All through these readings we must have been thinking of the rough simplicity of the birth of the Son of God. We might have expected that, if he had to be born into this world at all, it would be in a palace or a mansion. There was a European monarch who worried his court by often disappearing and walking incognito among his people. When he was asked not to do so for security’s sake, he answered, ‘I cannot rule my people unless I know how they live.’ It is the great thought of the Christian faith that we have a God who knows the life we live because he too lived it and claimed no special advantage over ordinary people.
THE ANCIENT CEREMONIES ARE OBSERVED
Luke 2:21–4
When the eight days necessarily prior to circumcision had elapsed, he was called by the name of Jesus, the name by which he had been called by the angel before he had been conceived in the womb. When the time which, according to the law of Moses, must precede the ceremony of purification had elapsed, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (in accordance with the regulation in the Lord’s law, ‘Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord’) and to make the sacrifice which the regulation in the Lord’s law lays down, that is, a pair of doves or two young pigeons.
IN this passage we see Jesus undergoing three ancient ceremonies which every Jewish boy had to undergo.
(1) Circumcision. Every Jewish boy was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. So sacred was that ceremony that it could be carried out even on a Sabbath when the law forbade almost every other act which was not absolutely essential; and on that day a boy received his name.
(2) The Redemption of the First-born. According to the law (Exodus 13:2) every first-born male, both of human beings and of cattle, was sacred to God. That law may have been a recognition of the gracious power of God in giving human life, or it may even have been a relic of the day when children were sacrificed to the gods. Clearly if it had been carried out literally, life would have been disrupted. There was therefore a ceremony called the Redemption of the First-born (Numbers 18:16). It is laid down that for the sum of five shekels – almost a month’s pay – parents could, as it were, buy back their son from God. The sum had to be paid to the priests. It could not be paid sooner than thirty-one days after the birth of the child and it might not be long delayed after that.
(3) The Purification after Childbirth. When a woman had borne a child, if it was a boy, she was unclean for forty days, if it was a girl, for eighty days. She could go about her household and her daily business but she could not enter the Temple or share in any religious ceremony (Leviticus 12). At the end of that time she had to bring to the Temple a lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon for a sin offering. That was a somewhat expensive sacrifice, and so the law laid it down (Leviticus 12:8) that if she could not afford the lamb she might bring another pigeon. The offering of the two pigeons instead of the lamb and the pigeon was technically called the Offering of the Poor. It was the offering of the poor which Mary brought. Again we see that it was into an ordinary home that Jesus was born, a home where there were no luxuries, a home where the cost of everything had to be considered carefully, a home where the members of the family knew all about the difficulties of making a living and the haunting insecurity of life. When life is worrying for us we must remember that Jesus knew what the difficulties of making ends meet can be.
These three ceremonies are strange old ceremonies; but all three have at the back of them the conviction that a child is a gift of God. The Stoics used to say that a child was not given to a parent but only lent. Of all God’s gifts there is none for which we shall be so answerable as the gift of a child.
A DREAM REALIZED
Luke 2:25–35
Now – look you – there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon. This man was good and pious. He was waiting for the comforting of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him. He had received a message from the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Anointed One. So he came in the Spirit to the Temple precincts. When his parents brought in the child Jesus, to do regarding him the customary ceremonies laid down by the law, he took him into his arms and blessed God and said, ‘Now O Lord, as you said, let your servant depart in peace, because my eyes have seen your instrument of salvation, which you have prepared before all the people, a light to bring your revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.’ His father and mother were amazed at what was said about him. Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Look you, this child is appointed to be the cause whereby many in Israel will fall and many rise and for a sign which will meet with much opposition. As for you – a sword will pierce your soul – and all this will happen that the inner thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.’
THE Jews regarded their own nation as the chosen people, but they saw quite clearly that by human means their nation could never attain to the supreme world greatness which they believed their destiny involved. By far the greater number of them believed that because the Jews were the chosen people they were bound some day to become masters of the world and lords of all the nations. To bring in that day some believed that some great, celestial champion would descend upon the earth; some believed that there would arise another king of David’s line and that all the old glories would revive; some believed that God himself would break directly into history by supernatural means. But in contrast to all that, there were a few people who were known as the Quiet in the Land. They had no dreams of violence and of power and of armies with banners; they believed in a life of constant prayer and quiet watchfulness until God should come. All their lives they waited quietly and patiently upon God. Simeon was like that; in prayer, in worship, in humble and faithful expectation he was waiting for the day when God would comfort his people. God had promised him through the Holy Spirit that his life would not end before he had seen God’s own anointed king. In the baby Jesus he recognized that king and was glad. Now he was ready to depart in peace and his words have become the Nunc Dimittis, another of the great and precious hymns of the Church.
In verse 34 Simeon gives a kind of summary of the work and fate of Jesus.
(1) He will be the cause whereby many will fall. This is a strange and a hard saying but it is true. It is not so much God who judges us; we judge ourselves; and our judgment is our reaction to Jesus Christ. If, when we are confronted with that goodness and that loveliness, our heart runs out in answering love, we are within the kingdom. If, when so confronted, we remain coldly unmoved or actively hostile, we are condemned. There is a great refusal just as there is a great acceptance.
(2) He will be the cause whereby many will rise. Long ago Seneca said that what people needed above all was a hand let down to lift them up. It is the hand of Jesus which lifts us out of the old life and into the new, out of the sin into the goodness, out of the shame into the glory.
(3) He will meet with much opposition. Towards Jesus Christ there can be no neutrality. We either surrender to him or are at war with him. And it is the tragedy of life that our pride often keeps us from making that surrender which leads to victory.
A LOVELY OLD AGE
Luke 2:36–40
There was a prophetess called Anna. She was the daughter of Phanuel and she belonged to the tribe of Asher. She was far advanced in years. She had lived with her husband ever since seven years after she came to womanhood; and now she was a widow of eighty-four years of age. She never left the Temple and day and night she worshipped with fastings and with prayers. At that very time she came up and she began to give thanks to God and she kept speaking about him to all those who were waiting expectantly for the deliverance of