The Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord

February 2, 2025

Luke 2:22-32

She felt cursed by God. Her husband loved her. But in her body, and in her soul, she felt cursed. Echoing in her heart were the ancient words spoken to our first mother: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children.”

The pain applies to the birth, to be sure. But there is sorrow here, too – sorrow in conceiving a child, or rather, the difficulty thereof. The woman in today’s Old Testament reading spends years in the sorrow of barrenness.

Why does this happen, these trials of infertility, secondary infertility, and miscarriage? There is no answer, outside of the general curse that hangs over our race. For certain families, God’s ways are often hidden from us. But the particular plight of barrenness runs as a motif throughout the Old Testament. Abraham’s wife Sarah. Isaac’s wife Rebekah. Jacob’s wife Rachel. Elizabeth, who became in her old age mother of John the Baptist.

What’s happening in all of these is that God’s promise in that same fateful chapter, Gen. 3 – God’s promise of a Son to crush the serpent, to undo death, seems perpetually imperiled. There’s more going on than parents wanting a baby. They want God to keep His promise. And it seems it isn’t going to happen.

Perhaps you’ve experienced the same, in a broader way. Why does God allow airplane crashes? Why do friends turn out to be false? Why do the wicked prosper?

In her grief Hannah prays. Hannah is the woman in today’s reading from 1 Sam. In the verses before our reading, Hannah is barren. And in her grief, she prays. Her prayers were not polite. In the house of prayer she made a scene. “And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD and wept in anguish.” (1 Samuel 1:10 NKJV)

Eli the priest sees her. He’s disgusted. “How long will you be drunk?” he barks. “Put your wine away from you!”

“But Hannah answered and said, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD. Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now.’” (1 Samuel 1:14–16 NKJV)

“Out of the abundance of my complaint.” What remarkable words! And the Psalms are filled with many more like them. The Bible tells us to bring our complaints to God. We are to bring our lament, our grief, our anger, our despair, our experience of betrayal, and set it before God.

So Hannah teaches us how to pray. She doesn’t resolve her problems with drink, but brings the problems to God.

Thus Eli the priest recognizes this true piety, and blesses her. And she goes away no longer sad. One of my favorite hymns, If God Himself Be for Me, has  a remarkable line in the tenth stanza. After nine stanzas of plagues and crosses and hell interwoven with the work of Christ, the author, Paul Gerhardt, concludes, “My heart with joy is springing; I am no longer sad” [LSB 724].

In the same way, Hannah hears God’s Word and goes away no longer sad. The astonishing thing is that her prayer has not yet been answered. What changed? Her circumstances were the same. But the blessing from God’s Word causes her to believe that God means her well.

She goes home, she spends a little time with her husband, and she conceives. She bears a son, and names him Samuel, which means “God hears.” God has heard her prayer.

Everything is now perfect, right? They can live an Instagram life, with the ideal nursery. She can watch senate confirmation hearings and get ideas for onesies for little Samuel. Hannah loves her little boy; she sings to him, laughs at his antics, rejoices when he takes his first steps.

But then she does something unthinkable. The thing she longed for, she gives away. She gives him to the Lord.

You heard the Law. It was quoted in today’s Gospel reading: “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the LORD.” Holy means “set apart.” The firstborn son belongs to the Lord.

But you don’t actually do it. There’s a divine loophole: on the fortieth day from the boy’s birth, parents can bring a sacrifice in exchange for the son. It was called ‘redeeming the son,’ buying him back. “We’d like to keep our little boy; here, we will trade You this lamb.”

More than just a ritual, it was a reminder to the parents that “their” child really wasn’t theirs. He belonged to God. Everything does. Your home, your strength, your bank account, your mind, your time, your children – none of it is yours. Everything belongs to God.

Hannah gets this. She acts on her faith. Her years of barrenness, her tears of anguish, her prayers that seemed to go unheard, it all led her to confess: Nothing is mine, everything is God’s.

That brings us to the focus of today’s feast. Today is the fortieth day of Christmas. Joseph and Mary go to the temple, to present Jesus, offer the sacrifice, and for Mary to receive the blessing, called the “purification.” It’s been forty days since the angels sang and the shepherds worshipped. The excitement is replaced by long nights and the endless cleaning of diapers.

Mary and Joseph are poor. They don’t have the lamb needed for Mary’s purification. They bring the alternate sacrifice, and mother and child both receive God’s blessing. God’s Law showed how highly He values marriage and motherhood, and how He adopts these children into His family. In the New Testament, which is greater than the Old, the baptism of babies supersedes this ritual. In Baptism we recognize again that this child is not ours, but God’s, and He makes the child His own.

Mary and Joseph are poor, so they bring the alternate sacrifice. Yet something more is hinted at here. They do in fact bring the Lamb—Jesus Himself. Like Hannah, Mary will hand her Boy over to the priesthood, over to the business of sacrifice. Her Boy will become both priest and victim, shepherd and lamb, paschal victim, paschal meal.

And that’s what Simeon sees when he sees the Holy Family. The Holy Spirit reveals to him, “This is the Child promised to you. This is the Child promised to Israel. This is the Child promised to Rebekah, promised to Sarah, promised to Eve. This is the One who will crush the serpent’s head. This is the Lamb whose blood will turn away the angel of death. This is the Lamb who is worthy to take the scroll. This is the bearer of sin. This is the conqueror of death.”

With joy Simeon cradles the Messiah in his arms. He sings a song that we make our own as we leave the Table: “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, According to Your word; For my eyes have seen Your salvation Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.” Simeon is now ready to die. God has made peace with him, God has made peace with the world through His Son.

We sing this song when we leave the Communion because, no matter what is wrong in your life, what is broken, whatever sorrows you have, all is dissolved in the Lord’s promise of peace. Here in the Eucharist, everything is settled, everything is accomplished. It is finished. We are ready to die.

What does that mean for you this week? Death has no power over you. You can say “no” to lust, “no” to resentment, “no” to despair. They’re defeated. The Son has come, and has crushed the serpent beneath His feet. Death is trampled down by death, and in you is kindled the fire of life and love. +INJ+