Sunday, February 2, 2025
Bethlehem Lutheran Church; Los Alamos, NM
(* The phrase “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” is one with which I grew up, given the Irish Catholic Heritage of my sainted Great Grandmother. It is not a curse. It is an “exclamation” much like Mon Dieu! In French or perhaps Dunnerweder! in PA Deutsch.)
NOTE: Greek and English Texts follow this Sermon.
Today is the Presentation of our Lord, also known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as Candlemas, also known as Grundsaudaag (in English, “Groundhog Day). What a happy liturgical coincidence of celebrations!
In the time of Jesus, all male children in a Jewish household were circumcised at eight days old. Then, according to Mosaic Law, the mother who had given birth to her son remained unclean for 40 days. After that, she was expected to bring to the Temple in Jerusalem a sacrifice (which according to the Storyteller Luke was (for poor people): two turtledoves or two pigeons) whereupon a priest would pray for her and she would be cleansed.
Note: if the child was female, the whole time would be doubled‽
Wondering if the Biblical rules might still apply, I checked with my colleague Rab. Neil Amswich of Temple Beth Shalom in Santa Fe1. In answer to my question, “Is the Rite of Purification ever done these days?” He replied that the Rite has not been done since the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.)
Please remember, we are talking here about the Story as related by the Gospel Storyteller Luke whose account of the life of Jesus appears sometime in the 8th or 9th Decade of the 1st Century — that is at least 10 – 20 years after the Roman-Jewish War, when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans, and some 50 – 60 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The Story we read is here to let us know that Jesus is truly authentic as a Jew, and subsequently authentic as the Promised One. Luke is saying: this Jesus does not just magically appear on the stage of History — rather Jesus of Nazareth is fully within the whole entire Story of God and God’s people.
Excursus
[Here is one of my famous excursus2 moments:
It was in my second year at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg3. Many of us chose to take the required Comprehensive Exams in what was called our “Middler Year” rather than in our “Senior Year.” These Comps as they are called were in five parts, given one per day in a selected week. Those not taking Comps were free to leave the campus and do such things as join the March on Washington which was then protesting the Vietnam War.
Day One was given to Systematic Theology. Day Two — Old Testament.
Day Three — New Testament/Koiné Greek.
Day Four — Liturgy and Worship.
Day Five — Inter-disciplinary, which meant anything the Faculty chose to ask.
Day Five loomed over us with all the dread of the Plague.
We took our seats in an upper room, a modestly lit classroom in the historic Milton J. Valentine Hall.4 “Modestly lit” described the anxiety of each Seminarian, wondering as we did if we should not have waited until our Senior Year.
The “blue books” were distributed, along with the Interdisciplinary Question:
“Jesus of Nazareth”
“Christ of Faith”
Write about this.
Period.
Most in the room opened their blue books and began to write furiously.
Since we were free to leave at any time, take a break, do research in the Library (yes, seriously!), spend the three-hours any way we wished — I chose to go outside and have a cigarette.5
That did not do much good, and so I wandered into the Library. The head librarian greeted me with, “Comps? Right?”
I nodded in agreement. He continued, “Interesting.” Then laughed and walked away.
No help there.
I walked along Seminary Ridge a bit [it goes right though the Campus, this Civil War road, filled with monuments of death and dying — it is called Seminary Ridge because of course the Seminary was upon it during the Battle; and in fact many of the buildings were used as not only observation points for the Union side, but as field hospitals for the wounded.
After a half-hour, I went back up to the classroom, took my seat, opened the blue book and wrote the following on the first page:
“Jesus of Nazareth is (underlined “is”) the Christ of Faith.”
I signed my name, stood up, walked to the front of the room where one of the Faculty Members was sitting as Proctor, and handed him the blue book.
He opened it, read my sentence, and quietly said, “Yes. You got it.”
I left the building and went for a very long walk.]
