Day 9 - Luke 2:21-40

Today we are in Luke 2:21-40, When Jesus is presented in the temple.

We already talked about circumcision when John the Baptist was born. If you haven't already read that, go here.

If you are curious, this is the passage that God established circumcision.

In Luke 2, it says that Mary and Joseph had to take two doves or two young pigeons with them to be sacrificed when Jesus was named and circumcised. Man, I hate typing that word. but in that passage I just linked to you, it talks about nothing to do with sacrifice while you snip. So I looked up where in the bible it talks about sacrificing birds.
I came up with Leviticus 1, and Leviticus 14.
The hard thing about reading Leviticus is that you can easily get bogged down with the detailed rules that the Israelites had. One could look at the rules and compare it to other religions saying, "Look! He's just like any other God who makes His people do the hokey pokey before gaining access to Heaven!" but that is absolutely not true.
In those days, back when He established the rules with Abraham and that era of time, He didn't mean for it to become a hokey pokey. He wanted the people to constantly be reminded of the promises He had fulfilled in their past, and the promises he would keep in the future. The rituals that consumed their time and energy were so that they wouldn't get distracted by other things or other gods. Also, when it came to circumcision and the other practices they had, it was God's way of setting his people apart from the others. It sounds bad, but it was his way of branding them, except you chose to be branded, as opposed to Him forcing you to follow. God never forced His people to believe in Him, to love Him, or to obey Him. He showed them how to believe, love and obey, and gave them the choice to follow.
These rules are what evolved into what Jesus hated about the temple, the priests, and the pharisees. They followed the rituals and practices of Judaism, but they did not have the love in their heart. They did not have the blind faith.
We need to look at these rules as a piece of history, not as something to do. Because of Jesus being the God-human sacrifice, the old rules are null and void.
That being said, let's move on.

In comes this man, Simeon. And I love Simeon's enthusiasm. He was a righteous and devout man, meaning he had followed all the laws and was pure of heart. But he was waiting for the Messiah and he was growing weary in heart waiting. So God spoke to Him and said, "Don't worry, you won't die until you see Christ." So Simeon went to the temple and behold(!) there was Jesus with his parents! So the man held Jesus and praised God thanking Him for fulfilling His promise to see the Messiah. Not many people at this time know exactly what to expect of the Messiah, as I've already said in previous posts. They expected a conquering king. They did not expect their savior to be a humble carpenter, able to die. They (the Israelites) know their savior would save them, they didn't know he would save the Gentiles (non-Jewish people) too. Mary and Joseph filled with wonder at what he said, and then he continued to talk to Mary about what Jesus would do, and that His salvation would even reach her. That just gives me chills, that Mary carried Jesus, gave birth to Him, raised Him, but His salvation was for her too.

Then there's Anna, a prophetess. It says she was of the tribe of Asher. As you can see in the picture, Asher was the northern-most tribe of Israel. (That green thing next to Nephtali) The tribe of Asher isn't really talked about much. Not because it is unimportant, but I think it is because it is so far north of our normal "setting". Jerusalem is in the tribe of Benjamin, near the border of the tribe of Judah.

So Anna travelled far to be there. I don't know if she had always lived in Asher (it says she was 84 years old) or if she and her husband had moved south in her younger years. Either way, she has been a widow for decades and so she spends all of her time in the temple, worshipping God 24/7. (You go, Anna!) 

In those days (yes, this will be a common phrase in this blog, get used to it) when a man died, his wife was given to his brother. Women had the purpose of bearing children, so if a man were to die and the woman was still of child-bearing age, the would be wed or given as a second wife to the brother. The fact that she has been a widow for decades means her husband probably had no brothers. Without a brother to marry, Anna was without a purpose. (Hey, hey! Guess what, her purpose was praising God) 

So, Awesome Anna, who has been praising God 24/7 even though she has no purpose in society's eyes, she is able to see any Jesus, and from then until the day she died, she spoke with words of hope to fellow Israelites who had been looking forward to Christ. 

