Where should we look to see God's salvation?
1 Christmas B
Luke 2:22-40
1 Christmas B: Exegetical Notes on Luke 2:22-40
THE JEWISHNESS OF JESUS
Luke has an emphasis on the Jewishness of Jesus and his family. Five
times in our text we are told that they observed the Law (vv. 22, 23,
24, 27, 39). Just before our text, Jesus has been circumcised.
Following our text, we are told that Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem
for the festival of the Passover—that it was their “habit” (“as usual”
in NRSV, but literal Greek, “according to their custom or habit, or
perhaps “ethics” or “ethos” from the Greek ἔθος (ethos) in 2:42). In
the larger context, Luke 2:22-52 may be called: “Two Stories of Jesus
in the Temple.” Our text is the first of these stories.
As Jesus’ life begins with fulfilling the Law and coming to the temple
in Jerusalem, so the Gospel ends with similar themes. Jesus’ last
speech begins with: “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was
still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses,
the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled” (24:44). The last two
verses of this writing state about the disciples: “They worshiped him,
and returning to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in
the temple blessing God.”
Why this emphasis on Jesus’ Jewishness—especially if Luke was written
to a Roman (Gentile) official, “most excellent Theophilus” (1:3)?
Perhaps there was some prejudice by these Gentiles believers against
Jewish believers. We know that Jewish Christians had concerns about
Gentiles converts.
There may be congregations where it might be important to remind the
people that Jesus was Jewish. He grew up in a devout Jewish family.
From the eighth day onward, he was taught to obey the Law of Moses. One
might also consider the importance of parents in helping to develop the
faith and religious practices of their children. God had chosen Jesus’
parents well.
THE IMPORTANCE OF RITUALS
R. Alan Culpepper (Luke,The New Interpreter’s Bible) reflects on the
importance of rituals. He writes:
... The observance of religious requirements and rituals has fallen on
hard times. Essential to Judaism is the praise of God in all of life.
The Jewish law taught that God was to be honored in one’s rising up and
lying down, in going out and coming in, in how one dressed and what one
ate. . . .
The pressures of secularism and modern life have again reduced the
significance of ritual observances in the lives of most Christians.
Busy schedules, dual-career marriages, and after-school activities mean
that families eat fewer meals together. Prayer before meals and family
Bible study are observed in fewer homes today than just a generation
ago. For many, religious rituals are reduced to church attendance at
Christmas and Easter and to socially required ceremonies at births,
weddings, and funerals. The marking of both daily and special events
with rituals that recognize the sacredness of life and the presence of
God in the everyday is practically extinct. In the minds of many it is
associated either with superstitions and cultic practices of the past
or the peculiar excesses of religious fanatics. The result has been
that God has receded from the awareness and experience of everyday
life. Many assume that God is found only in certain places, in sacred
buildings, in holy books, or in observances led by holy persons. Their
lives, on the other hand, move in a secular realm devoid of the
presence of the holy. Daily experiences are reduced and impoverished.
They have no meaning beyond themselves, no opening to transcendence.
Little room for mystery remains in the everyday as it becomes
increasingly subject to secularism and technology. What have we lost by
removing ritual observances from our daily experience? [p. 74]
He then gives this challenge:
The challenge to modern Christians, therefore, is to find effective
rituals for celebrating the presence of God in the ordinary. We need to
learn to greet the morning with gratitude; to celebrate the goodness of
food, family, and friendship at meals; to recognize mystery in beauty;
and to mark rites of passage—like a sixteenth birthday and the freedom
and responsibility that come with a driver’s license. Rituals are not
restrictive; they celebrate the goodness and mystery of life. [pp. 74-5]
Along this line, I have used Luther’s meaning to the first article of
the creed, to remind us of God’s involvement in our everyday lives:
I believe that God has created me together with all that exists.
God has given me and still preserves my body and soul:
eyes, ears, and all limbs and senses;
reason and all mental faculties.
In addition, God daily and abundantly provides
shoes and clothing,
food and drink,
house and farm,
spouse and children,
fields, livestock, and all property –
along with all the necessities and nourishment
for this body and life.
God protects me against all danger
and shields and preserves me from all evil.
