The Presentation of Jesus

http://liturgicalyear.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/jesus-at-the-presentation-of-the-temple.jpg

This Sunday is the celebration of the naming of Jesus.  I don't have a favourite picture of that, and I'm not sure I've seen any famous ones.  It would, after all, have more than likely happened ina very small ceremony with a rabbi.  However I do have an all-time favourite picture of the presentation of Jesus at the temple.  What a wonderful set of expressions on their faces.  In Luke it reads:

"When the time of their purification accounrding to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord..."

The purification to which Luke refers can be found in the Old Testament, but as a rough synopsis I can tell you that Mary would have been considered unclean for 40 days after the birth of a son and 80 days after the birth of a daughter.  During this period of time she would have been forbidden many activities and probably would have simply rested and been with her child.  After her 40 days were finished she would have made her way to the local Mikvah, or special baths kept in every Jewish community.  Under the watchful eye of a Mikvah attendent she would have removed all of her clothing, her jewellery, bandages, even scabs are suspect, and immersed herself three times in the water.  When every inch of her had been wet, she would be considered ritually clean and able to resume the life of a wife and citizen again.

Jesus, who would have been circumcised eight days after birth (the Naming of Jesus) would have travelled with them to Jerusalem to be presented at the temple as a first-born son.  Two pigeons or two turtle-doves were a sacrifice to be given on this occasion.  Although it isn't time yet for us to celebrate the presentation, the two events are so closely linked in my mind that I can't help but want to tie them together.  After all, we know so few things about Jesus's childhood that those pivotal moments from when the wise men left them to return to the East and the shepherds returned to their flocks, and when Jesus astounds us all at the age of twelve at the temple, we have only assumptions, and a few facts on which to base everything we know of the childhood of God.