All of which is to say is that for followers of Jesus, we understand that the Jewish Jesus is the Lord of the Church. There it is, one sentence of profound faith and belief.
When we read the Gospels, we have so few accounts of the child Jesus. There are only a very few stories of his childhood and his youth. And we would like to know more. We want to know how he behaved, did he every talk back, was he a super child? Martin Luther in one of his Christmas Sermons talks about the baby in the manger with diapers! It’s easy for us to turn this Jesus of Nazareth into some sort of untouchable iconic other-divinely creature.
But that is not Jesus. He only appears in the Temple about seven times, and only twice as a child — and both of those are in the Second Chapter of Luke: once today (for his Presentation to God) and then when he was was twelve, during a Passover Journey with his parents.
There are other Gospels, if you want to read them, that do tell stories about Jesus’ youth and Mary and other things. They were written well beyond the 1st Century to try and “fill in the gaps.” Here’s the list:
Gospel of James
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew
Syriac Infancy Gospel
History of Joseph the Carpenter
Life of John the Baptist
While they are not part of the New Testament, they do make very interesting reading.6 For example, in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas [2nd Century CE] you read about the boy Jesus using his divine power to turn lumps of clay he has molded into birds, blowing the breath of life into them and letting them fly away. And you find out that when Jesus misbehaves, Joseph says to him, “Look, I know you’re the son of God and all that, but behave!”
Back to the Story.
Mary and Joseph enter the Temple to participate in the Purification Rite. Suddenly a man named Simeon pushes past the gathered crowd, goes over to Mary and Joseph, and takes the baby into his arms! Can you imagine‽ What was Mary thinking? Letting her child be held by a complete stranger‽ Well, the text says, Simeon was guided by the Spirit; that is, he was a holy man and he had been waiting for this child to appear.
He says words over the baby (in Hebrew of course). It is called a בְּרָכָה (Bar-ah-KAH) — a Blessing, a Benediction.
These words have come down to us in our Liturgy as the Nunc Dimittis (“now, let us depart”) which we sometimes sing after we receive the Holy Communion.
Here is how the esteemed Eugene Peterson (of blessed memory) translates the Greek of Luke’s Gospel7:
God, you can now release your servant:
release me in peace as you promised.
With my own eyes I’ve seen your salvation:
it’s now out in the open for everyone to see:
A God-revealing light to the non-Jewish nations,
and of glory for your people Israel.
In blessing the child, Simeon also blesses the parents. How do they feel? What do you think? How would you feel? Luke tells us: they were8 θαυμάζοντες [thou-MAH-zahn-tess] — the word means “amazed”.
Yes, of course, amazed. But I think also, what Mary and Joseph feel is contained in a common Yiddish word: נחת (nachas [NACH-chas]. Nachas means the “proud pleasure, the special joy which a parent has, especially from the achievements of a child.”)
[The following is for the people of Bethlehem whose children took part in the Candlemas, the Blessing of Candles this morning.]
So this morning, every parent here when your child took part in the Blessing of the Candles for this Candlemas — YOU have נחת (nachas)!]
I hope you can see the point which the Luke is trying to make: Jesus, the one whom we meet in the Story is for us the one with whom we can identify — the human Jesus, the baby — it is that Jesus we understand, we comprehend — whose humanity is so linked with our humanity that we cannot ever let each other go. (Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of Faith.)
The Jesus we follow (before he is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace, Son of God) is the one whom (with Simeon) we could hold in our arms!
Second Excursus (can be omitted)
[There is a book which I recommend to all of you. It is by Christopher Moore and is called Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. It was first given to me by my dear friend, cycling partner and closest confidant (Fletcher)9 in 2002.
I rushed through the pages of the story, it was for me a life-giving insight into the One Whom I Follow. I have passed it along to one of my friends where we live at La Secoya in Santa Fe. So taken was he by the book that he now chooses to go by the name “Biff” when we speak with one another.