And all of this is done
out of pure, fatherly, and divine goodness and
mercy,
without any merit or worthiness of mine at all!
For all of this I owe it to God
to thank and praise, serve and obey him.
This is most certainly true. [The Book of Concord, Kolb & Wengert,
“The Small Catechism,” pp. 354-5]
TWO PURIFICATIONS
Note that v. 22 states that it was time for their purification
according to the law of Moses.
The quote in v. 24 is from Lev. 12:8, which refers to the purification
of a new mother (40 days at the birth of a male; 80 days at the birth
of a female). The usual sacrifice when the days of purification were
completed was a “lamb in its first year for a burnt offering, and a
pigeon or a turtle dove for a sin offering” (Lev 12:6). However, if the
mother cannot afford a sheep, then two turtledoves or two pigeons could
be offered (12:8). The fact that this is the quoted verse indicates
that Mary was probably too poor to bring a lamb.
The quote in v. 23 is from Exodus 13:2, 12, 15; which refers to the
dedication of the first born to God.
Luke seems to be combining two events in this temple visit.
SOME APPLICATIONS FROM THE PRESENTATION
Occasionally I’ve heard parents offer to give away their children.
Sometimes there are those days when parents would even pay someone to
take away their children. The presentation of Jesus (as well as baptism
for all people) is a giving away of children to God. They no longer
simply belong to their parents, but they belong to God. Even though (in
Luke) Mary and Joseph are aware of Jesus’ unique birth and the angelic
promise that he will called holy and the Son of God (1:35); they still
go through the prescribed ritual for a first-born son.
This “giving away” of children in baptism implies that the parents are
not just raising their own child, but a child of God, and that God will
help in this scary process of child-rearing.
When I first wrote these notes in 1996, I had baptized a 19-year-old
that same day. As he drove home, he was almost hit by a semi as his
mother watched from her car. Amidst her terror, she also thought, “At
least he is baptized.” I’m certain she has found further comfort in
that thought as he left home later that month for the Navy. He had been
presented to and given to God. (That mother was recently ordained
through the ELCA’s TEEM program.)
Related to the difficulties of raising children, I’ve had a number of
grandparents state: “I’m glad that my children are all raised.” While
turning one’s children over to God could be a “cop-out” on taking
proper parental responsibility; it can also lead to the realization
that who a child grows up to be is not totally the responsibility of
the parents. We have to trust that God’s hand is involved—often in ways
that we can’t fully comprehend.
There can also be comfort in knowing that we have been presented to and
accepted by God. The world in which we adults live is not always kind
or easy, but we are assured that we belong to God. As Luther is
reported to have said (or shouted) when he felt tempted by the devil,
“I am baptized.” While I can only guess what he might have meant by the
phrase, I would think that part of it is the understanding, “I belong
to God.” “God claims me as his child.” I find it interesting that he
didn’t battle Satan with “I believe” or “I have faith” or “I am a
Christian.” His comfort in uncomfortable times was the fact that he had
been presented to God and had been graced by God in baptism.
SIMEON AND ANNA
These two devout Jewish characters are portraits of the Israel that
accepted Jesus.
Simeon is male. Anna is female. Luke often uses such parallels, e.g.,
an angel’s announcement to Zechariah and an angel’s announcement to
Mary.
Simeon is at the temple because of the leading of the Holy Spirit. Anna
is there because she is naturally always there.
Their immediate response at seeing Jesus is to bless/praise God. Simeon
also blesses the parents—perhaps as a spirit-filled prophet.
SIMEON’S SONG
The NRSV correctly captures the tense of the first verb, “... you are
dismissing”. It is a present indicative, not an imperative, e.g., “let
your servant depart”. This verse goes back to the revelation by the
Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s
Messiah. He has been “released” from that promise—or, in other words,
he is ready to die in peace. God has fulfilled his word to him. A theme
from this canticle is that God keeps promises.
One of the fascinating things I find about Simeon’s song is the reason
why he can now die in peace: “For my eyes have seen your salvation.”
From all indications, what his eyes have seen was the infant Jesus
being carried into the temple by a poor, pious family who had recently
walked about 60 miles from Nazareth to Jerusalem. In a similar way,
Anna sees the same thing and begins talking about the “redemption of
Jerusalem.”
