Videos from Fr Claudio Doglio
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The Episodes in the Temple
The Infancy narratives in the Gospel of Luke highlight the Gospel’s work. The revelation of Jesus involves those who accept the message and pass it on to others. It is the experience of the evangelist Luke, lived in person, and his description of Mary, who took the Word and brought it to Elizabeth. He describes the shepherds who received the Gospel of the birth of Christ, the Savior, the Lord. After verifying these things, they announced to others what they discovered. “When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given to him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” The name means ‘God saves,’ and the Lord intervenes to save his people.
When the 40 days prescribed by law are over, the child is redeemed. Another event Luke describes is the temple presentation, which occurs during the mother’s purification rite, performed 40 days after birth, and the redemption of the firstborn son. However, Luke does not specify this Jewish ritual. After mentioning that Joseph and Mary went to the temple to perform these rites, he goes on to narrate something else.
He recounts an encounter with a man named Simeon, a symbolic figure associated with the Lord’s poor community and close to Zacharias and Elizabeth. Simeon is waiting for redemption. The Spirit had promised him that he would not die before seeing the Messiah. That day, guided by the Spirit, he goes to the temple and recognizes Jesus.
Imagine the scene on the temple’s esplanade, a large, crowded square. Amid all the people coming and going, there are two individuals—a young couple with a baby in her arms. This man, possibly an older man (the text does not specify), is suggested by everything to be elderly. Simeon, amidst the crowd, recognizes these two people and the child in the mother’s arms; he identifies the Messiah.
Luke adds another hymn spoken by the old Simeon, another passage familiar to the Judeo-Christian community: “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word.” You can let me go in peace because your promise has been fulfilled, and “my eyes have seen your salvation.” A specific term is used: ‘σωτήριoν’ = ‘soterion.’ It is not the more common ‘σωτήρια’ = ‘sotéria,’ which is much more frequent. This term is neutral, indicating the concrete act by which God saves his people. My eyes have seen the event of salvation that “you have arranged before all peoples.” You have prepared it in front of everyone. ‘It is a light for the revelation of the peoples.’ We translate apocalypse as ‘revelation.’
This child is a light that reveals the nations, removing the veil from their eyes—meaning all other peoples. This child is the glory of Israel, his people. I said that the old Simeon is a symbolic figure because he embodies old Israel itself. The people of God go to meet his Lord, and in the temple they recognize and encounter him, passing his light to all peoples. Ancient Israel sees the glory and light in Jesus and does not keep it to itself but realizes that this child reveals and illuminates God to all peoples. As the old Zechariah regains his voice at his son’s birth, who will be the voice preparing the Word, so too does old Simeon—who is not a priest and performs no rites on Jesus but simply recognizes him—open the door of salvation for all peoples.
And to Mary, the Mother, he reveals the child’s significant presence. As Elizabeth had told Mary that she was expecting a child and that this child was the Lord, Simeon nowexplains further details to Mary: “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted.” It’s a sign of contradiction about which one thing and its opposite can be said for good and evil. This child will serve “so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed,”–Simeon announces to Mary–“and you a sword will pierce” – the sword of the word of God.
Accepting the Word will not make you immune to involvement or suffering. By embracing God’s plan, you actively participate in this story. “The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him.” It’s likely that, at first, Mary was frightened when she saw this person approaching and taking the child from her arms… What does he want? He wants to praise the Lord. What did he see in this child? We already said it: God’s revelation for all peoples.
The man, Simeon, is joined by a woman, Anna. She is a qualified prophetess, a young widow left behind, now 84 years old. It is said that she lives in the temple, day and night, never leaving. She likely resembles a homeless person—a woman who lives in the temple but has no house there. This means she sleeps under the porch. She is a strange figure—a poor woman, probably a beggar, yet wise and far-sighted, seeing beyond what others can see. She waits for the consolation of Israel, recognizes in that child the one the people expected, and speaks of him.
Once again, Luke emphasizes this aspect of the announced Gospel. Anna talks to everyone she meets about the child and what that child means. “When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.”
A transitional verse shows Luke presenting the normalcy of life. Everything goes back to normal, and the boy grows up in a remote part of the town of Nazareth.
The story resumes 12 years later, when the child has grown up. At age 12, according to Jewish law, he becomes a ‘bar mitzvah,’ meaning ‘child of the commandment,’ and hisparents return to Jerusalem for the Passover pilgrimage. Pious Jews were expected to go to Jerusalem at least once a year for one of the pilgrimage festivals: Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles.
Easter, in particular, could have been a good occasion for the pilgrimage to the temple. Because the child was still young, they had not gone earlier. When he turned 12, they traveled with the entire caravan of pilgrims to the holy city. Additionally, Luke narrates this episode with an important theological purpose; it is not merely an anecdotal account. It offers a glimpse into thirty years of Jesus’s undocumented life.
When he reaches the age of majority and performs the rite that makes him a son of the precept, Jesus becomes aware of his identity, his vocation, and the mission the Lord expects of him. His father, Joseph, hands him the role of the law and says, ‘You are grown up, and now you are responsible; you must put God’s law into practice.’ When the feast ends and they return to their village, the boy stays behind in Jerusalem. The caravan is composed of well-known people, and for a day’s journey the parents do not notice that Jesus is missing. When they look for him in the evening, they do not find him, and they have already traveled a day away from Jerusalem. They cannot turn back that evening. The next morning, they leave and return to Jerusalem after another day. It is late, so they cannot search for him then. On the third day, they begin looking for Jesus and find him in the temple. He had stayed there among the teachers of the law.
Imagine this intelligent boy, deeply interested in religious matters. He found great teachers in the temple who explained the Scriptures brilliantly. He used to go to the synagogue in Nazareth, a small town, where the preacher was probably a poor man who knew little… he would explain only the bare minimum. Who knows how many questions this smart kid had. In Jerusalem, he encountered knowledgeable people who could answer his big questions, and these expert scribes were surprised to see such an intelligent child asking such profound questions.
Let’s not confuse this with a presentation in which Jesus sits in a chair while the teachers of the law learn. He is a gifted boy who cares and asks serious questions of the teachers. Jesus’s loss lasted for three days. We are in the context of an Easter feast; when they find him, his mother asks him a question with a delicate tone of reproach: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And Jesus answers strangely: “Why were you looking for me?” How can you say: Why were they looking for me? It is the most logical thing in the world that parents, having lost their child, should be anxious and look for him.
Behind this dialogue, we need to understand the narrator’s theological purpose. Mary asks the Christian community at Easter about the future Easter, when Jesus dies and disappears for three days… a moment that has been forgotten. The question is, ‘Why did you do this? Why must salvation pass through death? Do you realize the sorrow we felt at your loss?’ Jesus’ response is a counter-question: “But why were you looking for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?” ‘Joseph told me you must care for God’s things, and I did.’ Mary said, “Your father and I were looking for you.” Jesus replies,
Jesus reveals that he knows Joseph is not his father; this is not an offense but a sign of his awareness. In this way, Luke aims to show us that Jesus is conscious of his nature and mission from the beginning. This does not mean he knew everything right away. As a real man, he has matured and grown in self-awareness. We can’t say how we become aware of ourselves—when we understand the meaning of our lives—but who among us could describe it so clearly? And are we really trying to say this about a unique person like Jesus?
He does not know everything from the beginning; he grows in age, wisdom, and grace. As a real man, he matures and begins to understand. He listens to Scripture, meditates on it, and seeks to understand it better. He asks those with more knowledge for help. When he first arrives in Jerusalem, sees the temple’s splendor, and meets the teachers of the law, he is fascinated and remains committed to his Father’s teachings. “It is necessary that I stay…”This is the same answer given three times to the disciples on Easter morning in chapter 24—on Easter day, in the evening, and to the women: “Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, crucified, and rise on the third day.” To the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus repeats: “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it unnecessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And in the evening, in the upper room, the Risen One again says to the apostles: “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you… that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day….”
During a Paschal feast, the episode of Jesus being lost and found in the temple serves as a theological preview of what will happen at Easter—death and resurrection. The parents represent the community that experiences the pain of losing Jesus and later rejoices in their reunion. The main idea is that God’s plan must be carried out. Jesus understood this and fulfilled it. Mary and Joseph, as models for disciples, do the same. The parents didn’t understand what he told them, yet “his mother kept all these things in her heart.” Another transitional verse concludes the infancy narrative: “He went down with them and came to Nazareth.”
Jerusalem is in the mountains, 800 meters above sea level. Even if they go north, they are heading downhill toward Nazareth, and Jesus “was obedient to them.” For a moment, Jesus demonstrated his divine awareness in Jerusalem but remained submissive to his parents. “His mother kept all these things in her heart.” This is the proper attitude of a disciple. Faithful, constant reflection involves a heart that meditates on the word, doesn’t fully understand it, but continues to meditate and preserve it. “And Jesus advanced in wisdom, age, and favor before God and man.”
With this poetic depiction of Jesus’ growing humanity, Luke concludes the infancy narratives. Immediately afterward, Chapter 3 begins, as in the other Synoptic Gospels, Mark and Matthew, with the story of Jesus’ public manifestation to Israel, as John the Baptist, now an adult in his thirties, begins preaching.