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Catholic Bible Study
Joyful Mysteries: The Presentation
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Have you ever wanted to grow in your understanding and devotion to the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary? Join Dr. Ben Akers and professors from the Augustine Institute Graduate School as they walk through these Biblical mysteries and seek to grow in understanding and love for Christ through them.
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- [00:05]
A
Hello. Welcome to Form. Now we are in the middle of a Bible study on the Joyful Mysteries. My name is Dr. Ben Akers. I'm the executive director of formed. And joining me today is Dr. James Prothero, who's a professor at the graduate school here in Denver, Colorado. Thanks for joining me, Jim.
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B
Thanks for having me.
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A
Well, it's always great. I really enjoy learning from you and going through the scripture passages, you as well.
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B
And it's always great to talk about scripture and prayer. And we get to do it all together with the rosaries. It's wonderful.
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A
Right. So we've been going through the mysteries of the Rosary and helping people hopefully pray more deeply. These mysteries where some people have a habit of just doing the rosaries, and I don't know what that is. I just look at the nice little pious prayer card, and our Lord works with that, of course. But our hope is that we go deeper into these passages of scripture. So some of the echoes in the Old Testament and some of these passages to help people that are meditating on the rosary to bring to mind these things.
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B
Yeah, absolutely. And we're going to get a lot of that, particularly in the fourth Joyful Mystery today.
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A
Yes. So we're in the presentation of Jesus in the temple. Fourth Joyful Mystery. Where should we start? Where are we going in the New Testament?
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B
So we're going to go for this to Luke chapter two. I think maybe you've mentioned it already, but for the Joyful Mysteries, you really can just read the first two chapters of Luke's Gospel and get basically everything. It's all in there, the annunciation, the visitation, all of it. So we're going to look now at Luke, Luke 2. So Luke's the third gospel in the New Testament, Luke chapter 2. We're going to start particularly at verse 22.
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A
Do you want me to start reading?
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B
I can go ahead. And then you can reflect if you're good with that. So this is after Jesus has been circumcised, but not right after. Okay.
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A
So he's circumcised on day eight.
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B
That's right.
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A
So we're past that.
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B
Yeah, we're past that. Now we're coming to his presentation and we can talk about what that is and when that happens in a moment. So starting in verse 12. 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. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to The Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord. A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. Should we take a break?
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A
Yeah, let's take a break. Yeah. So it seems like there's a couple things going on in this passage. Luke is also drawing our attention to that. We're kind of some fulfillment of the law in the Old Testament that they're being observant of.
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B
Yeah, that's right. That's right. And so he gives two quotations from the Old Testament right here. So the first one is in verse 23. Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. And so you're going to go and offer your firstborn or redeem your firstborn before God. And there's a whole lot, a whole lot of beautiful theology here in the presentation of the firstborn.
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A
So this will only be a firstborn male.
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B
Firstborn male. Yeah, that's right. So if you think back to Exodus, right, you'll remember that God tells Pharaoh, Israel is my firstborn son, and you need to let him go or I'll take your firstborn son. And there's a kind of exchange of firstborns where Pharaoh's firstborn dies so that God's firstborn son, Israel, the Hebrew nation, can come out and receive his promises and be his people. But in the law of the Lord, the firstborns get presented and offered to the Lord. And God actually at one point says, every firstborn is mine. I don't want you to kill them and sacrifice them, but you need to bring them to present them to me, and you'll ransom them. You'll buy them back. So you'll pay instead of having. Instead of sort of offering the child. Because God doesn't want us to do that, right. Still acknowledge the receipt of this beautiful gift of a child and family by doing this. And the firstborns kind of do this representative thing, right, in the Old Testament, where God says, all the firstborns will be sort of holy to me in a special way, almost like priests. And then later on, God says, israel is my firstborn son among the whole world. Israel is like a priest, a nation of priests, he says, a royal priesthood. And then the Levites get it. And God says, I'm not going to take the firstborn from every household, just the tribe of Levi to be my priests and my servants. And so the firstborn is a kind of representative for the whole family, the whole people and the whole world before God. And so in Jesus presentation in A way we talk about him as the firstborn. St. Paul in Colossians chapter one says he's the firstborn born, like of the whole world. Right. So we can think about him even here in this sort of little hinted way as our priest.
