Joseph and Mary took Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord. Luke 2:22
The presentation of Jesus in the temple 40 days after His birth was meaningful. It showed, for one thing, how completely He was “born under Law, to redeem those under Law” (Galatians 4:4).
Jesus’ presentation has yet another dimension. Among the Israelites every firstborn son belonged to God to minister to Him as priest. By giving their number one sons to God, parents were showing gratitude for the deliverance of their sons when the angel slew all the firstborn among the Egyptians.
Later the tribe of Levi took over the priestly functions. Then the parents in the other tribes could “redeem” their firstborn sons from obligatory temple service by bringing an offering, as Mary and Joseph did.
It was not God’s intention that Jesus should be a regular, full-time temple priest or Levite, for He had other work in mind for His Son. Through the offering brought by His parents, Jesus was “redeemed” from the earthly priesthood to assume a heavenly one – to be our High Priest to redeem us by offering Himself.
Jesus redeemed us by His obedience to the Law and by the shedding of His blood on the cross. To be able to be our self-giving High Priest, He had to be “redeemed” from an earthly priesthood. Because He was now redeemed, He could pursue His work to redeem us.
PRAYER: Thank You, Lord Jesus, for being my Substitute in fulfilling the Law of God to its fullest extent. Amen.
(Devotions from "With Jesus Every Day" copyright 1997, CPH. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be printed, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of Concordia Publishing House. Permission is granted for one-time emailing of this link to a friend. For information on other devotional material, please contact CPH at 800-325-3040 or visit CPH at www.cph.org.)
Today's Bible Readings: Job 3-4 Matthew 8:1-17
To Download Devotion MP3 to your computer, right click here and select "Save Link As" or "Save Target As" or "Download Linked File As"