Go out and buy for yourselves this wonderful work — and read it!]
BUT, this is not the end of the Story!
A woman appears. She is a Prophet. She is from the Jewish Tribe of Asher. Her name is Anna, and she is the daughter of Phanuel [fawn-oo-ale] which means “face of God” . She is, we are told, a widow. And, she is very, very, very old. Luke says she was 84 years a widow after her husband died. Many scholars suggest that she was well over 100 years old.
This very, very, very old woman has been hanging around the Temple just waiting for this moment. And here it is. She not only relishes in the delight of seeing the future hope of Israel, of her people, indeed of the world — she tells everyone she can meet about this Holy Child.
I think that is one very real way of understanding what it is when we say “I am a follower of Jesus.” We follow this one because we can understand his family. We can see them in the Temple, at home, raising this boy, letting him play with Biff and so on. 🙂
Yes, the child will grow up. Surely. He will grow and become the Promised One — who, contrary to all Pretenders of Authority — Promises to each and all of us not fearsome demands, but only the free gifts of God.
The Promised One, held as a child in his mother’s arms, adored by his father, blessed by Simeon and Anna will grow up to declare that Fear is outspoken by Hope, Violence is outdone by Peace, Abuse is destroyed by Compassion, Rejection is overcome by Acceptance, and Death is conquered by Life.
So incredibly different is the authority and power of this Child in the Temple from all who seek to control with such vicious and opposite demands; so wondrously does the Child of Bethlehem permeate our thoughts, our minds, our hearts, our souls and our bodies — that we lay aside all that is evil and turn ourselves instead toward endless love — endless love of God, endless love of neighbor.
This is the Good News for this Day.
And let us say: Amen.
2The meaning of EXCURSUS is an appendix or digression that contains further exposition of some point or topic. [Merriam-Webster]
3Now “United Lutheran Seminary” [https://www.unitedlutheranseminary.edu/] formed in 2017 [the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation]. Two historic Seminaries: Gettysburg founded in 1826 and Philadelphia founded in 1864 were joined together to become one school, two campuses.
4Valentine was Professor of Theology and Chairman of the Faculty in 1884, a particularly difficult time for “American Lutheranism” when the Philadelphia Seminary was founded, a split from Gettysburg.
[https://prabook.com/web/milton.valentine/1097700]
5It was 1970, many of us smoked.
6These and much more can be found in The Other Bible published by Barnstone.
7Eugene Peterson, The Message.
8 καὶ ἦν ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἡ μήτηρ θαυμάζοντες ἐπὶ τοῖς λαλουμένοις περὶ αὐτοῦ.
9Fletcher Catron.
Luke 2.22-40