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A
Oh, nice. That's beautiful. So he's the firstborn. He's. So we have a call back to the Exodus, which is, we think of the story of the Exodus too, of just how Exodus starts where all the firstborn males are being thrown into the river and you know, one escape or a child escapes, the male children are being thrown and a male child escapes of Moses. And we think of Jesus with the slaughter of the innocents too. That's going to happen, that he's going to be the one to escape. So another kind of Exodus connection. So Exodus 13 is where someone could go if they wanted to look at that passage, I think.
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B
Yes, yes.
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A
In the Old Testament about the firstborn. So we have that. And then is it like a token gift? Is that what you do to redeem the child?
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B
Yeah, to ransom back. I think it's five shekels.
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A
Five shekels, okay.
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B
Is that right? So there's silver coins.
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Silver coins. Okay. And then what's the second? We have another quotation from Scripture. A pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.
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B
That's right. So this is from Leviticus 12:8. And if you're reading on in most Bibles. So I'm looking at the ESVCE here and there's a little bitty note. Mine says B really small and that tells you to look down at the bottom and they will give you the Old Testament source for the little quotation in the New Testament. So it's nice because you can, you can pop back even if you don't have a big study Bible with all of the information added in. They still are.
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A
Anytime there's a direct quotation from the Old Testament, it'll show you the reference.
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B
That's right. That's right. Exactly.
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A
Good pro tip from a scripture scholar. How to read your Bible. Yeah, yeah.
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B
I feel like we all need a little nuts and bolts conversation every time you get a new one, you know?
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
Oh, what's going on here? Why does it say what's happening?
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Look at the footnotes.
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B
Yeah, exactly.
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Mary says my soul magnifies the Lord and sometimes we just need a bigger print Bible. Large prints are actually magnified, some of these verses at the bottom.
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B
But to your question. So this quotation is from Leviticus 12:8. And these are stipulations. For purification offerings and what people have to offer. So if you have a whole lot, right. If you're wealthy, then you're going to offer the standard animals required for a sacrifice to make purification for sin or just for impurity. Right. Not. Not all impurity is sin, but all sin makes you impure in the Old Testament. So. Right. Like if.
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So it's a ritual impurity.
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Yeah. So like. So if it's related to a lot of different things, but like if a fly dies and lands on your plate, Right. You need to break the plate. If it does it in like your cooking material, you have to break it. Right. And all these kinds of things. And you've touched the dead fly space, so you're unclean until evening. And then the way you fix that is you just take a bath. Right. And then you might offer a. You might make an offering. If it's a bigger one.
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Sure. So this has something to do with death. Yeah, death and life with his ritual impurity.
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That's right, yeah. So as you can see here, we'll come back to the pair of turtle doves in a second. But you can see here in Luke 2:22, the time came for their purification. So this is kind of the whole family, but it's especially about Mary that whenever there's a child born, the woman is for a time ritually impure according to the law. And there's a lot of theories about why these things are impure. Obviously death. Right. So like a fly dies on you. Right. Anything that's associated with death and the brokenness of the world is part of that. But then a lot of people see things like childbirth, even though it's really about life.
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Right.
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Making you impure because. Well, what happens during childbirth, the loss of blood. Yeah. You bleed. Right. And the blood in you is the life. Right. That's why you don't drink animals blood, because you're drinking their life. Right. And so the loss of blood that's occasioned by that. Right. Especially a kind of internal one, is something that requires a purification offering because you've sort of. You've had a new moment that you've. In which you've kind of taken part in the brokenness of the world and mortality. Even though it's God given and a wonderful gift to bring new life, you still need to go make an offering.
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A
Yeah, yeah, I like that. And that's actually. Thank you for making that distinction too, that we know Mary is sinless, but yet she's ritually impure. According to this yeah, that's right.
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And you can see the emphasis on their obedience. Right. It's the time for their purification according to the law of Moses. So they went up to present Jesus to the Lord as it's written in the law of Moses, and they offered a sacrifice for the purification as is written in the law of Moses. Right.
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So they're saying the law is not important.
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No, no, it's very important.
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Right.
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It's certainly important to the holy family. They're very obedient and pious. And you can also see that Luke isn't sort of making. Luke isn't doing anything to emphasize like any special or particular, like real serious, like, problem that needs to be fixed in Mary. It's just, well, this is what you do because you had a child. So you go and make an offering. And the kind of offering, as we were getting to a minute ago, the kind of offering that you're supposed to give if you've got enough means the standard would be like bull, goat, sheep. But for the poor, it's not about the actual animal or the size of the animal, even though that's important because the priests and the Levites get some of the stuff. So if people don't bring cows and calves, they don't eat. They're not really going to eat very much. Right. But for the poor, you're supposed to bring a couple of pigeons or a pair of young turtle doves. There's even some sin offerings where there's actually no blood. So there's a couple passages in Leviticus where somebody can just bring what's called a grain offering. And that means you're just going to bring some. They're called a cereal offering. Sometimes you're just going to bring some grain and give it to God because you're giving out of your store and you don't even have a couple of. Of birds. But God still receives the, the offering and the act of offering and still. Right. Purifies you.