A popular proverb in our culture is, “Seeing is believing.” That adage
doesn’t apply to Simeon and Anna. The opposite seems to have been true:
“They believed, so they were able to see more than the obvious.” In
this infant, they see salvation and redemption.
I find the liturgical uses of Simeon’s song interesting. It is the
Gospel Canticle for Compline—the “going to bed” liturgy. What have eyes
seen before going to bed? It’s usually the common ordinary stuff of
every-day life: dirty dishes, filthy clothes, dusty furniture, piles of
paper work, and so on. Is God’s salvation to be seen in such common,
ordinary things?
It is an option for the post-communion canticle in Lutheran Book of
Worship, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, andLutheran Service Book. (In
the older Lutheran liturgies, it was the only option.) What have our
eyes seen prior to this song in these liturgies? What have eyes seen in
the sacrament? There’s a small piece of bread and a sip of wine and
those people communing around us. Is God’s salvation to be seen in such
common ordinary things?
God is present in an infant, in bread and wine, in each other, and in
the events of the day. Where God is present, there is salvation for
those with the faith to see more than just the obvious.
Perhaps as a contrast, the same word for “see” is used in 2:48: “When
his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him,
“Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have
been searching for you in great anxiety.”
If “seeing” Jesus is “seeing” God’s salvation for all people, then we
may want to make more of Jesus’ response to his anxious parents: “Why
were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my
Father’s house?” (2:49)
Can we still claim that the church—God’s house—is the place to “see”
Jesus and, by faith, to “see” God’s salvation?
Unfortunately, not all Sunday services will be like Christmas or Easter
celebrations; but Jesus is present with God’s salvation even on those
Sundays after Christmas and after Easter—even if many of our members
aren’t present.
I also find it interesting that Simeon doesn’t sing and praise God
because “I am saved,” but for the salvation of all people—both Jews and
Gentiles.
A similar thought is expressed in John the B’s preaching—the only other
use of this particular word for salvation (σωτήριον - sōtērion) in
Luke: “and all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (3:6).
Luke stresses the universal aspect of salvation. It is for all
people—and for that we should rejoice. When Simeon and Anna see Jesus,
their only response is to sing and worship, to thank God and share the
news with others.
In Why Christian?, by Douglas John Hall, he reminds us:
The object of God’s love, according to biblical faith, is not first of
all the church; it is the world: “God so loved the cosmos ... (John
3:16; not accidentally, I think, that is the single best known verse of
the newer Testament). The church is only a means to the end, not the
end as such. The end—the goal that this faith envisages—is the
“salvation” of the world (using “salvation” in the way we spoke of it
earlier, that is, god wants to make the world whole, to fulfill its
promise, to “mend” its torn and tattered life.) ...
... For now, I only want to point out that the mission of the church is
of central importance to Christian faith, so much so that it
constitutes the most basic reason why the church must exist. Of course
the church needs to have periods of retreat from the world, to recover
its own identity through study and prayer, to renew its courage, and so
on. But precisely in these times of renewal, the church learns once
more that it does not exist for its own sake. A church that hived off
to itself and was content to be a comfortable “fellowship” would
contradict in the most flagrant way the whole message of the New
Testament. [p. 139]
SIMEON’S BLESSING
Simeon also blesses the parents and speaks to Mary. Perhaps in contrast
the universal salvation, he talks about the “falling and rising of many
in Israel.” Not everyone will respond positively to God’s salvation in
Jesus. At the time of Luke, there certainly was a division within
Israel about Jesus. Even among those who believe in him, there were
some who did not rejoice that he was the salvation which God had
prepared for all people.
Perhaps the description of Jesus “growing” (2:40) and “increasing”
(2:52) might encourage us to keep growing and increasing in our wisdom
and in divine and human favor. Having been presented to God (as Jesus
was and as we are in baptism) is just the beginning of our life of
faith.
Brian Stoffregen
Faith Lutheran Church, 2215 S 8th Avenue, Yuma, AZ 85364
e-mail: brian.stoffregen@gmail.com