When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,” and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying, “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.” (Luke 2.22-31)
Traditionally, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord takes place forty days after Christmas, that is on February 2nd. As it so happens, that day falls on a Sunday this year, so it co-opts the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, meaning the readings are those of the Presentation, not those of the Fourth Sunday. Although this feast does not have the rank of a solemnity, such as Easter and Christmas do, it is nonetheless an important feast with possible roots already in the 4th century.
The story of the presentation is told to us only in the Gospel of Luke, much the same as we only find the story of the finding of the child Jesus in the temple in the Lucan text. Oddly, Luke combines two separate Jewish events into one in his telling of the story. First, there is the purification of Mary, a prescription found in the Book of Leviticus that required the mother of a newborn child to be “purified” after forty days if the child was male and eighty days if the child was female. Again, much of this had to do with the passing of blood during delivery.
The second observance was the presentation of a firstborn child in the Temple as stipulated in the Book of Exodus where the Lord God instructed the people, “Sanctify to me all of the firstborn, whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of animal. It is mine.” It reflects the saving of the firstborn Jewish males when the tenth plague of Egypt resulted in the deaths of the baby boys of the Egyptians.
As a result of the Lord God laying claim to all subsequent firstborn males of Jewish mothers, it was necessary for the parents to “buy back” the child, this accomplished by offering in its stead either a year-old lamb or a young pigeon or a turtledove. Which one was purchased and sacrificed was determined by the material means of the woman. If a woman could not afford a lamb, then she was permitted to sacrifice two pigeons or two turtledoves.
That Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph offered a pair of turtledoves directs our attention to their status as poor people, something the evangelist wants us to note here early on in the gospel, the theme of the Lord God’s care and concern for the poor and the lowly a principal point throughout this particular gospel, unparalleled in any of the other gospels.
Actually, the performance of the ritual as prescribed by the Jewish religious law does not garner the most attention in the story. It is handled in two short verses. Instead, the greater part of the story puts two figures before us, that of Simeon and Anna who happen to be in the Temple at the same time as Mary and Joseph and who encounter the parents with their newborn infant.
Both figures have become well-known in the subsequent tradition, Simeon epitomizing the “righteous and devout man,” while Anna symbolizes the person who prays ceaselessly, Luke describing her to us as a woman who “never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.” If one wants role models for the followers of the Lord Jesus, then Luke has given us two of the best in this pair.
For whatever reason, Luke has Simeon do all the talking, his words to the parents of Jesus two long expositions, the first one of joy, the second one of prediction of the destiny of the child who will be responsible “for the fall and rise of many in Israel.” Interestingly, Simeon is the one who looks ahead but it is Anna who is called a prophetess by Luke, although she never speaks directly in the text. Luke simply says she “gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.”
No doubt, both Simeon and Anna are fascinating figures as well as important role models, standing here at the start of the gospel as two people who see clearly that the child before them is the answer to the longings of the Jewish people for a messiah. Simeon articulates that belief in his beautiful response when he sees the child and takes him into his arms, saying aloud, “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.” Anna apparently did much the same when she spoke about the child.
Truly, their usefulness has not diminished any in the passing of time, and, instead, may have grown, particularly in times such as our own when faith is in short supply and when hope for the future seems lost. Both of them–Simeon and Anna–stand before us today, reminding us that followers of the Lord Jesus do not have the option of abandoning their faith or of losing their hope, whatever the challenges of the times and however deep the darkness of the days.
Quite the opposite, if we want to model these two early saints. We rightly can infer from the text that Simeon is an old man, that inference allowed first by Luke’s description of him as “awaiting the consolation of Israel,” and by Simeon’s words that the Lord can now release him in peace because he has seen with his own eyes the fulfillment of the long-awaited hope.
