Tuesday in the Octave of Christmas, December 29, 2020

I am going to try posting these Scripture reflections in the late afternoon or early evening for the benefit of those who want to meditate on the readings the evening before they are read at Mass.  Please let me know if this is helpful.

Luke 2:22-35

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, the parents of Jesus took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord”, and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.  Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying: “Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.”  The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

St. Luke makes it quite clear in his prologue that he is writing his Gospel for the Gentile Christians.  We would expect, then, that he would emphasize those parts of the life and teaching of the Lord Jesus that would interest and appeal to this audience.  And he does so, recording some of the longer parables that Jesus told, such as that of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan — for the Greeks loved fables, puzzles, and stories that contained wisdom.  He does this in other ways, too, as in showing the Lord to be a heroic figure — one who fulfills his duty though suffering greatly.  

But St. Luke also carefully showed Jesus and those associated with him as law-abiding Jews, even going beyond the prescripts of the Jewish Law in order to serve God.  Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1, 6).  The Virgin Mary is “full of grace” (Luke 1, 28).  John the Baptist is put in prison by Herod for holding him accountable to the Law.  Jesus himself calls on the tax collectors and prostitutes to repent, and eats with them in order to spend time with them and to urge them to live righteously, though the Jewish authorities despise him for this.  The list of examples could be extended for pages.

Here, in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, Luke tells us, “The parents of Jesus took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord.”  Certainly this fact could offer little of interest to his Greek readers, and much less the quotations Luke takes from the Jewish Torah.  Yet Luke does this in order to answer a big question that First Century Gentiles asked when the Gospel was preached to them: Why should we Greeks believe in the teachings of someone who was rejected even by his own people?  Luke responds to this question by showing that it was not Christ who was a renegade from his religion, for he followed it perfectly: it was the leaders of the religion who were the renegades.  Besides this being historically true, it would also have appealed to the Greeks, who had a high regard for irony.  

Also on display here is Luke’s appreciation for the interest the Greeks had in oracles and prophetic sayings.  Since before David was king in Israel, thousands of ancient Greeks had made the pilgrimage to Delphi to hear the priestess there mutter oracles supposedly inspired by Apollo.  Kings even went there to find out whether to go to war or not.  Luke tells his audience of the appearances of the Angel Gabriel and the clear messages he has for Zechariah and Mary — in sharp contrast to the ambiguous messages of the pagan prophets.  In today’s Gospel, Simeon and Anna, two holy people, prophesy about the newborn Jesus.  Luke tells us that they were inspired, but by the Holy Spirit.

We learn from considerations of this kind that we should also adapt the way we talk about the Lord or the Faith according to the background of the folks with whom we talk, while speaking the truth accurately.  We should not give people more than they can handle, or use unfamiliar words or expressions with them that we do not explain.  We begin with what is easiest to learn first, then, when folks are ready, some deeper matters.  Most of all. We must love our God.  The more we love him, the more our love for him will show itself in natural ways of which we will be unaware but which our hearers will notice.  Luke wrote his Gospel very carefully for his audience, but what captured their hearts for Jesus was the passionate love Luke had for him and the joy that filled him because of him.