Luke 2:22-38 If you go into an Orthodox church, often in front of you, where the sanctuary rail would be, is a large panel on which rows of icons are placed – the iconostasis. One of the rows on the iconostasis is called the festival row and on it are scenes from the life of Mary but mainly of Jesus. And today we are looking at the icon of the presentation or purification. The audio of this talk can be found here. On the left, we have Joseph and Mary. Behind them is the temple. The red drape in iconography shows that we are looking at what is going on inside the building, even though the main characters are shown standing in front of the building. PURIFICATION Mary and Joseph have come into the temple. Joseph is holding in his hands two birds, pigeons. The pigeons are a sacrifice for the purification of Mary, which the law required for a mother after she had given birth. Why was a woman thought to be ritually unclean after giving birth? Indeed, why was Mary unclean after the birth of ...
Mark 3:1-16 I wonder what the man with the withered hand expected when he went to the synagogue that Saturday? He would, at least technically, have not been permitted into the temple, into the very presence of God, because of his disability; but he could come to the synagogue and hear God’s laws and learn of God’s ways. And this Saturday, the visiting speaker was the rabbi from Nazareth. He was quite controversial. There had been a heated debate about some of the things that Jesus and his followers were doing on the Sabbath. And maybe Jesus was speaking about the Sabbath. Maybe he read from Exodus 20 , and he spoke of how God gave the Sabbath as a day to celebrate His creation and as a day to rest, a day for restoration. Maybe he read from Deuteronomy 5 : about how the Sabbath was a day to remember how the people of Israel, who had been slaves, were set free; and how it was to be a day when their servants, their slaves were set free from doing any work. Or maybe he spoke from Levitic...