December 28, 2015

Monday: When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (Luke 2:22; NIV).

            It strikes a modern reader as downright silly that a woman would need to be purified after childbirth. It’s no exaggeration to say that modern people tend to think about childbearing as just about the most holy thing we can imagine. After all, mothers give life. What a miracle! (I am, of course, a father, not a mother. I understand the biological manner in which I contributed to the life of my children and that my part was necessary. However, I didn’t bear the children the same way my wife did. Even the language hints at the differences: men sire; women bear. Something profound exists between a mother and her baby.)

            Be that as it may, the law of Moses declared that childbirth made a woman ritually unclean. Probably that scruple had to do with the discharge of bloody liquid during delivery, which would have seemed like the mother was losing part of her life to bring her child into the world. And “losing life” seems to be a common factor in making things ‘unclean.’

            So, Mary had to be purified for giving life to the One who would always be clean, without the stain of sin in Him.

            In some way, that looks forward to Jesus’ own life. He would always be clean, sinless. Yet He would undergo a baptism of repentance for forgiveness and He would submit to sin’s penalty—that is, death, a death He didn’t deserve—and He would do this for us.