ALTHOUGH JESUS was born in a stable and slept in a manger, he did not stay in that place long. After a few days Joseph was able to find a more comfortable home, where the young mother and her baby were taken. The Jews were very kind to strangers of their own people, and welcomed them to their houses when passing through their towns.
Joseph and his family were in Bethlehem for some weeks, perhaps for some months. It may have been their purpose to make Bethlehem their home, and to bring up this child, the Son of David, in David's own city, where he could have a better training for his coming life, whatever that life might be, than in the country village of Nazareth.
On the day when Jesus was forty days old, he was brought with his mother to Jerusalem, which was only six miles from Bethlehem. There he was taken to the Temple for a service which showed that he was given to God and to be brought up as God's child. It was the rule of the Jews that after the first child had come to a family, an offering should be made on the altar in the Temple for him and prayers should be said. A family that was rich would offer for their first child a sheep, which was killed and burned on the altar as a gift to God in place of the child. If the family was poor, or of the working class of people, the parents offered a pair of doves or pigeons. Joseph and Mary brought a pair of doves, and stood by while these were burned on the altar, Mary holding her baby in her arms.
At that moment there was in the Temple an old man named Simeon. He was a good man and very earnest in his prayers to God that he might live to see the Messiah-King of Israel, the Christ of God, who had been promised through the prophets of old. And God had said to Simeon that he should not die until he had seen Christ. On that morning a voice had seemed to say to him, "Go to the Temple." He obeyed it, not knowing why he had been sent to that place on that day.
As Joseph and Mary brought the baby Jesus into the Temple, the voice of the Lord spoke again to Simeon, saying:
"This child is David's Son, the King of Israel."
Mary and the doves
The old man came forward, held out his arms, and took the child into them, folded him to his bosom, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, said in Hebrew verse:
"Now, Lord, thou mayest let thy servant go
According to thy word, in peace.
For these eyes of mine have seen thy Saviour
Whom thou hast sent to all the people.
A light to shine upon the nations,
And the glory of thine own people Israel."