Bible Text: Luke 2:22-40 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
Mary went to the Temple for her purification. God made it a law for the people of Israel that after a woman gave birth to a son, she was unclean for forty days. At the end of that forty days, she was supposed to come to the Temple and offer a lamb as a burnt offering and a dove as a sin offering. If she is poor and can’t afford a lamb, she could bring two doves or two pigeons. This seems a really burdensome thing for a woman. She’s just given birth, gone through all that pain and stress on her body, and now God adds this requirement, that she’s unclean for forty days. It also seems contradictory to say a woman is unclean after giving birth, when it’s God who commands and blesses childbirth – be fruitful and multiply, that’s the first thing God says when He creates man and woman. God always praises bearing children – Children are a blessing from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. He even says that women will be saved as they continue faithful in their callings in raising children. This is why here at this church and at our school we’re always stressing how much God loves marriage, loves family, loves children, because the Bible stresses this constantly. So it seems off, that God declares a woman unclean after giving birth.
But it’s not. First, God’s law here was merciful and kind. We today don’t keep the Levitical laws (those are the laws that were given to Israel and had to do with the Temple), we don’t keep them because we’re Christians and all those laws were fulfilled in our Lord Christ, who is our Temple, the true Temple. But these Levitical laws still teach us and we should obey them at least in Spirit.
So first, God wanted to give mothers a break after giving birth. That’s the point of this law. You see God doing this a lot. He commands us to work hard. If a man doesn’t work, neither shall he eat. Sloth, laziness, is one of the seven deadly sins. But God also gives us rest – remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. That means remember the Day of Rest. Of course we stress that this commandment tells us to hear God’s Word, go to church, devote time to God. But it also tells us to rest. Take a break. And in the ancient world, that law gave a break to everyone, slave, wife, husband, children. It was the first labor law, because God knows our frame, he knows that we are but dust (as the Psalm says), and he knows we need a break.
That’s especially true of a new mom. God declared her unclean for 40 days. And that meant she didn’t have to go anywhere, didn’t have to work, could simply rest and enjoy caring for her baby. It meant someone else did the cooking for her. It meant her body had time for healing and that her husband knew it.
You could compare it to a sick day – no one really wants to be around you because you’re sick and you’re not feeling good, but you get off from school or work and you get to sleep and other people fix the meals and feed you. So God’s law for a mother’s uncleanness was for her good, for her recovery, for her mental and bodily health, because He cares even about these things and he still does. So husbands especially should learn to pamper and care for their wives, and older children their mothers, after mom has a baby, make her meals, help clean the house, help with laundry, give her time to recover and enjoy time with the baby God gave her. This is also why we do the meal train for new moms, so the church can help mom relax after having a baby – this is all fulfilling the spirit of the law on purification.
But second, the law on purification was a visible, livable, palpable reminder of sin and the need for forgiveness. And it still teaches us this. When Eve first sinned, God told her, “I will greatly increase your pain in childbearing,” and that pain comes before and after the birth of the child. The pain and the need for recovery, these are reminders of sin and we should see them still as this today. Mothers and fathers are sinful and the babies we bring into the world are sinful. We are born not children of God but enemies of God and children of the devil. And God wants us His. That’s why He ordered after forty days of the birth of the firstborn son, to sacrifice a lamb. That lamb pointed to the Lamb of God, our Lord Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who did what we could not do, lived the perfect life, died our death, and conquered it, and so takes away the sin of the world, erases the curse on childbirth and on our children, and replaces it all with His blessing.
In the case of Mary, she was too poor to give a lamb. So God allowed her to give two doves instead. And this is very beautiful. Because it tells you that your Savior was poor and needy and He experienced all the pains and miseries of life, even when he was a little child, because He was living life in your place and so right now He can sympathize with you in all of your troubles. He knows them, He’s experienced them – God, your Maker, who orders all things in heaven and on earth, He know your sufferings because He’s gone through them – and He knows how best to deal with them, so bring them all to Him in prayer and leave them in His hands. Cast your cares on Him because He cares for you.
But there’s also this. Mary offers a dove, she doesn’t offer a lamb. Why? Because she’s offering Jesus in the Temple and He is the Lamb. The lamb would only be a reminder that the Lamb of God will come. But here now is the true Lamb of God. Here in His Temple, come to bear the sins of the world and be the offering that faces the fire of God’s wrath against sinners.
Jesus was the firstborn of Mary. The law God gave to His people Israel required them to bring their firstborn to be presented to God. The evil religions of that time sacrificed their firstborn, killed them in service to their gods, Baal and Molech and Cybele. This still happens today in abortion, where men sacrifice their babies to the god of money, because they can’t “afford” a baby. The god of money promises wealth and happiness, if you sacrifice your firstborn to him. Basic paganism. Alive and well today.
But the true God, our God, never required the sacrifice of firstborn sons. Instead he constantly reminded His people of the sacrifice that He would make, that He would send His Son, that His Son would suffer and die and rise again to bring life and purity and light to a world of death and ugliness and darkness. So God commanded His people to dedicate their firstborn son to Him, as a reminder, a beautiful reminder, that He would give His only begotten Son for them.
And here Mary presents her firstborn Son. And He is God’s Son. He is the fulfillment, the answer, to every presentation of every little boy in that Temple. Because here the virgin Mary presents God’s Son to his Father, and the Father finally receives His Son, the only One who will give His life for us. Because God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, loves us, and takes all our sin and pain and death and curse on Himself.
And Simeon sees it and he knows it. Think of how many babies he saw presented to God in that Temple, day after day after day, for years and years, how many little boys presented to God in that Temple, constant reminders that God would send His Son, that a price had to be paid to save these babies, save mankind, to save our families from the curse. And finally the one Child, the one Son is presented who is no reminder but the thing itself, God has fulfilled His Word. The curse is ended. That’s why Simeon says he can die in peace. His own eyes have seen God’s salvation.
And this is the great significance of the purification of Mary. It points to our purification. How do you become pure before God? Mary shows us. She was a sinner like us, under the same curse. And she came to that Temple, into the presence of God, and she presented Jesus to God. We bring nothing to God but Jesus. We lift Him up and say there is my righteousness. He purifies us, cleanses us from every sin, removes the curse that infests our lives, our marriages, our families, our children. He takes it all away and cleanses us from every stain. His birth was holy. Ours was not. So He gives us rebirth in Him, and gives us His name, and His righteousness, and His life, in our Baptism. That’s where we all were presented to God pure and holy, His children, belonging to Him, because we belong to Jesus.
So we come into God’s presence and we eat and drink of the sacrifice not of doves or of lambs, but of our Savior, who once and for all sacrificed Himself on the cross and rose again to present us before our God as the redeemed, the pure, saints, who live life now for God and will live it with Him forever, in Jesus’ name. Amen.