THE PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2020 - Pastor Frank Senn
The Presentation of our Lord and the Purification of Mary. February 2, 2020
Text: Luke 2:22-40
Happy Ground Hog Day! Happy Candlemas! Both observances are on February 2. Is it a coincidence? Not at all. Medieval folk lore connected Candlemas and its theme of “light to enlighten the nations” with weather prediction. An English rhyme said, “If Candlemas be fair and bright,/ Come, Winter, have another flight;/ If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,/ Go, Winter, and come not again.” German folklore added weather-predicting animals. Sometimes it was a hibernating badger or bear that awoke to see if spring was on the way. This lore was brought to North America by German settlers in Pennsylvania, who continued the tradition by watching the behavior of the hibernating ground hogs on their farms. If the critter emerged and saw its shadow, it would go back to sleep for another six weeks. But if it saw no shadow, it stayed awake because winter would soon be over. German Lutherans as well as German Catholics observed Candlemas on February 2. Perhaps the German Reformed and Anabaptists in Pennsylvania knew the folk lore about animal weather forecasters without observing the feast. Episcopalians retained the feast day without the animals...until everyone was into ground hogs.
The background of all this is based in today’s Gospel story. Mary and Joseph were ready to return home to Nazareth. But not without first stopping at the Temple in Jerusalem to do what was required in the law of the Lord after childbirth. Jesus had to be redeemed from being offered to God and Mary had to be purified 40 days after giving birth. For the holy family to go through these rites is mind-boggling when you think about it. The Israelites owed God the first fruits of everything, including their first-born sons. The oldest son had to be offered to the service of God. But he could be bought back from God with an offering of two turtledoves and two pigeons. That’s all it took for the Son of God to be redeemed from God’s service.
And Mary, whose womb held the very Son of God, had to be purified for carrying him in her womb. The old Book of Common Prayer had a rite called “the churching of women.” On the 40th day after childbirth the mother returned to society and gave thanks for the safe delivery of her child. The current Book of Common Prayer calls it Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child.
Mary and Joseph fulfilled all righteousness by doing everything their religion prescribed. As the Letter to the Hebrews says of Jesus, “he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.”
Many people today say they are spiritual, but not religious. But what the Holy Family is doing here is religious, and certainly not unspiritual. What took place in the Temple rituals was not the stuff of high religious drama. This was common faithfulness to the prayers and ritual observances that make up the spirituality of the ebb and flow of ordinary life. And it is just such faithful observance that, when carried out in a genuine response of gratitude to God, can, over the weeks and months and years, shape your soul and conform you ever increasingly to the will of God for you and for the world.
This gospel story gives us two such examples of people whose faithful dedicated day-by-day development of their spirituality has resulted in their old age in a quite extraordinary ability to perceive the subtle movements of the Spirit of God in people and in the world.
Simeon is described as righteous and devout, and as one on whom the Holy Spirit rested. You only get to be described as devout if you practice a regular pattern of devotion to God exhibited in spiritual disciplines such as prayer, scripture reading, and offering sacrifices. Simeon's years of devout practice have so opened him to the inner world of the Spirit and so attuned him to see deep beneath the surface appearance of things that when an ordinary looking couple from out of town brings an ordinary baby to the temple to do what pretty much every Israelite couple did for their newborn children, Simeon is able to pick out this one from the crowd as being different.
Most of us would have seen nothing more than one more cute little baby with its slightly bewildered parents going through a standard infant presentation ceremony. But Simeon, his perceptive faculties fine-tuned by decades of being immersed in scripture and the life of prayer, sees the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophesy. “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.” The Lord has come to his Temple in this baby. Here is the salvation prepared by God. Here is the one who shall be a light to enlighten the gentiles and the glory of God's people Israel. And in a rather fitting tribute to Simeon's faithfulness, his prayer recorded here by the evangelist Luke, has been picked up in almost every Christian tradition that practices daily prayer as one of the songs sung in Evening Prayer or Compline. It‘s known traditionally by its Latin name, Nunc Dimittis, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace.”
Simeon’s words are not all sweetness and light. He sees opposition to Mary’s Son and a sword piercing her soul also. A much greater sacrifice will be required to redeem the whole world than two turtle doves and two pigeons. The sacrifice of Christ is, in this way, announced at the very beginning of Luke’s Gospel in the prophetic words of old Simeon.
A similar example of faithfulness is given to us in Anna, described as a prophet and the daughter of Phanuel. She was eighty four years of age, and widowed, probably since her mid-twenties. We’re told that she never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer day and night. She was almost certainly not on her knees twenty four hours a day for sixty years. She undoubtedly lived in staff quarters at the temple, performed various tasks around the precincts, and participated in all the various services of worship and prayer that punctuated the rhythm of each day in the temple. But like Simeon, through her life-long immersion in spiritual practices and prayer she developed the prophetic ability to see what is really going on beneath the surface of the events taking place around her. She too sees in this ordinary little religious observance by these new parents the appearance of the long expected-savior of the world.
This little stop on the way home to fulfill religious obligations has turned out to have momentous significance. This is a big day in the Eastern Orthodox calendar. It’s called The Meeting of the Lord in the Temple. The Orthodox icon for this event is on the cover of today’s bulletin. There you will see Simeon holding the child as Anna looks at him and Mary and Joseph standing aside and looking on.
It was a big day in the Western church, too. It got its name “Candlemas” because on this day all the church’s supply of candles for the year was blessed and there was a great candlelight procession as everyone, holding their candles, joined in singing Simeon’s song proclaiming Christ as “the light of revelation to the gentiles and the glory of God’s people Israel.”
In the midst of this auspicious moment in the Temple, we see a new-born baby already being introduced to the ritual rhythms and devotions of his people, an introduction that will continue as Mary and Joseph return to Nazareth, where, as Luke reports, “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.”
At the other end of life we see these two elderly people, whose lives have been shaped and refined by a constant rhythm of prayer and listening to the scriptures, preparing to depart this life in peace. Simeon’s song is also sung at funerals.
So today's Gospel tells about momentous prophesies and gives us a high religious moment. But it also tells about the return to everyday life, to the concerns of raising a kid, earning a living, and maintaining a spirituality in the midst of ordinary routines. It's just here, in the matter of spirituality for everyday life, that I think this gospel has something to say to us.
With Mary and Joseph we too go back to normal, whatever that is for us, after the hype and joy of the Christmas season. That season is now complete, and you can take down your Christmas lights if you haven’t already. But having beheld the light of revelation to the nations and the glory of God’s people in word and sacrament, we have a lot to ponder as we contemplate the new year just beginning. Maybe the examples of Simeon’s and Anna’s devotion will be an inspiration to us to find a way to be immersed in liturgy, prayer, and scripture throughout our lives, so that, like them, we too will be able to perceive with clarity what God is doing in the people and events and conditions we will encounter in this not-so-ordinary time. For example, since we have shared our liturgical festival with ground hogs, we might inquire how they’re faring with climate change. Also the bees that produce wax for our church candles. There is definitely a connection between Candlemas and ground hogs and bees. Amen.
Pastor Frank Senn