Purification of Mary & Presentation of Our Lord 2025

Text: “22 And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord….” (Luke 2:22)

It seems necessary to make a quick point of clarification about the hymn you just sang. When you sang, “How precious is the Book Divine, By inspiration giv’n!” (TLH #285, stz. 1), you were not actually talking about this book <hold up copy of TLH>. You were singing about the Bible. You were singing about Holy Scripture. Right? I know many of you love this book dearly; it is precious to you; but it was not given, by direct inspiration, from God. It is only Scripture which can claim that. Precious? Yes. Inspired? No.

At the same time, this book (TLH) is a perfect choice for today. We are using it because of a deal that I made almost a year ago, I think (sometime last year, at the least). If the men of the LLL would sing one of the hymns as a choir anthem, I agreed to use TLH for this service on Lutheran Laymen’s League Sunday. So, please allow me to put in this small ‘plug’ for them: if you appreciated pulling these hymnals out and using them today, or if you just want to know more about an organization that is actually older than this hymnal, which also happens to do a ton of work taking Jesus to every possible country on earth, teaching people about Jesus, and providing daily devotions so that people can live connected to Christ, then this is an organization that you want to know about. If you know someone who is dealing with grief, who is battling alcoholism, who needs to find contentment in life, who is dealing with cancer, who is struggling with forgiveness (the list goes on and on)— they have all sorts of resources that bring Jesus to people dealing with each one. Check out their website. If you are able to help support their work with your time, your talents, or your treasure, Lutheran Hour Ministries is a great way to use them.

So that explains why we are using TLH today. But why is it the perfect choice for today? Because of the readings.

This book has been out for almost 85 years now. for some of you, this is what worship was for nearly your entire life. This is what worship looked like; this is what worship felt like; this is what worship sounded like. If that is the case, then you are in a position to start to grasp what happened in today’s Gospel Reading.

When Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple that day to offer the required sacrifices for Mary’s purification and to present Jesus, they were worshipping in the same way that their parents had worshipped, and their parents, and their parents, and their parents, and their parents…. As I said, some of you have been using this hymnal for nearly 85 years. Can you guess how long God’s people had been doing what Mary and Joseph did that day? 185 years? 285 years? 385 years? You’re not even in the ballpark.

Did anyone guess 850 years? Better, but you’re still only a little more than half way there. Try 1,400 years. It had been 1,400 years since Moses gave God’s people the commandments. For all that time, 40 days after the birth of a son (or 60 days after the birth of a daughter), the mother came back to the Temple and they offered a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. (If they could not afford the lamb, they brought two birds instead of just one. That is why Luke only mentions the pair of birds.) When that was done, she was ceremonially clean again.

In addition to that, every firstborn son was presented to God. As Exodus 13 puts it, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord” (Exodus 13:2). It was true of their animals— every firstborn male had to be redeemed with a lamb or its neck was to be broken. It was also true for God’s people. Every firstborn male child had to be redeemed with a lamb.

If you have been using this hymnal to worship for 85 years, you’re not even an amateur compared to what Mary and Joseph were doing. You want to talk about “the way we used to do it” you don’t even have any idea how things used to be done. When you say, “we’ve always done it that way,” what do you mean? You might mean 25 years, 50 years, (or let’s be generous) 75 years. Let’s be generous. Let’s say that, when you say, “we’ve always done it that way,” you might actually mean that it has been done that way for 100 years. Fair enough.

What Mary and Joseph were doing had been done for 14 times that long.

The first point that I’m getting at is this one: As of that day, it was done. Once Mary and Joseph brought their child in to the Temple, it was over.

Bear with me for a moment. We’re going to dig into the history a little bit. A new mother had to come and be purified, not because she was, somehow, more sinful than the father or ‘dirtier’ than he was. It was not about ‘cleanliness.’ She had just experienced, firsthand, one of the parts of the curse of sin. More than 1,400 years earlier, God told Eve, “16 I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16). That is the reason for the sin offering. The pain she had just experienced in childbearing was one of the consequences of Adam and Eve’s fall into sin. The man felt the curse of sin, too— “17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return”” (Genesis 3:17–19). But the pains of childbirth were one of the ways that women, in particular, felt that curse. Still with me?