22 Καὶ ὅτε ἐπλήσθησαν αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ αὐτῶν κατὰ τὸν νόμον Μωϋσέως, ἀνήγαγον αὐτὸν εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα παραστῆσαι τῷ κυρίῳ,23 καθὼς γέγραπται ἐν νόμῳ κυρίου ὅτι Πᾶν ἄρσεν διανοῖγον μήτραν ἅγιον τῷ κυρίῳ κληθήσεται,24 καὶ τοῦ δοῦναι θυσίαν κατὰ τὸ εἰρημένον ἐν τῷ νόμῳ κυρίου, ζεῦγος τρυγόνων ἢ δύο νοσσοὺς περιστερῶν.25 Καὶ ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπος ἦν ἐν Ἰερουσαλὴμ ᾧ ὄνομα Συμεών, καὶ ὁ ἄνθρωπος οὗτος δίκαιος καὶ εὐλαβής, προσδεχόμενος παράκλησιν τοῦ Ἰσραήλ, καὶ πνεῦμα ἦν ἅγιον ἐπ’ αὐτόν·26 καὶ ἦν αὐτῷ κεχρηματισμένον ὑπὸ τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ ἁγίου μὴ ἰδεῖν θάνατον πρὶν [ἢ] ἂν ἴδῃ τὸν Χριστὸν κυρίου.27 καὶ ἦλθεν ἐν τῷ πνεύματι εἰς τὸ ἱερόν· καὶ ἐν τῷ εἰσαγαγεῖν τοὺς γονεῖς τὸ παιδίον Ἰησοῦν τοῦ ποιῆσαι αὐτοὺς κατὰ τὸ εἰθισμένον τοῦ νόμου περὶ αὐτοῦ28 καὶ αὐτὸς ἐδέξατο αὐτὸ εἰς τὰς ἀγκάλας καὶ εὐλόγησεν τὸν θεὸν καὶ εἶπεν,29 Νῦν ἀπολύεις τὸν δοῦλόν σου, δέσποτα, κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμά σου ἐν εἰρήνῃ·30 ὅτι εἶδον οἱ ὀφθαλμοί μου τὸ σωτήριόν σου31 ὃ ἡτοίμασας κατὰ πρόσωπον πάντων τῶν λαῶν,32 φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν καὶ δόξαν λαοῦ σου Ἰσραήλ.33 καὶ ἦν ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἡ μήτηρ θαυμάζοντες ἐπὶ τοῖς λαλουμένοις περὶ αὐτοῦ.34 καὶ εὐλόγησεν αὐτοὺς Συμεὼν καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς Μαριὰμ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ, Ἰδοὺ οὗτος κεῖται εἰς πτῶσιν καὶ ἀνάστασιν πολλῶν ἐν τῷ Ἰσραὴλ καὶ εἰς σημεῖον ἀντιλεγόμενον35 {καὶ σοῦ [δὲ] αὐτῆς τὴν ψυχὴν διελεύσεται ῥομφαία}, ὅπως ἂν ἀποκαλυφθῶσιν ἐκ πολλῶν καρδιῶν διαλογισμοί.36 Καὶ ἦν Ἅννα προφῆτις, θυγάτηρ Φανουήλ, ἐκ φυλῆς Ἀσήρ· αὕτη προβεβηκυῖα ἐν ἡμέραις πολλαῖς, ζήσασα μετὰ ἀνδρὸς ἔτη ἑπτὰ ἀπὸ τῆς παρθενίας αὐτῆς,37 καὶ αὐτὴ χήρα ἕως ἐτῶν ὀγδοήκοντα τεσσάρων, ἣ οὐκ ἀφίστατο τοῦ ἱεροῦ νηστείαις καὶ δεήσεσιν λατρεύουσα νύκτα καὶ ἡμέραν.38 καὶ αὐτῇ τῇ ὥρᾳ ἐπιστᾶσα ἀνθωμολογεῖτο τῷ θεῷ καὶ ἐλάλει περὶ αὐτοῦ πᾶσιν τοῖς προσδεχομένοις λύτρωσιν Ἰερουσαλήμ.39 Καὶ ὡς ἐτέλεσαν πάντα τὰ κατὰ τὸν νόμον κυρίου, ἐπέστρεψαν εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν εἰς πόλιν ἑαυτῶν Ναζαρέθ.40 Τὸ δὲ παιδίον ηὔξανεν καὶ ἐκραταιοῦτο πληρούμενον σοφίᾳ, καὶ 29 Νῦν ἀπολύεις τὸν δοῦλόν σου, δέσποτα, κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμά σου ἐν εἰρήνῃ·30 ὅτι εἶδον οἱ ὀφθαλμοί μου τὸ σωτήριόν σου31 ὃ ἡτοίμασας κατὰ πρόσωπον πάντων τῶν λαῶν,32 φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν καὶ δόξαν λαοῦ σου Ἰσραήλ.χάρις θεοῦ ἦν ἐπ’ αὐτό.
22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23(as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), 24and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 ‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.’
33 And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’
36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, 37then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.
Nota(ble) Be(n)e 