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A
Well, I love the, the fact that the Lord has set up in his system in the Old Testament sacrificial system, everyone is able to worship him. Everyone is allowed to have access. It's not just wealthy, the poor to the wealthy. And you give according to your means to participate.
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B
That's exactly right. You know, in. I think it's Mark's version of the story in the Gospel of Mark where the rich young man comes up and Jesus says the thing about the eye of the needle and the camel, right. And he says how hard it is for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God. And the disciples immediate response is, who then can be saved, Right. They're sort of expecting, right. Like, well, if I don't have. If I don't have cash, right. I mean, maybe it's a sign of blessing, but if I don't have cash, I can't give the big offerings. I can't do all things. The things. Right. I might not be able to, like, really prepare for the Sabbath the way that I should. Right. All kinds of things where you're like, oh, you know, it's a lot easier to do the right thing when you have a lot of cash. But actually, in the Old Testament itself, right, and sometimes you'll hear a homily and somebody will say, well, this is what Jews or Old Testament people thought about wealth.
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Sure.
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But actually, in the Old Testament itself, it doesn't matter if you're rich or you're poor. Everybody can worship and everybody can receive the fullness of purification and to be reconciled with God to worship. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah.
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Neat. So we have. Okay, so this is fulfilling this in Leviticus. Anything else from the Exodus and Leviticus references.
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B
Oh, man. A lot. But we probably ought to get to the Isaiah ones.
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A
Yeah. So, okay, so then they meet a man who's in Jerusalem. So they're in the temple complex. His name was Simeon. So I'm in Luke, chapter 2, verse 25, whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking for 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 Lord's Christ. Inspired by the Spirit, he came to the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him, according to the custom of the law, he took up to the arms and blessed God. So my first initial reaction is, I hear, law of the Lord, Law of the Lord, Law of the Lord. And then now I hear the echo. Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit.
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That's right. That's right.
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In setting up who we receive in Simeon. But who is the Simeon?
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So he is a dude who's righteous and devout.
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Luke just spells it out, right?
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Yeah, right. But really key here in verse 25, he's waiting for the consolation of Israel. Consolation or comfort is another translation for that. When was comfort for Israel promised. Yeah, yeah. So one of this is just one of my favorite passages to look at with this. Isaiah, chapter 40. Isaiah, chapter 40 starts off this new section in Isaiah where God is commanding the prophet to go and comfort his people. He's not yelling at them to repent. They've already in the visions here. They've already been exiled and punished for their sins. And so God says, comfort, comfort my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare has ended, her iniquities pardoned, forgiveness of sins. She's received double for all her sins. Right. It's enough. Right? There's a voice crying in the wilderness. John the Baptist says that that's him. But people are called to look up. Verse 9. It says, Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news, Gospel Evangelion, Evangelion, lift up your voice with strength and say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. He's coming. Verse 10. Behold, the Lord comes with might, and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense is before him. And he'll tend his flock like a shepherd, and he'll care for the littlest ones, like, wow, that sounds like Jesus. Right? That's exactly it. Right. Simeon is waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit has promised him that he won't die until he's seen the Messiah. And if you read one of those verses and you think like, okay, shepherd. I'm looking for a shepherd guy. He's going to smell funny, but he's going to be really kind. I'm looking for. Right. The Lord's coming with his might, doing his mighty arm. I'm looking for a big strong guy, real tall, but Simeon. Because the Holy Spirit guides him, Simeon is able to see that Isaiah 40 is happening when Mary brings the baby into the temple. Behold your God. Your God has arrived. Your God as a child.
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A
Right, right. As more like the lamb than the shepherd.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And I'm just struck, as you're saying, of also the Malachi prophecy of the Lord will come suddenly to his temple. And might he think, oh, it's gonna be power. But the way that he comes for the first time to the temple is as a baby.
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He doesn't even come on his own power. Right. He comes in with mom, right?
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Yeah.
