Dai­ly Reflec­tion
Feb­ru­ary 2, 2014

The Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions have long since been put away and the com­mer­cial world has already peaked for Valentine’s day. Nev­er­the­less, you may be sur­prised to know that, until very recent­ly, today’s feast, the Pre­sen­ta­tion of the Child Jesus in the Tem­ple, was the Church’s for­mal clos­ing of the Christ­mas sea­son. More­over, the sto­ry in today’s gospel – Mary and Joseph bring­ing their baby to the tem­ple in accor­dance with the law – is itself the cli­max and con­clu­sion of St. Luke’s entire Christ­mas sto­ry, as Sime­on pro­claims the baby Jesus  “a light of rev­e­la­tion to the gen­tiles and the glo­ry” of His peo­ple, Israel,  We might today read that sto­ry whole (run­ning from Luke 1:5 through 2:39) and allow our­selves both to mar­vel at its uni­ty and inner­con­nect­ed­ness and to be chal­lenged by what those vers­es call us to be and to do.

The sto­ry starts with an elder­ly cou­ple (Zachary and Eliz­a­beth) in the Jerusalem tem­ple deal­ing with the fruit of a mirac­u­lous preg­nan­cy, and con­cludes with anoth­er elder­ly pair, (Sime­on and Anna) also in the tem­ple at Jerusalem, at the pre­sen­ta­tion to God of the fruit of yet anoth­er mirac­u­lous preg­nan­cy. These open­ing and clos­ing vers­es serve as book­ends for the Nativ­i­ty sto­ry, a sto­ry that is both famil­iar and of such depth that it nev­er palls.  Its vers­es have giv­en us the songs that have been a part of the Church’s dai­ly litur­gy from ancient times.

First, there is Mary’s Mag­ni­fi­cat on her vis­it to Eliz­a­beth, now a part of dai­ly Evening Prayer in the Divine Office. And there is Zachary’s hymn of praise (the Bene­dic­tus) on the occa­sion of the cir­cum­ci­sion of John the Bap­tist, now a part of Morn­ing Prayer. Then there is the song of the angels in Beth­le­hem, now the Glo­ria at Mass on Sun­days and feast days. And final­ly there is Simeon’s hymn of good-bye to God, read in today’s gospel, and for­ev­er a part of Night Prayer in the Divine Office. Notable as they are, these are just the most obvi­ous uses of the rich­ness of these two first chap­ters in Luke’s gospel, which are them­selves filled with Old Tes­ta­ment ref­er­ences and allusions.

After not­ing and admir­ing all this, it is help­ful and impor­tant to remem­ber that the infan­cy sto­ries are not just a kind of biog­ra­phy of Jesus’ ear­ly life. As the late scrip­ture schol­ar, Fr. Ray­mond Brown, reminds us, they are lit­er­al­ly gospels in minia­ture. The plot line is sim­ple: The good news of God’s sal­va­tion is pro­claimed; it is accept­ed by some who wor­ship Jesus; and it is opposed, often vio­lent­ly, by oth­ers who try to destroy it. But in the end, God triumphs.

As the ear­ly Church reflect­ed on its own expe­ri­ence, it saw exact­ly that pat­tern – procla­ma­tion fol­lowed by a two-fold response – belief and rejec­tion. It saw the same pat­tern in Jesus’ earth­ly min­istry – procla­ma­tion of the good news of God’s sal­va­tion fol­lowed by accep­tance and belief by some and by oppo­si­tion and cru­ci­fix­ion by oth­ers (the civ­il and reli­gious estab­lish­ment). But then God tri­umphs, rais­ing Jesus to new life.

Matthew and Luke con­struct their infan­cy nar­ra­tives to show that the same pat­tern can be found there. The birth of the Sav­ior is pro­claimed by the angels to the shep­herds at Beth­le­hem; it is accept­ed by them and by the Magi, but reject­ed by Herod (the civ­il estab­lish­ment) who slaugh­ters the inno­cents. But God tri­umphs by lead­ing Jesus out of Herod’s grasp. And in today’s gospel, Sime­on both pro­claims God’s sal­va­tion and pre­dicts the two-fold response – the “fall and rise of many in Israel”. The sword that he says will pierce Mary’s being is not a sword of slaugh­ter – as with Herod – but a sword of dis­crim­i­na­tion, chal­leng­ing every­one – Mary includ­ed –  to choose for Jesus. This need to choose is high­light­ed lat­er on in Luke’s gospel (11:27) when a per­son in the crowd shouts to Jesus: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you.” Jesus’ response is to stress that biol­o­gy (phys­i­cal moth­er­hood) is not the basis for Mary’s great­ness. Rather “blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it”. In at least two places in his gospel, Luke tells us specif­i­cal­ly that Mary “kept all these things in her heart”.

Every encounter with the Gospel is a chal­lenge and a call for a deci­sion.  This sto­ry is no excep­tion.  It is our priv­i­lege and our duty as Chris­tians to pro­claim God’s sal­va­tion – by deed and word – being mind­ful of the response we will evoke, and remem­ber­ing that the crib of Beth­le­hem lies in the shad­ow of the cross at Calvary.