Augustine Sokolovski
Today we celebrate the feast of the Presentation of Jesus Christ. This event is described in the Gospel of Luke. This is chapter two, verses 22-40.
According to the Law of Moses, Jesus, like every firstborn male child, was brought by his parents to the Jerusalem temple to signify that he was being sacrificed to God.
This happened because once upon a time God, as punishment for the stubbornness of Pharaoh who would not let Israel go, destroyed all the firstborn babies in Egypt from that time and, in return, the people of God had to forever offer their Firstborn as a sacrifice to God, but do this only symbolically (Numbers 8:16).
Why was it symbolic? Because this is how God pointed to His Own firstborn and only Child, whose name is Jesus Christ. Thus, the biblical narrative stops at the threshold of dogmatic theology.
Christianity is not just history. It is not a set of rules or memories. Christianity is a dogma, which can and should be agreed upon, or it can and should be rejected. ‘Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against’, says the passage on the Gospel of Luke dedicated to the Feast (Luke 2:33).
Jesus is Mary’s first and only begotten son. In her righteousness Mary becomes the image of Israel in the event of the Presentation. She becomes the personification of the chosen People. On the contrary, the people will remain in pride and stubbornness. They will not want to enter the promised land of the heavenly Kingdom, which Jesus will proclaim and to which He will call everyone.
Israel will become Egypt, and the temple will turn into Pharaoh. At the end of his earthly life Jesus tried to expel the merchants from the temple, but this did not help. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Heavenly Father and Firstborn of Mary, was taken from the people and suffered to save us all (1 Tim.2:4).
The celebration of the Presentation of Jesus has many joyful meanings. They are said by the Church Fathers, theologians and biblical interpreters. But there are also sad meanings. A time to cry and a time to lament, as Ecclesiastes said (Eccl. 2:4). So, in its simultaneous “wintertime joy and sadness”, the Presentation of Jesus becomes a sign. It definitively closes the period of the Christmas holidays, this simultaneously adult and children’s book of happiness about the birth of Jesus, forty days long, the only true fairy tale on earth. Finally, it reminds us that we are approaching Lent. We will soon meet the Lord in the days of His Passion, at the glorious Presentation of the Holy Cross.