Jesus Presented for Our Purification

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. In the name of Jesus. What a name for a feast.

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The feast of the purification of Mary and the presentation of our Lord. That's a mouthful.

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There's a lot going on in our gospel text today. And I think we're going to have to unpack it. And we'll use our other text to help us rightly understand what is going on here.

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But in the gospel of Luke chapter 2, starting at verse 22, it says this. When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought

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Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord. You'll notice there's a lot of pronouns going on here.

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We have to pay attention to who's who, doing what what in this text. So they, having to be purified, it's going to be

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Mary and Joseph. Mary being the wife of Joseph.

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It is required of her, having given birth to a son, to actually purify herself.

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And since married couples are a package, they go together, Mary and Joseph are required to present themselves for purification at the temple.

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Now, a little bit of a note here. In fact, let's knock this down early in our text today. This is required according to Leviticus chapter 12.

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And the details are kind of fascinating. Also gives us some good theology here as well. Here's what it says in Leviticus chapter 12 regarding what's required here.

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So Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean for seven days, as at the time of her menstruation she shall be unclean.

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And on the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then she shall continue for 33 days in the blood of her purifying.

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She shall not touch anything holy nor come into the sanctuary until the days of her purifying are complete.

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But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean for two weeks as in her menstruation.

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And then she shall continue in the blood of her purifying for 66 days. Now, a little bit of a note here.

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If we do the math, then the reason why we're celebrating this today is because the time of purification after giving birth to a male child for a woman is exactly 40 days.

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So if you want to get an idea of how long ago Christmas was, it was 40 days ago.

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That's kind of the idea. And somebody asked me yesterday, how come the purification time for a male child is shorter than the purification time for a female child?

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40 days for the male, 66 days for the female. The answer is

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I don't know. But I gave a really unsatisfactory answer. I said, well, maybe it's because women are more complicated.

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Very unsatisfactory answer. So the answer to the question as to why is not stated in the text.

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So I think it's best if I just keep my mouth shut and not say stupid things like that anymore. Anyway, the text then continues.

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So when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting, which is now the temple, a lamb a year old for a burnt offering and a pigeon or a turtle dove for a sin offering.

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Now note here, the law, the Torah, Leviticus 12 requires a sin offering.

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Now, I don't want to quibble with the Roman Catholic Church, but their claims regarding Mary's sinlessness and all that kind of stuff seem to fly in the face of what was required of her.

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And you'll note that without any, well, on her part, defiance, saying

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I don't need to do this, she actually presented a sin offering at the time of her purification, which would make

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Mary in the same category as all of us, sinner in need of a savior.

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And it just so happened she gave birth to her savior, which makes her quite blessed. But we'll note that she offered a sin offering here.

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And then the priest shall offer it to the Lord and make atonement for her.

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And then she shall be cleaned from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female.

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And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtle doves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering, the other for a sin offering, and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.

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We're all paying attention in our gospel text as to which sacrifice was offered by Mary and Joseph for Mary's purification.

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They couldn't afford a lamb. They could not afford the lamb.

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And so two turtle doves, two pigeons. I don't think pigeons are worth much anyway, but that's just me.

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But you'll note that was what was offered here. And so this tells us a lot about what

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Christ has done for us. And we note that in Philippians chapter 2, it says that Christ emptied himself and was found in the form of a servant, a slave.

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And so King of kings, Lord of lords, highest throne in all of the universe, in all of heaven and earth,

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Jesus Christ. And he leaves it all. And he's chosen to be born to a couple who in our day and age, if they were living and alive, they would be shopping at the dollar store.

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A feast would be top ramen and mac and cheese. And on a special occasion when you can afford it, throw some hot dogs in that mac and cheese, and now we're having a feast here, right?

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That's what we're talking about. That's how poor they are. And this tells us a lot about what's going on. Now note that the sacrifices that Mary offered, the two turtle doves or pigeons, that that offering was for a sin offering, for atonement for her, for her to be purified.

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But the book of Hebrews is clear. The blood of animals cannot and did not ever forgive sins.

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All of those were type and shadow. And so the one who really would purify her of her sins, truly make atonement for her, was the very infant that she was carrying in her arms.

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And it's a beautiful, beautiful picture. And so we'll continue then and consider the aspect as it relates to Christ.

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Because the next part, again, the conjunction and purification of Mary and the presentation of our

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Lord, the and makes us have to focus now on Christ and what's going on there and why is he required to be presented and for what reason?

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Well, as it says then in verse 23, as it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the

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Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.

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Now note what we're talking about here is found in Exodus chapter 13.

