Richard Davenport
February 2, 2025 – The Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord
Hebrews 2:14-18
Every so often, the lesser festival days that fall in the church calendar end up on Sunday and we get to hear parts of Christ’s life or the life of his people that we don’t always catch. In this case, things are slightly different, in that we had this Gospel reading in the Sunday after Christmas. The Holy Family goes to the temple. Mary offers the sacrifice required for after pregnancy, and Jesus, as the firstborn son in the family, is presented as well. God claimed the firstborn sons as his own ever since the Passover, and so a sacrifice was offered on their behalf as well.
When we read this in the Christmas season, the emphasis is usually on Simeon and Anna. God had promised Simeon would see the savior, and so he does. Both Simeon and Anna rejoice, knowing that God’s promised salvation was finally at hand. Jesus had been seen and recognized already by the shepherds, but the news now will start to spread a bit more. What’s more, in a sense, this is Jesus coming home. Mary and Joseph don’t understand this quite yet, but some of the pieces start to snap together later when they have to go hunting around Jerusalem for him some time later.
Here at his presentation and at Mary’s purification, we look more at Jesus and Mary specifically. The scene is the same, but the spotlight has moved. Now we look at the significance of Jesus being here at all and what it means for the world.
There’s an interesting phenomenon that crops in life. It could happen in just about any group you might be a part of. It’s especially likely in groups or associations where there’s already a tendency to be a little competitive. You play baseball perhaps. Maybe professionally, maybe at a local league, or maybe just pickup games when you’re at the company picnic. Whatever the case is, you have a reputation. Your batting average is well above everyone else’s. You’re the one everyone wants on their team. You’re the one who will always put your team over the top. You love it. You’re having fun. But, then there’s the new guy. The new guy is just a little bit better. He doesn’t seek attention or try to talk up how great he is, but he’s still there. People are glad to have him. You’re still good. It’s not like you’ve lost your edge, but you just don’t look quite as good anymore. He’s on your team, but he gets more of the accolades. You grow to resent him being there.
The best athlete on the team, the most knowledgeable lady at your book club, the best salesman in the branch, the best baker at the family get togethers, whatever it is, having someone come in and take the top spot away from you puts you on the defensive. You lose the fame and recognition of your peers. You lose that position of being the one other depend on because they know you can get the job done. You lose the status of being an expert at the task.
Taking a step down is never easy. It takes a lot of humility to look at someone else who is better than you as someone to learn from. We aren’t good at humility. Having someone else show up like this tends to bring out the confrontation in us, or at least the passive-aggressive. We find ourselves trying to get rid of or undermine someone better than us in the hopes that person will go away and we get to resume our seat at the top. All the while, we stew in envy and jealousy every time we see the new guy outperforming us and getting the attention we rightly deserve.
Jesus is human. God has become a little boy. Why would he do things this way? The answer really depends on what part of the problem you’re looking at. Why does Jesus become a man? Because sin demands death. There is no escaping death. Someone must pay that penalty. So, if God wants to save you, he must be willing to sacrifice someone else in exchange for you.
God tells the Israelites as they prepare to leave Egypt, “Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. 14 And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. 15 For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.’ 16 It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”
Like the embodiment of sin, the plague descends on the land of Egypt, swallowing up everyone firstborn male of people and animals. The Israelites are spared from this death solely by God’s grace. They Israelite boys should have died too, but they didn’t. God spares them and in return they are given to him.
Why does he do that? To prepare for this moment, the arrival of God’s Son, the firstborn Son of Mary is brought to the temple and given to God. His life is now guided and directed by God, directed by his Heavenly Father. His mission? To die like an Egyptian. To die like a sinner. To take the death the Israelites boys should have died. To take the death all of us should die.
Jesus could have come into Jerusalem with all of the pomp and circumstance of a king, not just a king, but the king, the promised Son of David. He could have had a huge procession with dancers, trumpets, soldiers marching in formation and all of the fanfare due the rightful king of Israel, but he doesn’t. His only companions are mom and dad and whatever animals they rode to get there. The Gospel only records a couple of people who recognized that the king had finally arrived. He wasn’t ready to assume the throne yet, but he was king nonetheless.
