Ep. 4: Early days

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LUKE 2:21-38

Mary seems an enigma, but is she? Her role as a mother is a timeless one, but not all mothers are called to nurture Mankind’s Messiah! Strange that she should have pondered in her heart the shepherds’ account; stranger, that afterwards, she should have wondered at his lingering in the Temple among Israel’s teachers; strangest of all that, at the very first of his miracles (at Cana), she seemed so detached from the action. There is a peculiar dynamic here. Jesus could not, in any true sense, have been subject to his parents, once they had fully understood his Divine mission.

He was still his mother’s child as he grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man (Luke 2:52). The mystery of the Incarnation would have been needless and fruitless had his humanity not been subject to all its right and ordinary conditions. And also we can understand why the mystery of his Divinity had to be kept from everyone until the time was right. Had it been otherwise, the thought of his Divinity would have so dominated, as to deflect from the lessons learned about his Humanity, while he was growing up. God was truly running this show.

As a Jewish woman and mother, she had to fulfil all the requirements of the Law, for both herself and her child. The first of these was circumcision, representing the covenant between God and Abraham and his seed. The ceremony took place on the eighth day when the child received the name Yeshua (Jesus). Also, the firstborn son of every household was to be ‘redeemed’ of the priest at the price of five shekels. The earliest time for this was thirty-one days after birth, neither father nor mother must be of the tribe of Levi and the child must be free from all such bodily blemishes as would have disqualified him for the priesthood.

It was a thing much dreaded, that the child should die before his redemption. Mothers who were within convenient distance of the Temple would naturally attend personally in the Temple and in such cases, when practicable, the redemption of the firstborn and the purification of his mother would be combined. Such was undoubtedly the case here, as they were still in the vicinity.

In the Temple, Jesus was formally presented to the priest, accompanied by two short ‘benedictions’ and money changed hands. The sin offering was, in all cases, a turtle-dove or a young pigeon, followed by a burnt offering of the same, rather than the lamb that they would have presented if they hadn’t been so poor. While at the Temple they had an encounter with Simeon, said by legend to be the son of the great Hillel and the father of Gamaliel. Here was a man who combined the three characteristics of Old Testament piety, justice, fear of Godand, above all, longing expectancy for the Messiah, ‘the Consolation of Israel.’

The other encounter was with the widow Anna (Channah), of the tribe of Asher, a tribe with a tradition of beautiful marriageable women. She may have been fair to view but she was also a woman of virtue, one given to prayer and fasting, but not of the self-righteous, self-satisfied kind which was prevalent. For her the synagogue was not enough, the Temple was the focus of her devotion. Her earnest longing for the time of promised ‘redemption.’

This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)