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According to the Torah, every firstborn male who opens the womb, every firstborn has to be redeemed.

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Why? Well, there's a context. And this context is fascinating. This is in the context of the

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Exodus, in the context of the great showdown between the true

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God Yahweh and the false God King Pharaoh. Egypt is a stand in for the dominion of darkness and the types and shadows in that story.

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And Satan himself is depicted in Pharaoh, who was defying the express commands of the living

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God. And you'll remember as the story goes, in fact, I'm intending to preach on the 10 plagues during Lent.

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Not that Lent is a plague. It's just that I think this would be a fascinating thing to preach on during the Lenten season. But note here that the final plague, the very last plague, is the plague that is going to apply to everybody, regardless of whether you are

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Jew or Egyptian. And the only way out is to have a substitute.

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So if you remember that last 10th plague, the killing of the firstborn of man and beast, that the destroyer was going to go into all of Egypt and kill the firstborn of humans, of animals, everything.

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The firstborn was going to die, unless there was the blood of the

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Passover lamb on the door and the lintels of your house. And if the destroyer saw the blood of the lamb on your house, he would pass over.

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But you're going to note something here. And that is that that sacrifice of the

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Passover lamb that redeemed and kept alive the firstborn, that there was a debt then that was owed, and that every generation since then, according to Torah, they were required to offer a redemption.

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And this is an interesting thing here. By requiring this redemption in the context of the

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Exodus, Jewish scholars and Christian scholars have all noted that the Exodus is an interesting story because there's no generation exempted from it.

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The Exodus is not something that happened back then. The Exodus is something we participate in now.

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And so Jesus having to be redeemed, the firstborn to open the womb, well, that makes him required to fulfill all the requirements of Torah.

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And so we can talk about how Jesus here is obeying God's law perfectly, and he's doing so passively because his parents are doing what's required of him.

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But this hooks Jesus now into the Exodus in the same way we are also hooked into it as well.

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So listen to the requirements from Exodus 13. I'll read verse 1 and 2 to start.

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That's what God says. But then there's a way to redeem that firstborn. And verse 11 says,

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And when it is time to come, in the time to come, your sons ask, what does this mean? You shall say to him, well, by a strong hand, the

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Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery. For when

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Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, Yahweh killed all the firstborn of the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of the

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Lord and the firstborn of the animals. Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first opened the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons

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I redeem. It shall be as a mark on the hand and frontless between your eyes. For by a strong hand, the

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Lord brought us out of Egypt. Now we don't have time to pull all of the different ways in which

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Christ fulfills this. But in this text, in the presentation of our Lord, he is fulfilling the requirement that there be a sacrifice so that Christ can be redeemed.

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And at this point, it's fascinating because Christ in being redeemed, if you do the other work here, you'll note that the redemption price that God used with the firstborn, he used to purchase the

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Levites for himself. If you go through the Torah, which were the priests. And so fascinating here,

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Christ is our priest, our prophet, our king. And so when you pull all of the pieces together, it's invoking the

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Exodus and this amazing story of people who were born under the dominion of a tyrannical ruler who forced them into hard work and toil and labor and sweat, ground them into powder and then calling out for help to God and God hearing them and sending a savior.

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And the savior in that case was Moses. But see, the story of the Exodus, like I said, is our story, not their story.

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Because each and every one of us, we must remember, we too were born under a tyrannical, domineering tyrant, the devil himself.

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We were born under the dominion of darkness, enslaved to him, unable to set ourselves free, unable to purify ourselves.

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And so what did God do? He sent his only begotten son, born to a couple that was dirt poor.

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He fulfilled the law perfectly for us so that we can be made pure, so that we can be set free from slavery to sin, to death, and the devil, so that we can live rather than die, so that the devil would no longer be able to wield the power of death over us.

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In that context, consider what our epistle text says, Hebrews 2 .14, Since therefore the children share in the flesh and blood,

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Jesus himself likewise partook of the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

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What an amazing text when you consider it. And so if you remember from Exodus 13, we heard the reason why you redeem the firstborn is because the

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Lord through a mighty hand delivered us from slavery, and I would say all of that's pointing to the real powerful act of God, that through the death of the

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Son of God made flesh. Through that mighty act of his death and his victorious resurrection from the grave, we now have been delivered from the dominion of darkness, and the devil no longer has the power to wield death as a weapon against us and to hold us into slavery, because we have been baptized and forgiven, washed in his blood, redeemed and united with Jesus in his death and his resurrection, and we now can say that by a mighty hand, we have been set free from slavery, that God has worked these wonderful wonders for our good.

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Consider also in this context what Hannah said in our Old Testament text.

