NOTES for Luk 2:21-40

How do we look upon the Lord? As the One with whom unity is joy and following whose will is a blessing? Or do we look upon Him as a superior standing over us, issuing orders that are incomprehensible but must be obeyed? If it is the latter, we risk moving very far away from Him and adding new obstacles to the many heaps of sin that already hinder our communion with Him.

Yet He was born among people and took upon Himself not only the commandments that He commended to us, but also the many laws and rules of human society. Through circumcision He united Himself in the flesh with the people whom He chose for His coming into the world, and therefore submitted to their laws. Although He was greater than the temple, He was brought there in fulfillment of the law binding upon every fragile child.

The law was also fulfilled in that two people, Simeon and Anna, prophetically testified that the Child brought to the temple was the Messiah: under Jewish law, the testimony of two was considered sufficient to establish the truth of a statement. Of course, for those who do not wish to accept Jesus as the Messiah, no testimony, however often it has resounded over the past two thousand years, will be sufficient. But that, as they say, is another story altogether.