Mary and Joseph return home to Nazareth with Jesus. 

He grew and became strong. This can be both physical strength and strength in God. We know Joseph was a carpenter because it is told to us, but honestly, I hadn't read it in the bible so i had to look it up. In Matthew 13:55, it talks about Jesus' earthly family. A carpenter has to be strong to build. Joseph taught Jesus his skills before Jesus went on his evangelical travels. 

He was filled with wisdom. Remember that Jesus is God in human form. Remember that God is omniscient, which means He is all-knowing. So the full knowledge of God was in the human brain of Jesus. 

The grace of God was upon Him. We've talked about grace before. The favor of God. And let's be honest, Jesus is God's son/God's flesh. Of course He would be in good favor. God would do whatever he could to protect His son from harm before His purpose was fulfilled. 

Tomorrow we will finish up chapter 2 and in my opinion, it is a funny story. I'm excited :)

Day 6 - Luke 1:57-80

Now it is time for Elizabeth to give birth to John. We're in verses 57-80.

There are some lines in the Bible that it is unknown why God chose for that to be written. We know that Luke likes to show the more emotional side of things. So perhaps verse 58 is his emotional writing showing how much people rejoiced over a baby, not even knowing the great purpose God had for John.

I think it's interesting that boy babies weren't named until they were circumcised, and girl babies probably weren't named until they were eight days old either. In that time, there was a lot of complications with childbearing and birth. It was only up until about 100 years ago that childbearing and birth became safe because of modern medicine. 33%-50% of children didn't make it through the process. Women could hemorrhage and bleed out, miscarriages, premature births, birth defects, and issues with nutrition are all factors that occurred then, and still do now, but we have NICU departments, transfusions, pills to help prevent miscarriages, and formula to provide nutrition. When a baby was born healthy and survived those first 8 days, it was cause of great celebration. I guess they felt that it would be pointless to name the baby at birth if they were going to die a couple days later.

All Jewish male babies were called to be circumcised. I'm sure you know what circumcision is, and I don't know if you've heard or read the debates as "to circumcise, or not to circumcise; that is the question". Read them on your own time. But it was originally created by God and was supposed to only be used from the time of Abraham to the time of Jesus. Jesus was supposed to be the last person circumcised. I'm getting really tired of typing that word, especially because I struggle spelling it. "The act" was to be a representative of shedding blood. It was part of the Old Covenant that God had established with his people. The way that it was described to the people of Israel was the relationship between a suzerain and his servants. A suzerain was a master, a land owner; and servants were the people that he owned. God commanded that the people be loyal and love Him the way a servant is loyal to and loves his suzerain because the suzerain provided for the servant. God required the sacrificing of livestock if you owned livestock. He required the best ox, the best cow, the best lamb. It was shameful to sacrifice the runt, or anything less than best. He also required farmers to sacrifice 10% of their harvest. Whatever it was that they grew, they had to sacrifice 10% of it. Baby boys were also called to shed blood. Women already shed blood in childbirth, so men had to "snip the tip" for the sacrifice of blood. It wasn't like, "Sacrifice to me and I will provide for you" or "sacrifice to me and I won't kill you" the way other religions see sacrifice, it was "sacrifice to me because I have in the past and I will in the future provide for you". It was meant as an act of love and worship, not an act of force.

Anyways, Zechariah still couldn't speak because the angel had made him mute from doubting God, so people assumed the baby was to be named after him. But Elizabeth spoke up. She didn't know what the angel had said to her husband, unless he had written it on a piece of papyrus during the 9 months, but she knew that the baby was supposed to be named John.
Everyone thought, "That's a silly name. It's not even a Hebrew name. No one else in your family is named John," So they handed some papyrus to Zechariah and he told them what the angel had told him. And when he wrote the words, the "prophesy of the birth of John" had been fulfilled and the curse was lifted from Zechariah. His lips were unsealed and he was able to talk again. Of course, everyone is amazed that he can speak again. Word spread far and wide that Zechariah the priest was verbal again. They could tell that only God could shut him up so quickly and only God could open his mouth again. Because of that, they knew God had great plans for this baby John.

