Luke 2:22-38--Jesus Presented at the Temple

Luke 2:22-38
English Standard Version

Jesus Presented at the Temple
22 And 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 male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, 28 he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
    according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation
31     that 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 his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

​36 And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, 37 and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

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Separate from His circumcision on the eighth day, the Law also required a sacrifice for purification for Mary and since Jesus was the firstborn of His mother a sacrifice of redemption would need to be made on His behalf, since the lives of all the firstborn belonged to the LORD due to His saving Israel's firstborn during the Passover.  (See Leviticus 12, Exodus 13:1-2 and 13:13-16, and Numbers 18:15-16).  There was a sacrifice to be made for Mary's purification, which we see from the sacrifice they made that they were poor and unable to provide the "regular" sacrifice, and a price of five shekels of silver to be paid to redeem the life of her firstborn son.  All this was done according to the Law.

Luke gives quotes without reference to where they come from because his audience that he was writing to was probably Gentile and most likely didn't have any familiarity with the Law, so Luke is finding it necessary at some points to stop and explain why some things are happening and why they are important to the readers who weren't Jewish and wouldn't understand things about being unclean and needing a sacrifice of purification (all of this points to the ministry of Jesus) or the need for redemption of the firstborn, which points back to the Passover.

Now, we've spent most of the first two chapters with the impression that no one was ready or prepared for the coming of the Messiah.  There were so many prophecies and some very specific ones in the Old Testament (specifically in the book of Daniel) that pointed out when Messiah would come and be "cut off" (His crucifixion).  We have seen at least one angelic messenger tell Zachariah the priest, Mary the mother of Jesus, and the shepherds about the coming of Jesus, and Joseph described an angel coming to him in a dream to tell him to take Mary to be his wife because the child within her was conceived of the Holy Spirit, though it doesn't seem like Joseph got nearly as many details as the others.  Now we see the Holy Spirit speaking to Simeon and telling him that he will see the LORD's Christ before his appointed death.  Many assume this to mean that Simeon is an old man, but we have no idea if that is the case or not, just simply that Simeon had this on his "bucket list" as the LORD granted his request.  Let's take a look at what Simeon has to say about Jesus (through the Holy Spirit of course).

​ 29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
    according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation
31     that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
    and for glory to your people Israel.”

This is at least the third time that Luke has connected the ideas of Jesus being both Light and Salvation and that this Light and Salvation are for the Gentiles (the nations).  This is important to Luke's readers as mentioned before as they were a mostly Gentile audience so Luke is making sure they know from the beginning that this gospel, this "good news" is for them for it would be "Good news of great joy that shall be for all peoples" as we saw the angel declare to the shepherds.  Imagine being Mary and Joseph and being at the Temple to perform these ritual sacrifices and to pay the price of redemption and to have some stranger come up to you and take your baby to bless Him and how strange a blessing this must seem (I'm going to start speaking of Joseph as if he's Jesus' legal guardian and a "parent" now as it as if he has adopted Jesus into his family and assumed the responsibility of custody and care for Him.  If I ever refer to Mary and Joseph as mother and father, I mean only their parental roles and not that I believe that Jesus was the biological offspring of Joseph because we know He was not.  When I speak of God the Father, it will be capitalized, as it is in the Bible, to help avoid any such confusion.  The text will rarely refer to Joseph, but when it does make mention of him, I will probably stop and say something about it because it's we only have a few indicators as to his nature and character and the influence he had on raising Jesus).

The reason I added the note above, is that Luke says "father and mother" referring to Joseph and Mary here and I didn't want there to be any confusion.  Both Joseph and Mary marveled at the words that Simeon said.  They had heard the words for themselves from the angel Gabriel, and they heard it again from the word that the shepherds shared, and Mary probably heard Zachariah's song before she left to return to Nazareth, but now they are hearing directly from one that it probably is fair to call a prophet of the LORD, but they didn't get to stop wondering about this blessing before Simeon blessed them, though the blessing he speaks over Mary may not sound like much of a blessing.

​“Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

If they were confused by the first blessing given to the Child, then what in the world does this mean?  First Simeon says that the Child's purpose will be to bring God's revelation and salvation to all the nations, and now you say that He's going to be appointed for the rise and fall of many in Israel (and the rest of the world) and that He is going to face great opposition?  How is that a blessing?  There is what seems to be an aside here spoken directly to Mary that we see expressed parenthetically here, as Joseph would have been dead at the time of Jesus' crucifixion, this part has to be meant specifically for Mary, and the text does tell us that Simeon was speaking directly to her.  She would see His side pierced while He was on the cross and it would feel as if they were piercing her with the sword when she had to watch it.  Jesus would forever be a person in history that people must choose how to respond to Him--would they believe in His words and His sacrifice and be submissive to His authority or would they rebel against His authority and hate Him?  His life and ministry would reveal the hearts of all people by their responses--which people belonged to Father God and which belonged to the father of lies, the devil.  There is a "debate" of sorts about this very thing in the gospel of John 8 where the Jews claimed to have God as Father, yet they hated God the Son and John makes clear to us that everyone who loves the Father loves the Son, but if they hate the Son, the love of the Father is not in them.

This must have been most strange to Mary and Joseph, but the LORD isn't done yet.  As they were walking away from this encounter with Simeon they encounter the prophetess Anna--now, she is described as being advanced in years and we some idea of exactly how old she was as we are told that she is about 84 years old and has spent most of her adult years as a widow, since she was only married for seven years, and the text seems to indicate that she was married when she was very young (probably married around the same time that Mary was married to Joseph).  Anna has spent her years of solitude as a time to focus on the LORD and spent all of her time, night and day, fasting and praying and worshiping the LORD, and I would imagine eagerly awaiting the coming of Messiah, though the text doesn't specifically say so.  It does not seem that she came up to Mary and Joseph to say anything to them, but the Holy Spirit gives her words to say to everyone else to tell them that they were to give thanks to the Lord for their redemption was near.  The one who would bring about the redemption of Jerusalem (which represented both the government and the religious system) had come.  Jesus was going to save and redeem the people, but He was also going to reveal the corruption in the religious and civil authorities by the message that He spoke and they would be none too pleased with Him.  The Holy Spirit wanted everyone who was in the Temple that day though to know that they should open their eyes and lift up their heads for their redemption was near, and He, the Holy Spirt, wanted to give a bit of special revelation to Mary and Joseph by way of Simeon to remind them that they should not cling to tightly to Jesus because He had a mission to fulfill and part of that mission was that He would come to die in order that the world might have access to the redemption and salvation that He provides.  Yet, not everyone would love Him, and they would have to be ready that these attacks would tear at their own hearts, yet it was all part of God's perfect plan for His Son.