesus; the sinful woman who showed kindness and hospitality to Jesus, and whose sins he pronounced were forgiven; a group of women who followed Jesus and his disciples and helped to support them out of their own means including Mary Magdalene, Johanna the wife of the manager of Herod's household, and Susanna; the 12-year old he brought back to life, a daughter of a synagogue leader named Jairus; and a woman he healed who had been ill for twelve years. In all of these encounters there is the mercy of God that brings fulfillment, wholeness, restoration and hope.  Luke is believed to have been a physician, and it is easy to see why.  His account of Jesus reflects a sort of bed-side manner that goes to the very heart of compassion care for all people.