Wonder and Sacrifice
The Feast of the Presentation takes place on February 2nd each year, a date which falls on this Sunday. The Presentation in the Temple held significant religious and cultural importance for Jewish families in Jesus' time. This ritual commemorated God's sparing of the Jewish firstborn during the Exodus from Egypt. Forty days after giving birth to a son, the mother underwent a ritual purification. This involved offering a sacrifice at the temple, usually a lamb and a pigeon or turtledove. For poorer families, two pigeons or turtledoves were acceptable. The Presentation reinforced the family's participation in God's covenant with Israel, passing on their religious heritage to the next generation. This public ceremony introduced the child to the religious community and affirmed the family's commitment to raising the child in their faith.
The concept of ‘sacrifice’ is very rarely understood in depth, though we use it in our daily conversation and attitude when we say, “I sacrificed my time and money for you.” Fr. Ron Rolheiser explains this concept vividly, bringing to our mind the event of the sacrifice of Abraham offering up his son Isaac. “From what is common in all these expressions (of sacrifices) we can extract Webster's definition of a sacrifice: The surrender of something of value for the sake of something else. That is a good definition, but it contains more than first meets the eye, as is evident when we look at the concept of sacrifice in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Take, for example, the famous story where Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac. What is ultimately behind God's invitation to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on an altar? … When they arrive at the place of sacrifice, Abraham gathers the wood, lights the fire, binds Isaac, and then raises the knife to kill him. But God intervenes, stops the sacrifice, and gives Abraham a ram instead to offer. The story ends with Abraham walking back to his own land together with Isaac. What is the deep lesson inside this story?
At one level, the lesson is that God does not want human sacrifice, but there is a deeper, more intimate, inner lesson that teaches us something about the innate need inside of us to offer sacrifice. Simply put, the lesson is this: in order for something to be received as a gift, it must be received twice. What is implied here?
A gift, by definition, is something that is not deserved, but given freely. What is our first impulse when we are given a gift? Our instinctual response is: ‘I can't take this! I don't deserve this!’ In essence, that gesture, that healthy instinctual response, is an attempt to give the gift back to its giver. … That is the essence of sacrifice: to properly receive anything, including life itself, requires that we recognize it precisely as gift, as something undeserved. And to do that requires sacrifice, a willingness to give some or the entire gift back to its giver. … That's the inner essence of all sacrifice, whether the sacrificing of a career for the sake of our children or Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Sacrifice recognizes gifts as gifts. Like Abraham, it tries to give the gift back to the giver, but the giver stops the sacrifice and gives it back in even a deeper way. We would enjoy our lives considerably more if we understood that.”
Bringing her Son to Jerusalem, the Virgin Mother offered Him to God as a true Lamb, who takes away the sins of the world. The daily “Tamid Sacrifice’ in the Temple involved the killing of a spotless lamb. Simeon was the bearer of an ancient hope, and the Spirit of the Lord spoke to his heart: for this reason he could contemplate the One whom numerous prophets and kings had desired to see: Christ, light of revelation for the Gentiles. This child too will cause a ‘pierced heart’ for His mother, as He will be the Sacrifice par excellence.
Saint Luke presents this event of the presentation in an atmosphere of wonder. Mary and Joseph: “marveled at what was said about Him” (v. 33). Wonder is also an explicit reaction of the aged Simeon, who sees with his own eyes in the Child Jesus the redemption of God for His people: that redemption which he had awaited for years. And the same is true of Anna who “gave thanks to God” (v. 38) and went about pointing Jesus out to the people. The ability to be amazed at things around us promotes religious experience and makes the encounter with the Lord more fruitful. On the contrary, the inability to marvel makes us indifferent and widens the gap between the journey of faith and daily life. Sacrifice and Wonder come powerfully together at every Eucharist we are privileged to be part of as the Son of God is offered to the Father and the miracle of bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ on the altar. Fr Tom Kunnel. C.O