Sunday after Christmas + Luke 2:33-40 + December 31, 2017
The Sunday after Christmas Luke 2:33-40 December 31, 2017 Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. In the twelfth chapter of Leviticus Moses wrote that forty days after a woman gives birth to a son, she is to appear before the Lord. He writes, “ When the days of her purification are fulfilled, whether for a son or a daughter, she shall bring to the priest a lamb of the first year as a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove as a sin offering, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting ” (Leviticus 12:6). Today’s Gospel lesson finds Mary and Joseph doing just that. After the days of Mary’s purification are complete, she and her husband, Joseph, are in the temple doing what the Lord has commanded them through Moses. They’re so poor that they can only afford to offer turtledoves, the cheapest of the assigned offerings. As they doing this an aged man, Simeon, approaches them. Simeon “ was just and devout, waiting for the Consolatio...