Even though he’s still just an infant, mom and dad have at least some inkling of who this child is. He is just a tiny babe, it’s true, but he’s also a babe who commands the respect of angelic armies. They sing his praises. The armies of angels who hold no allegiance except to God give their allegiance to him. He could have used all of that heavenly might to sweep all of the evil of the world away, just as he had done in the flood, but no, he comes as a baby, as a man. He comes with all of his divine glory hidden, under wraps.
He comes to join your baseball team, your book club. He comes to join your sales team or to bake cookies with you. He doesn’t come to show off or make you look like a fool. He just wants to share life with you, but, down in the darkness of your soul as you compare yourself to him, you resent him for it.
“He came to his own, but his own did not receive him…” The problem isn’t that Jesus is so good, not really. He is perfect, that’s true. But that would be ok as long he took his perfection somewhere else. The problem is when that perfection is right in front of you, when you find you have to compare yourself to him, then it isn’t so much that he looks so good, but that you look so bad, and there isn’t a sinner in the world who likes that comparison. Faced with Jesus, this unassuming man who seeks no praise, no accolades, not even any thanks, is so much better than you will ever be that you aren’t even on the same scale.
In the world of board games, such as Laurie and I play, there’s something that crops up every now and again. We’ll pick up a new game and we’ll learn the rules and we play through it. We’ll get to the end of the game and think, “That didn’t seem right. That was way too easy. This was supposed to be a tough game, but it wasn’t.” Then, after carefully go back through the rules, we’ll find that the reason it was easy was because we weren’t playing the game properly.
That’s how it is for all of us in this world. We only think we’re any good because we don’t understand what good really means. But even this tiny baby is more righteous, more loving, more considerate, and more humble than any of us could ever hope to be. It all comes naturally to him. His very presence shames us.
In the beginning, Adam and Eve were tempted to eat the fruit so they would be like God. But, being like God, in the sense Satan was suggesting, was never an option. Our view of ourselves and of God has been distorted ever since. Jesus comes to show us what true humanity looks like. Seeing him, we know now that, rather than being the very paragons of virtue that we thought we were, we are miserable, corrupt, and selfish people.
Jesus doesn’t come to laugh at our plight or to crush us down. Instead, he stoops down even lower. Everything we try to hide. Everything we gloss over. Every imperfection, every shame, every vice, every selfish thought or action, Jesus allows it all to be heaped upon him. He goes to Jerusalem later, not to receive a crown of glory and might, but of shame and death. He lives like we are supposed to and dies like we are destined to.
It is because he has suffered the worst that we can throw at him that he is able to turn around and forgive us. If had received only some mild insults, if he didn’t get invited to the birthday party or if someone hands him a beer that isn’t cold, he has no first hand knowledge of what sinful humans can truly do. He hasn’t seen the murderers, the thieves, the con men, then adulterers, the warmongers, he hasn’t seen and felt it.
We are sad and mournful that he had to, but we are glad he chose to go to the cross, to see and feel the worst of it, because now he can look and say, “Yes, even that can be forgiven. Even you.”
Here we see the beginning. The human Jesus doesn’t know what’s in store, but the divine Jesus does. He knows what awaits him and he knows he is being given to that purpose. He is eager to be about his mission, not that he rushes, but that he doesn’t waver. He knows that as soon as he has been to the bottom, to the very depths of human sin, he can begin to forgive sinners in earnest.
He looks at each of you, you who have been awakened to what Jesus has come to do, who see him no longer as a threat because you now know you are not and never will be God. He looks at you and is pleased to forgive you. You are family, and he never wants to part from you.
Jesus comes to earth, comes as a human, not to be better than you, but to be just like you. Not the person that you are, but the person that you were created to be. He takes all of your worst, and, as you see he is not here to dismiss you, to belittle you. He is not here to tell you you aren’t loved, aren’t wanted. He is here to help you. You see what your actions have done and confess them to him, he is happy to forgive them and wipe them away. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” It is in this forgiveness that you become children of God. This little boy, this chubby, playful, laughing little boy, the firstborn Son of God, is eagerly looking forward to the day he can step out of the tomb and welcome his many, many, younger brothers and sisters to the family.