Our Lady of Sorrows

In the story of the census (Lk 2:1-5), Luke intends to demonstrate that Joseph and Mary – and by extension all Christians – are obedient to Roman law. In the story of the presentation in the Temple (2:22-40), Luke intends to show that Joseph and Mary were also faithful observers of Jewish law as well. The brief verse 2:21 on the circumcision and naming of Jesus is a hinge verse that could either conclude the birth narrative (2:1-20) or introduce the presentation narrative.

Hannah and the Presentation of Samuel

To understand the background of Luke’s scene of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, we have to return again to the story of Hannah in the OT (1 Samuel 1:1-2:11). As we have seen previously, Hannah was the favored, but childless, wife of Elkanah. On a visit to YHWH’s sanctuary at Shiloh, Hannah promised that if she were to bear a male child, she would dedicate him to God as a nazirite. Seeing Hannah praying in the sanctuary, the aged priest Eli assured her that her prayer would be answered. After Samuel was weaned, Hannah took him to the sanctuary and presented him to Eli, and Samuel remained in service to YHWH.

Luke presents a version of that OT scene, but confuses two different customs: the purification of the mother and the presentation of the firstborn male child. Leviticus (12:1-10) specifies that, following birth, a woman is ritually unclean for forty days, after which time she shall present at the sanctuary the offering of two young pigeons or doves (see Lk 2:24). Exodus (13:11-15) demands the consecration of all firstborn sons, but Numbers (18:15-16) allows the firstborn to be redeemed from service to YHWH for five shekels. Bringing the child to the sanctuary is not a requirement.

Just as Luke employed the census to bring Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, he now utilizes the purification ceremony to bring the couple to Jerusalem. This allows him to end the infancy narrative in the Jerusalem Temple, just as he began the infancy narrative in the Temple with Gabriel’s annunciation to Zechariah. Since Jesus is being redeemed and not dedicated, there is no need to present him in the Temple, but Luke wants to parallel the story of Hannah presenting Samuel to Eli, with the aged Simeon standing in for the priest Eli.

Simeon and the Oracle of the Pierced Soul

Simeon is described in OT terms: “upright and devout and waiting for the consolation of Israel.” He is also described as something of a prophet, so Luke is joining the themes of Law (purification of the mother, presentation of the firstborn) and the Prophets. Simeon takes the child Jesus in his arms and utters two prophetic oracles. We have previously discussed the first oracle (Lk 2:29-32), the Nunc Dimittis, as well as the second oracle (Lk 2:34-35) foretelling that Jesus will bring about division.

In Catholic iconography, the Virgin Mary is frequently portrayed with a sword through her heart. This represents Simeon's prophecy in Luke 2:35 that a sword will pierce her soul.

The most obscure part of Simeon’s second oracle is the parenthetical line addressed to Mary: “indeed, a sword will pass through your own soul.” The most common interpretation of the sword piercing the soul is the pain of sorrow that Mary will experience as she stands at the foot of the cross and witnesses the death of her son. The problem with this interpretation is that the scene of Mary at the foot of the cross comes from the Gospel of John (19:25-27), not Luke. Since a verse from Luke should not require a completely different gospel for interpretation, we should look within Luke’s gospel to explain the verse.

First, some background on the imagery. The closest OT parallel is Ezekiel 14:17 wherein the sword is one of the judgments – the others being famine, wild beasts, and plague – God will send to punish the land; some will die but others will live. So it is not just a punishment, but a discriminating judgment. What Luke seems to be trying to say is that the sword of division will also affect Mary; she must choose if she will accept or reject Jesus.

There is one scene in the public ministry where Mary appears in all three synoptic gospels. This is the scene where Mary and the brothers of Jesus come to him. In the Marcan form of this (Mk 3:31-35), his family comes out of concern that Jesus is “out of his mind” (Mk 3:21). Because his family fails to understand his mission, Jesus rejects his family. He asks rhetorically, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” before looking at the crowd around him, saying, “Here are my mother and my brothers.” In the Lucan version (8:19-21), the rhetorical question and gesturing to the crowd are eliminated, leaving only Jesus’ proclamation, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” In Luke’s gospel, Mary and his brothers are part of Jesus’ family not merely because of a biological connection, but because of their response to the gospel.