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Yeah. And then Simeon takes him into his arms and he says, the Nunc Dimittis, right? From the Latin, this is beautiful. Canticle. And if you pray the divine office, you'll pray this at nighttime. The Liturgy of the Hours says, lord, now you're letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation. To the Gentiles and for glory to your people, Israel. So he acknowledges first. Right. I have seen. I know I've seen your salvation. And now I can depart in peace. I can die in peace. I actually was asked to sing this at my grandmother's funeral, which they thought was really beautiful and well chosen.
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A
And it's more fitting for, like, people who talk about bucket lists. It's the Nuke Dimittis list for Catholics. Like, what's the list? The Nukedimittis list, before we're dismissed in peace. These are the things I want to get done before.
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B
That's beautiful. Yeah. And Simeon talks about the salvation of all people. Right. Jesus is the salvation for all peoples. A light for revelation to the Gentiles. Right. To reveal God, that Jesus will bring knowledge of God, access to God and truth, repentance to all the nations. But it's also glory for Israel. Right. He's not leaving one to run to the other. And he's not just going to sit with Israel and say, okay, well, I hope those people come to me. Right. Jesus is going to be able to turn all hearts to the Father worldwide. And that's. There's so many things to pray with here. And I don't know what you. We haven't even finished the whole passage. But I don't know what you pray with when you pray with this. But one of the things I pray with is I pray for the nation of Israel and I pray for. I pray for ends to antisemitism and things like that. Because Jesus is and should be recognized as glory for the people of Israel and the historic people of Israel.
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Right.
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Not just sort of the new people who are in the church or the New Covenant. Right. But the entire nation. And it's really easy to read past all of the. They did it according to the law of Moses. They did it according to the law of Moses. The Holy Spirit was there. The Holy Spirit was there. They're in the temple. It's really easy to, like, pass up
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all of those Jewish things.
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Yeah. This is just a sort of Jewishy thing over here. And then here's Jesus is going off this way. It's not what's happening.
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Right.
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It's all together.
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Right?
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It's a light for revelation to the nations and the glory for God's people, Israel, among whom Paul says, lucky gentiles like me have been grafted into the tree. Right. And among the other branches, that's one
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of the beautiful titles of the church is Lumen Gentium, A light to the Nations.
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That's right.
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Which was Israel's vocation from Isaiah that they were not chosen in spite of all the other nations, but for the sake of the other nations. That to be a light.
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That's right.
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And it's going to be fulfilled in this child.
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That's right.
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A
Joseph. Quickly, one of the most famous kind of passages. Then Simeon then turns to the Joseph and Mary are marveling at what they just heard. And then Simeon turns to the mother Mary and then gives a prophecy for her. Behold, the child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel. A sign that is spoken against. A sword will pierce through your soul also. And that the thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed. What's going on there? A lot, I guess. What's something that we could sit with and pray with.
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Well, we can think here about. So I mean, we can see the sort of division that Jesus causes. Right. He's glory for the people of Israel and yet he's here for the rising and falling of many.
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Right.
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Who will both receive and also reject the Lord when he has arrived. Just like in Isaiah they do to the suffering servant.
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Right.
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Many don't believe the report. We considered him stricken by God and afflicted. And Mary has her own affliction too prophesied here to think about the sorrows of Mary. This is another great place. If you're meditating, you can start to consider some of those because Simeon tells her, a sword will pierce your own soul as well. But the ultimate end of it is divine judgment of all the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed in Jesus death, which causes great sorrow to Our Lady.
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And she's there.
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Yeah. Who's not only there in person, but who, being pure and conceived without sin, knows how bad death is more than the rest of us. You know, she knows even more fully the brokenness in the created order as a result of sin. So she watches that. Watches the suffering of her innocent child and has both a mother's affection and the affection and sorrow of a perfect woman watching the greatest tragedy, you know. So to think about. To think about her and her own. Her own suffering. To remember that Our Lady, Our Mother isn't just one of us because she's a creature, but also she, even though she's conceived without sin, suffers right. For the sake of the mission, just as Christ does.
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She's close to the brokenhearted, just like her son. Yeah. And I know John Paul II calls this a second Annunciation. So what Mary heard first at the. In the first joyful mystery, we talked about the Annunciation, she hears the coming of the Son. Now she has a further understanding of what that coming of the Son is going to look like. It's going to evolve the cross. Jim, thanks for joining me today on talking about the presentation of Jesus in the temple. So in Luke chapter two. That was part four of our five part series of looking at a Bible study on the joyful mysteries of the rosary. Thank you for joining us. And God bless.