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We'll do a little bit of work here. I like working these themes. And so when she presents her son,

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Samuel, to the Lord at the temple, she says this in verse 27,

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And so the story of Hannah, if you remember back to our Lenten series, I pointed out that her barren womb and God answering her prayer points us to what

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Christ has done for us and points us again to the ultimately barren womb, the womb of the virgin.

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But you'll note then, she expresses this thing where she says that I prayed for this child and God answered my prayer.

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And I would remind everybody that in human history, there was a child that everybody was praying for until Jesus arrived.

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Consider it this way. Remember when Adam and Eve, when they disobeyed God, when God punished them, cursed them into a life of toil and, well, brought on them death, that there was a promise that God made when he cursed the serpent, saying that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

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And so from Adam and Eve on, there has always been this prayer, a prayer for the one, for the child, the special, if you would, from the

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Lego movie, that's kind of the concept, but the one who would come and defeat the serpent, who would crush his head and deliver us from evil.

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And Eve herself, I think there's a good way of looking at this in Genesis 4.

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Eve herself made the mistake of thinking that she had given birth to the Messiah. When you read

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Genesis 4, the opening verses in the Hebrew, I'll point out that there's a little bit of a difference than what our

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English translations say from the Hebrew. Here's what it says. Adam knew his wife Eve, and when she conceived, she bore

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Cain, saying, I have gotten a man, the Lord. That's how the

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Hebrew reads. I have gotten a man, the Lord. And there's a good exegetical tradition that basically says that it looks like Eve here thought she had given birth to the

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Messiah. But rather than giving birth to the Son of God, she gave birth to a son of darkness, a son of the devil, under the dominion of darkness, and a murderer to boot.

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And so talk about the sadness. But from Adam and Eve through every single generation, the prayers of God's saints have gone up.

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Please, Lord, give us the child that you promised, the one who would crush the head of the serpent, who would set us free from the dominion of darkness.

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And so this is what makes what happens next with the presentation of our Lord in the temple so amazing.

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And that is, well, Simeon. You see, when Jesus was presented as required by the

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Torah in the temple, there happened to be a devout saint, a guy who's kind of like a prophet because he had the

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Holy Spirit. And it says this in verse 25 of Luke 2. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was

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Simeon, and this man was righteous and he was devout, and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel.

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You can kind of say, he was waiting for God to come and set us free to actually give us the child that he's promised.

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And so the Holy Spirit was upon him, and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the

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Lord's Christ. And so when he came, he came in the spirit into the temple. When the parents brought him the child,

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Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms, and he blessed

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God and said, and these are very famous words. In fact, we're going to sing this today after communion. Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace according to your word.

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For my own eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the

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Gentiles and for the glory of your people Israel. What an amazing text.

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What an amazing thing. So on the 40th day after Jesus had been born, presented in the temple, proper sacrifice is offered for his redemption, in his case, pigeons or turtle doves.

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But all of them to redeem him, to include him and hook him now into the Exodus. And Jesus becomes our great high priest, king sacrifice.

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And here now, the one that everyone had been praying for has shown up on the scene, and the

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Holy Spirit has revealed this to Simeon. And he gets the privilege of seeing the child for whom we all long for with his own eyes.

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Now, we don't get to see that with our eyes. And I would note something.

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One of my mentors theologically as a Lutheran told me that we have to think of our ears as the eyes of faith.

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We don't get to see with our eyes Christ until that day when we either go to be with him in heaven or when he returns in glory.

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And so faith has eyeballs, but those eyeballs are stuck into our ears. It's a weird place for eyeballs to be.

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But today, you are going to hear important words.

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You're gonna hear these words. This is the body of Christ given into death for the forgiveness of your sins.

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This is the blood of Christ shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

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And so we receive the body and blood of Christ. We heard the words of the absolution.

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We remember our baptism. We hear again this great proclamation that God laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all so that we can be forgiven, so that we can be pardoned, and like Mary be purified from our sins.

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And all of this God gives as gift and so today we will sing. My own eyes have seen your salvation.

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But in singing that, we have to understand that our eyes are in our ears. Our own ears have heard of our salvation because the one whom everybody longed for has been born.

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So note this then. This feast of the purification of Mary and the presentation of our

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Lord, we are again reminded of God's great mercy and his powerful arm, mighty to save, who has saved us by glorious signs and wonders and delivered us from slavery and the dominion of darkness and death and the devil himself.

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And so we can leave today singing these words. Lord, now you let your servant go in peace.

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Your word has been fulfilled. My own eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people

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Israel. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.

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If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, Minnesota 56744 And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, Minnesota 56744 We thank you for your support.

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