Unlike Mark who has a negative view of the immediate family of Jesus, Luke sees them as model believers and shows them as part of the early Church awaiting the spirit on Pentecost (Acts 1:14).

Anna and the Return to Nazareth

The elderly prophetess Anna is mentioned only briefly. Perhaps Luke wanted both her and Simeon in the Temple at the end of his story to balance the aged Zechariah and Elizabeth at the beginning of his story. Or, perhaps he didn’t want to end the infancy narrative on the foreboding note of Simeon’s second oracle.

For someone so briefly mentioned that not even her dialogue is quoted, Luke provides curious detail in her biographical note, providing the name of her father and her tribe. V. 37 either describes her as having been a widow for 84 years, or states that she is a widow of 84 years of age. If the former, she would have to be around 103 years old. While that sounds ridiculous, it would be reminiscent of the heroine Judith, a widow who lived to be 105 (Judith 16:22-23). Widows seemed to have a special role in the early church (1 Tim 5:3-10).

Vv. 39-40 bring the infancy narrative to a close as Joseph and Mary return to Nazareth, the child growing up, filled with wisdom and favored by God. These last lines recall the ending of the story of Samuel (1 Sam 2:20-21) in which Elkanah and Hannah returned to their home after presenting Samuel to Eli and the boy Samuel grew in the presence of YHWH. Luke is preparing the reader for the appearance of the adult Jesus of Nazareth, preaching a message of wisdom and exemplifying God’s favor.

Jesus: The Musical

A canticle is a hymn, typically containing a biblical text, that is part of a church service. In the Catholic Church, the Liturgy of the Hours (also known as the Divine Office) reads three canticles from the infancy narrative of Luke each day:

• Morning: the “Canticle of Zachary” (Lk 1:68-79), commonly called the “Benedictus”
• Evening: the “Canticle of Mary” (Lk 1:46-55), commonly called the “Magnificat”
• Night: the “Canticle of Simeon” (Lk 2:29-32), common called the “Nunc Dimittis”

Luke inserted these canticles into an existing pre-Lucan narrative. If you remove them, the narrative flow is not interrupted (for example, Lk 1:80 follows smoothly after 1:66) and you would not know they were missing. Luke did not invent them, however. The style is slightly different in each and, except for a verse or two that Luke probably added, the canticle has nothing to do with the character reciting it or the immediate situation. It’s like watching a Broadway play when a character suddenly breaks into song and then, after the song, everything goes back to normal.

Some scholars believe that Luke’s canticles were originally prayers created by early Jewish Christians, based on verses from the OT. They certainly fit a Jewish hymnic style found in documents dating from 200 BC to 100 CE. If this theory is correct, then these are perhaps the oldest preserved Christian prayers of praise. It is highly appropriate, therefore, that Luke places them on the lips of the first Jewish believers in the good news of salvation realized in the births of John the Baptist and Jesus.

The Benedictus (Lk 1:68-79)

This canticle is spoken by Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, after the naming of the child. It takes its name from its first words in Latin (Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel”). In the classification of hymns that is applied to the Psalms, it would best fit the category of a hymn of praise to the God of Israel.

Although the hymn is proclaimed in thanksgiving for the birth of John, it contains mostly messianic references. It is likely that Luke inserted vv. 76-77 to fit the canticle into the context of the birth of John the Baptist:

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins.

In the inserted lines above, it is clear that John is merely the one who goes before the Lord to prepare the way. In the lines prior to this Lucan insertion, the canticle speaks of fulfilling the promises made to David (vv. 68-71) and remembering the oath sworn to Abraham (vv. 72-75). Matthew also wanted to stress that Jesus was a Son of David and a Son of Abraham. These completed actions of salvation are described in the past tense, even though in the context of the narrative, Jesus has not yet been born.

The cover of this issue of the Catholic magazine Magnificat is a detail of the Madonna and Child (c. 1315) by Duccio di Buoninsegna

The Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55)

The Magnificat (Latin for “[my soul] magnifies”) is a canticle spoken by Mary after being praised by Elizabeth, her kinswoman. The opening verse parallels the opening verse of Hannah’s canticle (1 Sam 2:1-2) after the birth of Samuel. Compare:

“My heart is strengthened in the Lord, my horn is exalted in my God…I have rejoiced in thy salvation.” (1 Sam 2:1, LXX)

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” (Lk 1:46-47, RSV)

The Hannah parallelism continues in the next verse, which is probably a Lucan insertion to the hymn to fit its current context; “Because he has regarded the low estate of his handmaid” echoes 1 Sam 1:11: “O Lord of Hosts, if you will look on the low estate of your handmaid.” In responding to the angel Gabriel a few verses earlier (Lk 1:38), Mary referred to herself as “the handmaid of the Lord.” The word translated handmaid is literally the feminine form of the Greek word for “slave.” Not just poetically beautiful, the word reflects the socioeconomic situation of the first Christians who were predominately found among the slave class.

