The Presentation of the Lord

Jeff Bagnall • 28 January 2025

In the first reading we have good news for people who may well have just got back into their own land after being exiled by a foreign power. They may have felt that their God had abandoned them – though can any one of them deny abandoning God in one way or another? However in this pssage God says “Behold I am sending my messenger”. in the Hewbrew original it would be read as “Hi-ni so-le-ah ma-la-ki” and you might recognise the name of the (author of the) book – Malachi – the messenger. But the message is a forecast of one like a envoy being sent to sort things out – and this will seem harsh – like a refiner or thorough polisher. If we apply this to the coming to us of Jesus then if we are honest we expect that there will be difficulties for us as well as welcome – for we all have something good about us and also somthing that is ‘disappointing’ for God.

The second reading from what is called Hebrews, gives a quite early understanding of Jesus from a Jewish standpoint but with understanding also of non-Jewish thinking and viewpoint at the time. He emphasised that Jesus is really human – using the phrase flesh and blood to express this humanity which we all have in common with Him. Not the flesh and blood ideas that catholic christians especially associate with their celebrations of the last supper but Jesus shares in our humnaity. He was tested and tempted as all are, but never gave in to temptation and so death was a transportation of this human into the afterlife with God – and as such is like a high priest among us humans.

The gospel is taken from Luke who writes something about Jesus that fits in well with what the letter to the Hebrews had been saying. Jesus is a real human and indeed a Jew and so goes through the natural procedures for a Jewish baby. But Luke has this story of the praise of the baby but also an expression of Jesus’ true humanity -facing dificulties to come. And the recognition of Jesus by Simeon and aged Anna in the temple in Jerusalem. We read part of Luke’s narrative of the birth and infancy of Jesus. In the alternative shorter reading we have part of the story generally called the Presentation. We must remember that the Gospel is ‘Good News;’ it is the good news about Jesus and made available for all, and that’s what we must look for in it. Luke is not too familiar with all the rules and rituals associated with the birth of the first male child to a family; he seems to confuse the purification of the mother, requiring sacrifice of two birds, with the redemption of the boy child at the cost of two shekels. But he stresses time and again that they did all that was required of Jewish parents, for Jesus was a Jew who fulfilled all the central requirements of that religion. But Jesus was also the one who brought the fulfillment of all the expectations of the Jewish religion by his life and for all of us to aim for. As the poem of Simeon states, this child brings the consolation expected by the Jews (referred to in the later chapters of Isaiah) and the glory for all people – and a light for the Gentiles too. The details of Luke’s story here recall something of those about the birth of Samuel to Hannah (1 Sam 1:20-28). So, the message for us might be consolation and glory, but it also includes the struggle of conformity to what is right. The longer reading includes a prophetic statement from Simeon about this difficulty and general problems. At the time of Luke’s writing of this, towards thw end of the 1st century AD the followers of Jesus had already experienced arguments about conformity to the Jewish requirements and persecution from the Roman secular authorities and something of this has been with the history of the Christians ever since – problems with church regulations, with societies’ standards and with the weakness of our own selves.

Jeffs Jottings – Flesh and blood

 

Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

31st in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

22 October 2025
The first reading is from the book Wisdom ( 11:22-12:3 ). This book was written less than a century before the birth of Jesus. It came from someone in the Jewish community in Alexandria in Egypt. Jews at the time were not just in the promised land and were quite aware of the ways of thinking in the wider community about life, gods and associated mysteries. The book of Wisdom is in Greek and its ideas are a development of earlier Jewish ideas, absorbing more contemporary notions from this wider community in which they lived. And so wisdom is very important; it is used by them to refer God Himself and their idea of life now extended to even life after death which was not previously held by Jews. Our reading exemplifies the literary quality of the thoughts poetically expressed in a theology of the relationship of God with the failings of humanity and the development of creation. The second reading is from 2 Thess 1:11-2:2 . The two letters to the Thessalonians are the first surviving documents about Jesus that we have – the oldest writings in the New Testament – prior to the gospels that tell of the life of Jesus. Paul was a learned Rabbi in the Jewish community living away from the Jewish enclave in the Roman empire. The story in Acts of him being quite against Jews becoming followers of Jesus is quite reliable. However, this learned man later became a Christian and worked mostly in Roman communities making converts of Jews but especially of Gentiles. He had established a community in Thessalonica but the Jewish synagogue there was not receptive of his message that God was happy with Gentiles, so a mainly Gentile community of followers of Jesus was established away from the synagogue. However after he moved on from his short stay there, he wants and needs to writes to them from prison. It seems from the text we have that he may have given them a wrong idea of God’s being present to them even now and this being the time of the fulfilment of God’s plan for creation. Some of them had given up their regular work and way of life and were just waiting for the End-time to come. And someone may have encouraged them with this view. So Paul has to tell them to get back to regular life – as good followers of Jesus – the final End has not yet come. We are reminded by this that Christianity is constantly developing an understanding of life and creation, and we should be warned not to be so certain of what are basically mysteries – a danger the church has always suffered from.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

17 October 2025
The first reading is from a wisdom book ( Sirach 35:12-18 passim ). The prologue to it was written by someone in Egypt after 132 BC, who was translating into Greek a Hebrew book of his grandfather (whose name was Jesus). The book presented the thrust of the teachings of the Bible about the Law and the wise way to live. Manuscripts of parts of the Hebrew book itself have been found but it is not part of the Hebrew Old Testament. Despite the book’s enthusiasm for the Law, in our passage it speaks of a God who treats all people fairly; it quite poetically depicts God as particularly drawn to the poor, orphans and widows, like a Judge who responds quickly to prayers after judging what is asked for and what is right. The same thoughts are expressed repeatedly in the Psalm that follows this reading. In the second reading we have some words from the second letter to Timothy which seem to genuinely come from Paul himself. He is clearly at the end of his tether and near the end of his life. He speaks of the sacrifice of his life as a libation – a drink poured out as an offering to a deity. He uses his favourite metaphors for life – a race, a competition. Some of his friends seem to have abandoned him at the difficult times of his trial or when he was in prison. He is willing to forgive, and trusts that God will reward him with entry into the heavenly kingdom. It seems from the use of “we” in Luke’s book The Acts of the Apostles that Luke was often a close and loyal friend to Paul.
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