Some fifteen hundred years after this law of purification after childbirth had been given to and by Moses, a man child was born in a country which did not at the time of the legislation of Moses belong to the Israelites, and which those whom Moses addressed had never seen. The country was Palestine, the city Bethlehem. The birth took place in a stable, for the mother was poor. For eight days she remained unclean, and on the eighth day the child was circumcised, and "his name was called Jesus" (Luke 2:21). For thirty-three days longer she continued "in the blood of her purifying" (Leviticus 12:4), and then "when the days of their purification according to the Law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice, according to that which is said in the Law of the Lord" (Luke 2:22, Luke 2:24). Had the mother been wealthy, she would have offered a lamb for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or turtle-dove, for a sin offering, but though of the house and lineage of David, she was poor, and her sacrifice was therefore "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons"—one of the birds being for a burnt offering, betokening the devotion of her life afresh to God after the peril that she had gone through; the other for a sin offering, recognizing her share in the penalty of Eve as partaker in original sin. "On bringing her offering, she would enter the temple through 'the gate of the firstborn,' and stand in waiting at the gate of Nicanor, from the time that the incense was kindled on the golden altar. Behind her, in the court of the women, was the crowd of worshippers, while she herself, at the top of the Levites' steps, which led up to the great court, would witness all that passed in the sanctuary. At last one of the officiating priests would come to her at the gate of Nicanor, and take from her hand the poor's offering, which she had brought. The morning sacrifice was ended, and but few would linger behind while the offering for her purification was actually made. She who brought it mingled prayer and thanksgiving with the service. And now the priest once more approached her, and, sprinkling her with the sacrificial blood, declared her cleansed. Her 'firstborn' was next redeemed at the hand of the priest with five shekels of silver; two benedictions being at the same time pronounced—one for the happy event which had enriched the family with a firstborn, the other for the law of redemption" (Edersheim, 'Temple Service '). It was probably as she descended the steps that Simeon took the babe from her arms, and blessed God and them, and that Anna "gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38). "And when they had performed all things according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth" (Luke 2:39). Thus obediently did the virgin mother of the Lord submit herself to the regulations of the Levitical Law, and thus humbly and graciously did the infant Saviour begin from the day of his birth to "fulfill all righteousness'' (Matthew 3:15) in his own person, though by the hands of others.
Lessons—
1. To obey the positive laws and to submit to the positive institutions of the religious community to which we belong,
2. To take measures, when we have even involuntarily and without sin on our part ceased to be in open communion with God and God's people, to recover that communion.
3. To see that the measures which we take with this end are appointed by God or by his authority, and are in accordance with his will.
4. To be sure that such steps as we take be accompanied by an acknowledgment of sin and a throwing ourselves for acceptance on the merits of the sacrifice of the cross (which is our sin offering), and a consecration of ourselves to God's service (which is our burnt offering).
HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD