Luke wrote his gospel to a man we know only by name. He addresses him as "most excellent Theophilus." The gospel of Luke, unlike other gospels, was written for a person who was high in the Roman government — written during a time of religious persecution; and it was the hope of Luke that this would be read by those outside the faith so that they might learn that they had nothing to fear from the Christians.

So Luke, a Gentile himself, wrote his gospel to be read mainly by other Gentiles. If that is so, on reading this enchanting little passage about Jesus' first trip to the temple in Jerusalem with his parents, we have to wonder why Luke is so possessed with notions of the ritual law of the Jews. As a Gentile, Luke had no big stake in the Jewish law. Yet from these verses we hear Luke mention five times that the observances surrounding Jesus' birth were carried out according to the provisions of the law. Luke leaves little doubt that Jesus was to be brought up in the strictest observance of Jewish tradition. Why this concern with Jewish law?

One reason was that Luke hoped to demonstrate that Jesus did not operate outside the law, that he was not one who was ignorant of the law of Israel. On the contrary, here was born one who from his earliest years was steeped in the law.

There were three ceremonies that Mosaic law provided upon the birth of a male child; the first was circumcision, which took place eight days after the child's birth and at which time the child was given a name. Then, in the case of a firstborn, there was the rite of redemption by the payment of a five shekel offering. Finally, after forty days, there was the purification of the mother, accomplished through the sacrifice of a lamb and a turtledove. The exception to the final provision was that in the case of the poor, who could not afford expensive livestock, an additional turtledove could be substituted for the lamb.

Luke paints for us a picture of devout Jewish parents who were faithful to all the provisions of the law. Still, we wonder why he is concerned with Jewish law at all. As we reflect on the high level of obedience demonstrated by these parents in Luke's account, we are confronted with two exceptional figures: Simeon and Anna.

These are both people who were devoted to the law, but whose loyalty, far from making them satisfied, had fed a flame of expectancy for something more. As one person has written, commenting on this passage from Luke's gospel, the piety of the Old Testament, properly understood, left men and women agog for the coming of the gospel ... reading and waiting ... sitting on pins and needles. No wonder Luke wanted to establish the fact that Jesus was born under the law. It would make the news of his gospel that much more welcome — it would set Jesus' ministry in high relief against the background of the law.

I can imagine old Simeon, taking a trip to the temple each morning, regular as clockwork. He had probably been doing so since his youth. He was now an old man, but he would never give up the daily walk to the temple as long as he had the strength in his legs to carry him. He had gotten it in his mind that even though his people had been awaiting a Messiah for over 1,000 years, he was to be allowed to see him before he died. He was as obedient to his dreams as he was to the law. Every day he looked hopefully into the faces of everyone he saw. One morning, there sat Simeon, staring aimlessly at the breakfast dishes, wondering what would fill the hours of that day when it struck him that he ought to go to the temple. Why not? He always felt better when he had had a brisk walk in the morning air. So without really knowing just what it was that was making him go to at that particular hour, he reached for his hat, combed his beard, and headed out.

He knew everyone at the temple, since he was very nearly a daily visitor. But on this day, everyone seemed very busy — no one stopped to chat. So he rested in one corner of the outer courtyard, known as the courtyard of the women, and spoke for a few minutes with the prophetess Anna.

Simeon was about the only person in the whole temple who would have very much to do with Anna. She was an unusual woman. Many called her a prophetess, because she was capable of religious understandings that even most of the professional priests never attained. But, because she was a woman, she was something of a novelty among the "regulars" at the temple and she had plenty of seniority: After seven years of childless marriage, her husband died, and she never remarried. Yet, even though this placed her at an extreme disadvantage in ancient society since she could not own property or manage her own affairs, she remained faithful to the Lord, more faithful by far than most of the people of her time, men or women, and lived to be a very ripe 84 by the time we learn about her.

So these two unlikely old people, the prophetess Anna and old Simeon just hanging onto life by the rather slim thread of a promise that he would see the Messiah before he died, these two unfortunates with a proclivity for hanging around the temple, these were the ones who just happened to be looking the right way when a small peasant family from up country in Nazareth came with hesitant footsteps into the temple courtyard.

It was obvious they were carrying their firstborn child, since the mother looked so young and there were no other children with them. They were there to do their lawful duty and give an offering to the Lord for their son. A poor family, too, from the looks of it, since they brought no sheep, but just two little birds for the sacrifice.

Simeon was the first to spot them. He couldn't remember just what it was that drew him to this little family, but he did feel drawn, powerfully drawn. For some reason he just couldn't take his eyes off that baby. He had seen hundreds of repetitions of this scene in all his years as a hanger-on at temple. People came practically every day to give thanks to God for children safely delivered, to offer sacrifice for sons and daughters, to take part in rites of purification for mothers, and there were lots of poor people in Israel, so there was nothing unusual about seeing people with very little means coming into the temple. But this baby seemed special. This baby had a certain look.

And suddenly, like the gasp of breath that one takes when jumping into 35-degree water, it came to Simeon that this was a moment he had better not miss. This was the moment for which he had been waiting all his days; he was about to see years of patience fulfilled in a moment, during an encounter with an unpresuming couple of country people and their special baby boy.

"Could I hold the baby?" he wondered, half hoping they would say, "No," and not really knowing why.

"Yes, but please be careful, don't let him drop, he's very wiggly." The slight palsy in Simeon's movements worried Mary.

With trembling hands, and with the baby fingering at the old man's beard, Simeon was filled with the undeniable sense that this was it. "Now I can die in peace," he said, scaring Mary half to death with his directness, "because I have finally seen the one who will save my people."

When he looked back up from the baby's half-focused eyes to Mary and Joseph, he caught them in open-mouthed wonder at what he had said, so he said to them, "This little baby will save the people, but it won't all be peace and happiness, I'm afraid. In fact, you, little mother, will find your heart broken before it is all over, and other hearts will be broken as well." He said this, half wishing that he could get his mouth to stop talking, for he could see that they were not only troubled at his words, but a little terror stricken, also.

And before he handed the baby back to his parents, he said, "Your Son will reveal what really lies on the hearts of the people. The thoughts of all our hearts will be no secret to him, for he will ferret them out." As soon as he had spoken he realized that his heart, too, had become transparent in the presence of this baby.

With that, Joseph and Mary turned and ran smack into the rather frightening presence of the old prophetess, Anna. Not to be outdone by the unusual flow of words that came from the mouth of the normally taciturn Simeon, Anna broke forth into a song of thanksgiving over the special baby that God had singled out that day.

There is no record of how the rest of the day went for the young parents, but we can be sure that when they got back on the road to Nazareth, they were glad to be leaving Jerusalem, with all of its spiritual fervency, behind them. Certainly they hoped they wouldn't have to make the trip there again soon. They would be happy to enter their little village once again out of range of the stench of death that hung over the temple.

It is here, in Simeon's brief words of Mary's vulnerable heart, someday to be broken, in the beginning of the gospel of Luke, that the shadow of the cross first falls over the story. Today, Jesus enters the temple grounds as a baby, unnoticed by the priests and officials who are busily going about their duties. Just a pious old man and a slightly mad woman even notice Jesus and his parents. But one day, later in the gospel, Jesus will enter this same temple in anger and brand it a den of robbers. Luke was concerned about those who would say that Jesus had no respect for, or understanding of, the laws of his own people. Jesus was raised according to the laws of his people. But he could see beneath the surface obedience of laws into people's hearts. We can sometimes hide behind law. Jesus could see past our clumsy attempts to keep dark secrets.

There is no room in the gospel that we have received for being overly sentimental about the baby Jesus whose birth we celebrated just days ago: Luke won't let us get away with it even though he is the only gospel writer to give us all the marvelously touching stories about angels serenading shepherds on a hilltop, and the baby born in a barn, resting in a manger instead of a bed. But even though Luke paints a picture that we have all grown to love and cherish, he won't allow sentimentality to overcome this one purpose of his whole proclamation. And that is to show dear Theophilus, the highly esteemed official of Caesar's government, and all others outside the faith, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not some mysterious hocus pocus to be purged from the realm, but a slice of real life, the most real life there has ever been, the one life that gives life.

Simeon foresaw that Jesus had been sent to Israel; and that the thoughts of many hearts would be revealed. There is no question that in the ensuing days and years of his life, many thoughts were revealed, both good and bad, to the disgrace of some, in order to cleanse and heal others.

The Old Testament prophet, Malachi, had predicted that many would not endure the day of his coming. We would all be revealed for what we are. It was his ability to see and speak the heart of the matter that was Jesus' undoing.

So what was a Gentile convert doing writing about the laws of the Jews? And what are we, people not a little exhausted from the rigors of the celebration of the Christmas just past, what are we doing reading about such seeming trivialities?

We are doing so for the same reason that Luke was doing so — to remind ourselves that Jesus did not come to overthrow what passes for the existing order. He came instead to show that the existing order is largely irrelevant to what really matters in the world, which is what goes on in the hearts and minds of people. Those who follow Jesus can be sure that they will feel not a little undressed in his presence, for his way is to know our hearts from the inside. But those who follow will also know that, for them, no other path leads to life. Amen.