"Septuagesima"

"Septuagesima" - three Sunday's leading up to Ash Wednesday

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In A.D. 313 Constantine met with the other ruler of the Roman Empire and declared Christianity a tolerable religion. For the first time, Christians could worship openly. Ten years later Constantine became sole emperor and sponsored the cause of Christianity during his entire reign. In 381 Christianity was declared the official religion of the entire Roman Empire. Christians could travel freely and openly now, and they did.

Etheria was one such traveler. She recorded her travels as a pilgrim from Gaul who visited Jerusalem in AD 385. She describes the Feast of the Presentation as it was celebrated in Jerusalem that year. The celebration included a solemn procession, a sermon on Luke 2:22 “And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord,” and the celebration of the Sacrament. Thus, already by 385 Christians in Jerusalem were rounding off the birthday feast of Christ with a celebration of our Lord’s Presentation in the Temple. From Jerusalem the feast spread throughout the Church until Emperor Justinian, in A.D. 542, ordered its universal observance.

The focus of the Presentation of Jesus cannot be separated from the purification of Mary: the two go hand in hand as The Lutheran Service Book suggests by giving February 2 the title: The Purification of Mary and Presentation of our Lord. In order that you may understand what this day is about, we read from Leviticus 12:

Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If a woman has conceived, and borne a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the day of her customary impurity she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. She shall then continue in the blood of her purification thirty-three days. She shall not touch any hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are fulfilled. . . . When the days of her purification are fulfilled, she shall bring to the priest a lamb of the first year as a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove as a sin offering, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting. And if she is not able to bring a lamb, then she may bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons—one as a burnt offering and the other as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’” Lev 12:2f

But the purification of Mary merely provides the occasion for presenting Jesus in the Temple. Since the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, when the first-born sons of Egypt were killed, God required that every first-born male of Israel be redeemed—for they belonged to the Lord. Therefore, at one month old, every first-born was taken to the Temple and bought back from the Lord for five shekels of silver. Luke quotes Ex 13 from the account of the Passover, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.”

Redemption and Purification are the key words marking this requirement of the OT Law. In these acts, Israel was granted a picture of what the Savior would accomplish for them when He entered into the world.

How wonderful, that at the moment when Mary and Joseph are reminded of their sinfulness by Mary’s need for purification and Israel’s need for redemption, that Jesus is identified by Simeon as the Lord’s SALVATION. He who would redeem the world with His holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death, to fulfill the Law of Moses, is Himself redeemed for five shekels of silver. He Himself is the Purifier. It is He would purify for Himself a people for His possession.

Mary carries Jesus with her as she offers two little doves for her purification.  Mary was not allowed to touch any hallowed thing until her purification, yet she carried in her arms the most holy thing, the HOLY ONE of Israel, Jesus our Savior. The two turtledoves were insignificant, for she had the Lamb, not the shadow which was the four-footed creature less than a year old, but the Son of God incarnate, the Lamb which takes away the sin of the world. God was in flesh and blood, that through His very own death HE might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the Devil, and might release those who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to slavery. Of Him the writer to the Hebrews goes on to say, “having made purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

And yet all was done, to fulfill the Law. For Jesus was born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law (Gal 4:1-7).

Dr. Art Just, in his commentary on Luke, notes that 70 weeks passed from the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Zachariah in the temple of John’s birth, until the day of the Presentation of our Lord in the same temple. Elizabeth was 6 months pregnant with John when Mary was newly pregnant with Jesus. Nine months and six months is 450 days. Add 40 more until the Presentation of Jesus and you have 490 days or 70 weeks: 70 x 7 days. Those of you who are interested in the end times know how significant the 70 weeks are to modern day prophets who try to predict Christ’s return. Whether this sheds light on the meaning of Daniel’s prophecy of seventy weeks, I do not know. Daniel writes,

24  “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy.”  

This suggests that while reading Scripture we should not be so quick to jump to our day as so many do, always looking for evidence of when Jesus’ second coming will happen. Instead, we should always have Jesus’ first coming, His life and death and resurrection in view. That is where the Holy Scriptures focus attention. It is knowledge of Jesus’ first coming that alone can prepare a person for His second coming.

Of Him Malachi wrote, ‘Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple.”

John the Baptizer in Elizabeth’s womb already prepares the way for Jesus, and suddenly Jesus appears in the temple on the fortieth day after His birth. As an adult, John would prepare Jesus’ way publicly and, as the Evangelist John reports already in chapter 2, Jesus having been anointed in the Jordan would appear suddenly in His temple, cleansing it of its defilement. Don’t be surprised when you get to heaven, should you find that the time from the beginning of John the Baptizer’s preaching to the day Jesus appeared in the temple is also 70 weeks or just less than a year and a half.

Jesus was redeemed, but not for His own sake—for He as the great High Priest would give Himself into death as the holy, sacrificial victim, thus redeeming us from the bonds of sin and death and hell.

He would purify Mary, with all those who had believed in His appearing prior to His coming, and all believers to the end of time. Jesus purifies us by forgiving our sins as He sprinkles us with His own blood in the Lord’s Supper. In so doing, He makes a people for Himself:

Augustine describes this work of Jesus, as the source of all that is good in this world. [p. 221]

“It is You who make wives subject to their husbands . . . by chaste and faithful obedience; You set husbands over their wives; You join sons to their parents by a freely granted slavery, and set parents above their sons in pious domination. You link brothers to each other by bonds of religion firmer and tighter than those of blood. You teach slaves to be loyal to their masters . . . masters . . . to be more inclined to persuade them than to punish. You link citizen to citizen, nation to nation, indeed, You bind all men together in the remembrance of their first parents, not just by social bonds, but by some feeling of common kinship. You teach kings to rule for the benefit of their people; and You it is who warn the peoples to be subservient to their kings.”

February 2 is the day to celebrate the presence of Jesus in the Temple, God Incarnate. The Savior comes to the sanctuary which He was born to fill. And what better way to celebrate Jesus’ presence in the Temple, which made Simeon sing, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy Word,” than with the celebration of His continued Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar. This is what Etheria describes for us way back in AD 385. By the Words of Institution, by His desiring and accomplishing it, our Lord is as certainly present in the Lord’s Supper as He was in the Temple in Jerusalem. It is no coincidence, therefore, that after the sacrament we sing the same words that Simeon sang, “for here our eyes see God’s salvation, which He has prepared before the face of all people; a Light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of His people Israel.” And the joy of the Lord’s Presentation is ours every single Sunday—as He purifies us to present us holy to His Father in heaven.

There is good reason, then, for all the church to gather in the Lord’s house regularly for purification from sin. For the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. By His Word and Supper Jesus begins the good by planting love in our hearts, which good He Himself is fulfilling in the lives of His holy ones, having made them alive in the faith by the waters of holy Baptism. After two weeks away, how we look forward to gather there once again!

“Praise to You and Adoration”   [LSB #692]
Blessed Jesus, Son of God,
Who, to serve Your own creation,
Came to share our flesh and blood.
Guide me that I never may
From Your fold or pastures stray,
But with zeal and joy exceeding
Follow where Your steps are leading.

Hold me ever in Your keeping;
Comfort me in pain and strife.
In my laughter and my weeping
Be with me throughout my life.
Give me greater love for You,
And my faith and hope renew
In Your birth, Your life, and passion,
In Your death and resurrection.