Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Daily Gospel Exegesis podcast. Our goal here is to help you understand

the text of scripture a bit better. We want to help you understand the literal

sense of scripture. What did it mean in its original context? So the reading you would hear at

today's mass is Luke chapter 3 verses 1 to 6. So here's the text. In the 15th year of Tiberius

Caesar's reign when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,

Herod, Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip, tetrarch of the lands of Iterraea and Trachonitis,

Lysanius, tetrach of Abilene, during the pontificate of Annas and Caiaphas.

The word of God came to John, son of Zechariah,

in the wilderness. He went through the whole Jordan district proclaiming a baptism of repentance

for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the sayings of the prophet Isaiah.

A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight,

every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill will be laid low,

winding ways will be straightened and rough roads made smooth,

and all mankind shall see the salvation of God.

So that's our reading for today. It's a really interesting one. Luke here is giving us some

historical information to set the scene for John the Baptist's ministry. So let's start with the

context. We're at the start of Luke chapter 3 here. We've

already had Jesus' birth. In fact, we've had John the Baptist birth as well in Luke chapter 1 and 2.

And then we saw an incident involving Jesus at 12 years old. So that was the last time we saw

Jesus. So now we get to the time of Jesus' own ministry when he's an adult. About 30 years of past

since he was born. In fact, Luke chapter 3 verse 23 actually says Jesus was about 30 years of age

when he began his ministry. That's actually in the New Testament. So Jesus is around 30 years

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