The first thing Zechariah says when he can speak again, is he praised God and prophesied.

68 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them. 

He has come as living flesh, as the Messiah, as Jesus, to his people, to the nation of Israel, to those who believe in Him and saved them, set them free.

69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David

The symbol of a "horn" represented a mighty king. So He raised up a mighty king to save us. Notice the word king, and remember that the nation of Israel was expecting a mighty king as they know the word: a mighty ruler, someone with power who will conquer and defeat the enemy, not knowing Jesus would be a humble man in rags who would be defeated by humanity, but would defeat The Enemy. And the King would come from the family of David, who was the greatest king but also servant of God that the nation had known.

70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),

The Messiah had been prophesied for centuries, especially by Isaiah, and then God was "quiet" for 200 years as Israel waited for their savior.

71 salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—

Enemy = those who hate you, right? I think the reason these two phrases are separate is because "the enemies" were pertaining to Satan and his demons. "The hand of those who hate us" was pertaining to people who didn't follow God, especially those who had conquered Israel. Remember that Israel was a consistently conquered nation. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Romans, and then even after Christ, Israel is constantly conquered. Example: The Holocaust. Why? Israel is God's chosen people and Satan is jealous of the nation. He wants to smite Israel because he wants all the attention and glory, so he is constantly attacking Israel.

72 to show mercy to our ancestors
and to remember his holy covenant,

73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham:74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, 

 and to enable us to serve him without fear

This is in reference to the Old Covenant I talked about earlier. Their ancestors had been faithful, so God is holding true to his promise of redemption. How many religions and foreign deities do you know of who make promises to their people and actually hold true? Most are like, "Obey me and I will bless you" and either nothing happens, or "Psyche! I've changed my mind. I'll smite you instead." Again, this is my proof of God's reality. No other God actually loves his people the way my God does. :)

75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

to serve God in holiness and righteousness forever. We are not perfect, but we can strive to be perfect. We can strive to serve God perfectly. Even if we fail, God is King of "you get an A for effort".

76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,

John will be called a prophet of God. He will be a segue from the Old Testament and the Old Covenant to the New Testament and the New Covenant. He his to prepare the way, and prepare the people for Jesus. Which is why John is included as such a main character in the story of Jesus' life.

77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,

The disciples and apostles were to be givers of the good news. They were to travel and spread the gospel far and wide. Not for the Borg/European/Christian picketers way to "assimilate or die" purpose, but to be loving, share the love of God, and share the salvation of Christ, who forgave our sins and eliminated the need for sacrifice.

78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven

Again, the love of God. This is reinforcing God's perfect love. Mercy is so synonymous with love because only by God's perfect love for His creation would grace and mercy exist. There is an awesome analogy for grace that I heard. It's a child's analogy, but sometimes that's how you get an adult to understand. say you out playing on the playground, and a kid pushes you down and kicks sand in your face. The response you want to give is to hit them back and kick sand in their face, or worse. But grace is like turning to that mean kid and giving them a cookie. To an outsider, and to the mean kid, the cookie doesn't make sense. But it's what God does. We constantly question Him, curse Him, turn our back on Him, and all other sorts of things that are like kicking sand in God's face. But His unfathomable love allows for mercy and grace and he gives us cookies even though we are bad. Does that make sense? We are the ones who sinned, but He's the one who died to allow us into Heaven. How awesome!

79 to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,

to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

John (and indirectly, we) was called to be a light to those who were living or lost in darkness, or in the darkness of death and sickness. John (again, we also) was called to be leader and a guide; to show others how to walk in peace and therefore to walk in Jesus' path, because Jesus is the Prince of Peace. 

And John grew up living in the wilderness (alone. with only God as his companion) and his spirit grew strong, as did His Spirit grow strong in John, and God prepared John in the wilderness until it was time to speak to the nations and ready them for Jesus. 

HEY! We finished Luke 1! That's really exciting. Come back tomorrow for our next chapter.