Presenting the Lord

Gospel: Luke 2: 22-40

If we have been paying attention, we come to the realization that reconciling the various stories of Jesus' infancy from a historical point of view is utterly impossible.   Fleeing into Egypt and going through the rituals of Jewish presentation and returning to Nazareth are mutually exclusive options, especially given the fact that Luke does not reference the Magi or the flight into Egypt in any way.  There is simply no way to reconcile the two accounts.

But that is not the point.  As with all things in Scripture our goal is not to put together a history but to derive the religious truths of the story for our own spiritual life.  In today's feast the parents of Jesus scrupulously follow the prescriptions of Jewish law in going to the Temple to present Jesus as first born to the Lord, offering the required sacrifice of the poor, and in Mary being purified after giving birth.  Along the way they encounter Simeon and Anna, two unknown figures awaiting the Messiah of God. 

Todays' feast invites us to consider our own presentation of the Lord within us to the world, to our own dedication to the Lord, and our own purification before God.  Today we light candles signifying the light of the world present in the person of Jesus, present within each one of us.  We are to let that light shine before the world just as in the Temple of Jerusalem and beyond where Jesus brought that light wherever he went healing, liberating, and nourishing others.