Again, that required ‘purification’ was about to come to an end. Because today is not just about Mary’s purification. It is also about the presentation of Jesus. There was a reason that every firstborn male was to be presented to God. It was a reminder of the Exodus— the final plague on Egypt when God killed the firstborn male in each household in order to set His people free from slavery. But it goes even further back. This, too, goes back to the curse in Genesis 3. Not the curse on Eve or the curse on Adam. This time, it is part of the serpent’s curse. “15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,” God told the serpent, “and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel”” (Genesis 3:15, emphasis added). Each firstborn male carried with him the promise that, someday, one of Eve’s daughters would give birth to the son who would crush the serpent’s head.

For something like 50 generations, one mother after another had come, in obedience to God’s command through Moses, to offer a sacrifice and be purified. It was a visible reminder of the sin that was passed down to each descent of Adam. But each new mother of a firstborn son was a reminder of where their hope lay. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). “If many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many” (Romans 5:15). “19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).

The sacrifices of those 50 generations— each of those mothers and their sons who came to the Temple— were pointing ahead to that day. All of it was fulfilled the day when Mary and Joseph brought their son, Jesus, to the Temple.

1,400 years of obedience to the commandment— 1,400 years of tradition— had always been about bringing them Jesus. Every firstborn male would be considered ‘holy to the Lord’ so that they could recognize Jesus as the Holy One. Countless mothers and fathers in each generation brought a year old lamb to be sacrificed so that the blood of those lambs might cover over the curse of sin for that generation until the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, took away the sin of the world by offering Himself on the cross as the final sacrifice for sin.

Mary’s child would, one day, bear all the griefs that have come upon you on account of sin. He would carry your sorrows as He was stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. “5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). It was the will of the Lord to crush Him (Isaiah 53:10)— so that, in the process, He might crush the serpent’s head. 1,400 years of obedience to the commandment— 1,400 years of tradition— had always been about bringing them Jesus.

When Simeon received the baby Jesus into his arms that day and sung those famous words, he was not speaking only for himself. He was speaking for all humanity. He was speaking for you.

That is the second, and most important point today. Just like those commandments that God’s people followed for 1,400 years, this book is precious because it brings you Jesus.

He gives shape to the way you worship. The sacrifices are no longer necessary. Instead, you come, confessing your sin and receiving absolution. The voice of the called pastor proclaiming forgiveness to you is just as sure and certain as if you heard Jesus, Himself.

After that, you hear God’s Word from the Old Testament, from one of the Epistles, and from one of the Gospels. You hear God’s Word both read to you and proclaimed to you. Luther described Scripture as the manger in which Christ is laid. Through that reading and that preaching, Jesus is brought to you.

We could go through the liturgy, step by step, but, perhaps the best example is the baptism you witnessed earlier. Why did Jesus command you to bring your children to be baptized? Because baptism brings you Jesus. What did you sing at the start of the service? “Gracious Head, Thy member own”— she is now a part of the body of Christ, along with all who were baptized— “Shepherd, take Thy lamb and feed it”— she is now a sheep of the Good Shepherd. “Prince of Peace, make here Thy throne”— Where? There within her heart!— “Way of Life, to heaven lead her.” “Precious vine, let nothing sever From Thy side this branch forever” (TLH #300, “Dearest Jesus, We Are Here,” stz. 1.). The command has always been about bringing you Jesus.

And I would be remiss if I did not include perhaps the most beautiful way that God’s commands bring you Jesus. He commands you to take and eat the bread, to take and drink the wine. And this command, especially gives you Jesus. You have even more cause to sing, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,” than Simeon did. He held a baby in His arms— full of promise, but still a baby nonetheless. You receive the body and blood which were given and shed for you on the cross.

Through all of that, the promise of God is fulfilled for you. It is not just firstborn males who are to be considered ‘holy to the Lord’. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession (1 Peter 2:9). You, who received from your father Adam a sinful nature that brought death, are now being conformed to the image of Christ.

There are a lot of reasons to treasure this book. But I pray that we never lose sight of the greatest reason: that it brought Jesus to you.