This theme continues in vv. 51-53 which speaks of casting down the mighty and exalting those of low degree. These verses mirror Hannah’s hymn in 1 Sam 2:7-8 which also speaks of raising up the poor to seat them with the mighty. But more than just recapitulating verses from the OT, the Magnificat also foreshadows the gospel message of the Sermon on the Plain (Luke’s version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount) in Lk 6:20-26: “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”

Whereas Zechariah praised God for sending the messiah who would fulfill the hopes of Israel, Mary interprets what the sending of the messiah means in concrete terms: strength, exalting the lowly, feeding the hungry.

The Nunc Dimittis (Lk 2:29-32)

When Joseph and Mary presented Jesus in the Temple, an old man named Simeon blessed God in an oracle known as the Nunc Dimittis (from the Latin for “Now you dismiss…”). He also blessed the couple with a second oracle concerning the sign to be contradicted.

The themes and phrasings in the Nunc Dimittis are very reminiscent of various passages from the latter half of Isaiah: seeing salvation (52:9-10), the sight of all the peoples (40:5), a light to the Gentiles (42:6; 49:6), and the glory for Israel (46:13). Having shown believers drawn from observant Jews (Zechariah, Elizabeth, the shepherds, Simeon) thus far in his gospel, Luke now introduces the Gentiles in this passage. The consolation of Israel will be a revelation for the Gentiles.

In Simeon’s second oracle (Lk 2:34-35), he foretells that Jesus will bring about “the fall and rise of many in Israel,” as well as being “a sign to be contradicted,” so that the “inmost thoughts” may be revealed. And in the NT, “inmost thoughts” always has a negative connotation. From Luke’s vantage point, it was clear that many in Israel rejected Jesus and that the future of the good news lies with the Gentiles. It is why he ends Acts of the Apostles with Paul arriving in Rome, his last recorded words stating: “this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen” (Acts 28:28).

During the season of Advent, the Church relives the stories of Israel and its expectations of a messiah. It is most appropriate, therefore, to reflect on these ancient Jewish Christian hymns redolent with the language of Israel in its praise of God and promises of deliverance.

His Name is John

The book of Revelation recounts a vision (4:6-10) of God’s throne room with four creatures resembling a lion, an ox, a man and an eagle. Early Christians took these as symbols of the four evangelists. If we were assigning them today, we might say something like “Matthew emphasizes Jesus as the messianic king, so his symbol should be the lion,” but the early Christians didn’t think like that. Since Matthew’s gospel opens with a genealogy, his symbol would be a man. Mark’s gospel starts in the desert with John the Baptist, so his animal was the lion (because lions were found in the wilderness). John’s gospel begins in heaven, so the eagle became his sign. And the first scene in Luke’s gospel takes place in the sanctuary of the Jerusalem temple, so he was assigned the ox (because oxen were burned as offerings).

Why does Luke begin a gospel about Jesus with an announcement of the birth of John the Baptist in the temple? Like Matthew, Luke felt the need to bridge the gap between the world of the OT and the time of Jesus. Matthew used a genealogy to establish the linkage. Luke took a different route in his first two chapters, bringing OT-like characters in contact with figures from the age of Jesus like Mary. (Luke will do the same at the beginning of his Acts of the Apostles when he needs to transition from the period of Jesus to the age of the Spirit.)

Old Testament Characters

The first scene in Luke’s gospel (1:5-25) takes place as the priest Zechariah is offering incense in the temple. (And Luke will end the gospel with the disciples returning to Jerusalem to pray in the temple.) Zechariah was chosen by lot and this kind of opportunity literally came along once in a lifetime given the number of priests available for such a service. He and his wife Elizabeth are childless and aged. In this respect they are quite similar to Abraham and Sarah in the book of Genesis, the only childless couple in the OT who were incapacitated by age.