And those long years surely had been spent in longing and in looking for the messiah, someone that he was promised he would see before the end of his life. And because he is described as righteous and devout, we can safely say he did not spend those many years idly, his faith and his hope withering away even as the wrinkles grew heavier on his face. No, instead, in the words of one commentator, he had prayed “a thousand prayers, hoped a thousand hopes, and suffered a thousand disappointments.” And through it all, he stood firm in his faith.
Of course, Luke leaves no doubt in our minds as to Anna’s old age, stating upfront that she was eighty-four years old, having spent almost the entirety of her adult life in the temple, except for the seven years she had spent with her husband when he was alive. Day after day, month after month, year after year, she never left the temple, but prayed steadfastly for the deliverance of the people of Israel.
Little wonder, then, that she was ecstatic in her thanks to God and exuberant in her announcement about the child to any who would listen. She had put in the time just as Simeon had. Both of them had somehow managed to keep up their spirits even as their bodies were wearied and worn out by the years. Although every day as they looked around they saw another reason to lose hope, they held onto the promise made by the Most High God for the redemption of Jerusalem.
If we find ourselves in the same situation–and many of us do as we see so much darkness around us–then we need to find within ourselves the strength to believe in better days, the optimism to see a brighter tomorrow, and the belief that God will heed our prayers. Rather than sequester ourselves behind walls of doubt, despair, and depression, we have to find the resolve, resistance, and the resilience to continue the fight to see that the hungry are fed, the homeless are sheltered, and the hounded are protected.
In the same way that Simeon and Anna held tightly onto hope while the powers of Rome plundered their land, paraded through their streets, and prosecuted any who stood in opposition to its iron fist, we also must drink from the cup of hope even if we have to dip deep into the well to find a few drops. Fueled by faith, we fight the fight so long as we have air in our lungs and a voice in our throats.
Luke describes Simeon as a man who had the Holy Spirit upon him. That same spirit resides inside us and so long as we allow it to move us to get up each morning, to put our feet on the road, and to do the job assigned to us as followers of the Lord Jesus, then the day will come–perhaps not tomorrow, maybe in a future we cannot see–when we will see the same signs of redemption as Simeon did.
Last year, the Russian dissident and activist Alexei Novalny died in his prison cell in Siberia where he had been sentenced by the corrupt courts of that country for nineteen years, having already served several years in prison and having suffered through a near fatal poisoning. Yet, he continued the fight for justice and fairness regardless of the price he had to pay. On more than one occasion, he said to those who like him refused to bow before those who held the power, “You’re not allowed to give up.” You’re not allowed to give up.
As followers of the Lord Jesus who gave food to the starving, who cared for the sick, and who embraced the shunned, we are not allowed to give up, even if we feel beaten down and our spirits are broken by all hatred, persecution, and injustice that we witness every day in our world. The answer is obvious. If we give up, then the hungry will not be fed, the imprisoned will not be freed, and the persecuted will not have someone on their side.
We may want to remember that the Feast of the Presentation had another name for many centuries. It was called Candlemas. The name came from the blessing of candles that occurred on the feast. People would bring candles from their homes to be blessed and the candles that were used for the year ahead in all church functions would be blessed at that Mass on February 2nd.
The ancient tradition was rooted in Simeon’s words as he held the child Jesus in his arms, pronouncing him to be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory for your people Israel.” The candles served as a reminder of the light of Christ that came into the world to fight the darkness that always seeks to diminish the light of goodness, right, and justice.
With the celebration occurring during the winter, a season noted for its overcast skies and dark, dreary days, the candles not only brought physical light into the dark spaces where people lived, but also served as a summons to hope for a better day and a better world, a time and a place where the ways of God rule the hearts of men rather than the ways of wrongdoing.
So, with Simeon and Anna as our patron saints, both of them stooped from their long years but still standing firm, we easily see the signs of darkness around us, but we also see the light at the end of the tunnel, holding tightly onto hope, walking not so much by sight but by faith, sure that the day will come when our eyes also “will see the salvation that God has prepared in the sight of all the peoples.”
–Jeremy Myers
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