They are also reminiscent of Samuel's parents, Hannah and Elkanah. When the barren Hannah paid her annual visit (1 Sam 1:3) to the sanctuary to pray for a child, the priest Eli announced that her prayers would be answered (v. 17). Both Samuel and John are Nazirites from birth, avoiding wine and strong drink (1 Sam 1:11; Lk 1:15). Mary’s Magnificat (1:46-55) is very similar to Hannah’s canticle of praise (1 Sam 2:1-10).

Luke understands that the Hebrew Scriptures are divided into three parts: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Abraham and Sarah are figures from the Law. The story of Samuel and his parents belongs to the Prophets. Lk 1:67 explicitly says that Zechariah, once his muteness was removed, uttered a prophecy. The angel’s pronouncement of John’s future career in 1:17 alludes to Malachi, the last of the prophetic writings (Mal 3:1; 3:23-24; some translations 4:5-6).

That brings us to the figure of the angel Gabriel. The only time that Gabriel appears in the OT is in Daniel. Each time Gabriel appears to Daniel (Dan 9-10), it is called a “vision,” just as his appearance is called in Luke. Zechariah, like Daniel before him (Dan 9:20-21), was offering up prayers when he had his vision and, like Daniel (Dan 10:15), was struck mute. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the book of Daniel appears in the portion called the Writings – unlike the Christian OT where it is grouped with the Prophets.

The Naming of John

In an allusive fashion, Luke has spanned the entirety of the OT with the cast and settings of his first chapter. In Luke’s mind, John is the hinge between the age of the Law and the Prophets and the time of Jesus: “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the Kingdom of God is preached” (Lk 16:16). John is described in the infancy narrative as an Elijah-like figure who will go before the Lord and be filled with the Spirit, terms that are applied to him later when Luke describes his ministry.

The similarities with OT stories do not end after the announcement of John’s birth. After being struck mute, Zechariah returned home and Elizabeth conceived (1:23-24); compare this with “Then they went to their home…and in due time Hannah conceived” (1 San 1:19-20). Elizabeth’s reaction of “The Lord has dealt with me in this way,” (v. 25) echoes Hannah, “The Lord remembered her.” Elizabeth’s feeling that her pregnancy has taken away her “disgrace” is reminiscent of Rachel’s reaction upon giving birth to Joseph: “God has taken away my disgrace” (Gen 30:23).

An aged Elizabeth looks on as Zechariah writes down his wish for the name of the baby. The Birth of St. John the Baptist by Giuliano Bugiardini (1475-1555)

The story of the annunciation to Mary (1:26-56) interrupts John’s nativity story; we’ll discuss that in a separate article. The actual birth is described briefly in vv. 57-58. Luke spends more time (vv. 59-66) on the naming of John with emphasis on the “miracle” that both Zechariah and Elizabeth independently came up with the same name. We would naturally assume that the two had discussed a name during the pregnancy, even if they had to pass notes back and forth due to Zechariah’s muteness – and apparent deafness. When the muteness is lifted, Zechariah delivers his praise of God (vv. 67-79); we’ll discuss the Benedictus in a later article as well.

The final verse of the story (1:80) sets up the bridge for John’s public ministry: “The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his public appearance to Israel.” The next time we hear of John is 3:2b and it picks up the thread: “the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert.”

John Goes Before Jesus

But why bother to tell the story of John’s birth at all? Luke appears to be following the gospel tradition of introducing John the Baptist before Jesus. As odd as it sounds to us, the Baptist was better known in the 1st century CE than Jesus was. The Jewish historian Josephus, for example, writes twice as much about John’s ministry and death as he does about Jesus (and even that much includes later Christian embellishment). It seems natural that the gospel writers would introduce Jesus’ public ministry by describing how the better-known figure of John the Baptist essentially passed the torch to him. But John has ever since been overshadowed by Jesus and is now known mostly as a minor character in the gospel drama.

In the Catholic Church, John’s birth is celebrated on June 24. Maybe it is coincidental that the Nativity of John the Baptist occurs right after the summer solstice – as the days start getting shorter – just as Christmas occurs right after the winter solstice – as the days start getting longer. Whether intentional or not, the symbolism is inescapable when you recall what the Gospel of John said about the Baptist: “He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light” (Jn 1:8). And later in the gospel, the Baptist himself testified about Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30).