by Rev. Carole Horton-Howe
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
Andrea Celesti, Presentación de Jesús en el Templo, 1710
When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, the parents of Jesus brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel."
And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed-- and a sword will pierce your own soul too."
There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
—Luke 2:22-40 (NRSV)
Today is a day of celebrations and rituals. I’m talking of course about Super Bowl Sunday which has evolved into a national celebration. Even those who don’t care for the actual game or the teams that are playing look forward to gathering to share friendship and food and marvel at the ritual of that all important first commercial break and ponder together was it really worth the millions spent on it?
For us in the church it’s also a special day. It’s Candlemas or The Feast of the Presentation. Candlemas is celebrated 40 days after Christmas Day. It recalls how Jesus was taken to Jerusalem by his parents to the Temple, the most holy of all places of his religious faith, and dedicated to God in an ancient, sacred ritual. And it’s a story of two people who have spent their entire lives waiting for the light that is the Messiah and, after years of patient devotion to God, finally seeing that light.
Maybe because it’s secular and holy feast day, the story of the Holy Family’s encounter with Simeon and Anna reminds me of a story about a young man and his experience, along with his dad, and his lesson in trust and patience. In 1958 the NFC play-off game was between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts featuring their incredible quarterback, Johnny Unitas. Stephen’s dad managed to get 4 tickets for their family but at the last minute his sister became ill and his mom stayed home with her. So they had two tickets to sell with a face value of $8 each.
So they arrive at the stadium and the place is crazy busy, packed with fans and noise and excitement. His dad gets a lot of interest about the tickets but he’s looking for just the right buyer. This goes on for a while and Stephen’s getting impatient. They can hear the band play, the announcement of the teams coming onto the field. Why doesn’t dad just sell the tickets especially when we can get a lot of money for them so they can go in? But his dad waits. Scanning the passing crowd for just the right face. Finally Dad sees just who he’s looking for – an older man, who seems by his appearance to be a working man, with a little boy at his side. Dad approaches him and asks if he’s looking to buy tickets. Yes, comes the answer, and asking how much. “Just looking to get my money back, $16 for the pair,” dad tells him. The older man reaches in his pocket, pulls out a $5, some singles and some change. They all go into the game together.
Stephen says he gained two things that day. First – a friend. The old man’s grandson became a lifelong fast friend as a result of meeting that day. And he gained appreciation for trust with patience - trusting that just who you’re looking for will be there if you have the patience to trust and, drawing strength from that trust, to persevere.
And so it is for the Holy Family in today’s Gospel passage, moving through the crowds of Jerusalem with an infant in arms and sacrifice in hand, headed to the Temple to fulfill a ritual obligation. Imagine the sights and smells of dust and splattered mud, market stalls and incense. Livestock sounds and oven smoke. Voices laughing, arguing. How different from their home in Nazareth it must have been.
Then, as they enter the temple, a man steps into their path. A stranger but with an air of trustworthiness and devotion, of wisdom and hopeful expectation. Eyes locking, Mary places her precious child into his arms as the business of the temple goes on around them. There must have been many couples with baby boys there that day and like every day. But this child and this mother were the answer to Simeon and Anna’s prayers.
Old Simeon, a regular sight at the temple, who has been waiting and waiting for this moment, is rapturous. He’s joined by another elder, Anna, equally so. Mary can tell from Simeon’s expression, though: he knows. He knows this is not just any child. He knows her son is someone truly special. She sees that he sees that her son is light.
Simeon, and Anna too, know who Jesus is not because they happen to be in the right place at the right time but because the Holy Spirit in them allowed them to see that God was at work in this family and this child. Both of them recognized that, in this moment, what Malachi promised had come to pass: “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.” And thus, God had fulfilled God’s promise to Israel; the King of Glory had come in and redemption was at hand.
There will be pain, it’s unavoidable. Those haunting words must also be said, “a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
For Mary the pain and the gladness are interwoven so very tightly, forming a sort of textile whose pattern is not yet clear. There is only this moment, this encounter of blessing and dread, a promise of hope amid endurance, as the city goes about its business.
So we are left a little confused about the Feast of the Presentation. Is it a joyful occasion? A somber one? Can we ever fully separate those two experiences in our lives as followers of Jesus?
Ancient though this encounter might be, the scene is could still seem familiar to us, rushing as we do through the crowded marketplace of 21st-century life. Whether we live in a city or not, we know what it is like to go about our business, focusing on the task at hand. And just when we start to get lost in our own narrative, a stranger bumps into us and tells us something we need to hear -- something true, something that jolts us back into understanding that our God can be trusted to bring us the light we need. It may not be in the time and place and way we expect. But we can live confidently, hopefully that it will come. And we will be drawn into a greater story than ourselves if we look for it and allow it to become part of us.
We had a small group here at St. Matthias last year that read together Krista Tippets’ book “Becoming Wise.” And in it, she tells the story of a Detroit neighborhood that had suffered for years as the economy of the area became worse and worse. Families that were scraping by with both parents working 2 or 3 jobs found themselves devastated and wondering how they would survive when those jobs dried up. Neighborhoods were decimated. Many blocks had more homes abandoned and collapsed than occupied. So folks who were left began to plant gardens and raise their own food in vacant lots.
At first this was for their very survival. But something very tangible and holy happened: they rediscovered real food. Tippet interviewed residents Myrtle Thompson and Wayne Curtis about their experience. They talked effusively about growing three types of kale, tomatoes, bell peppers, squash, strawberries, raspberries – and herbs for seasoning like basil, cilantro and parsley. The news of corn and okra thriving there brought people from all over. A bountiful eggplant crop brought people from Indian culture into the garden and they got recipes. “Along with food we’re growing culture, we’re growing community, we’re growing things to make sure our existence is no longer threatened. Watching people come, watching the kids and seeing stuff grow,” Myrtle said “I didn’t know it would look like that.”
Wayne told her, “It’s not just a garden that gives you the warm fuzzies. When we come here we can see hope pushing up out of the ground. Our identity is no longer connected to Del Monte. We’re part of the whole ecological system that has existed since the beginning. And that changes your relationship with the earth and with another person.”
Planting, harvesting and welcoming gave them a glimpse of the holy revealing the love of God and the truth of the Gospel, that we are made to struggling together in joy and sorrow in community.
As followers of Jesus, in fact, we gain so much by pursuing these hard and surprising encounters, following the Christ Child into the temple, as it were, and seeing who we might find there to tell us about ourselves. When we do, we are placing ourselves in a vulnerable position that risks colliding with strangers and places and ideas. But we know that if we don’t, the Simeons and the Annas of the world will never find us. We will never rejoice with them; we will never see what they see; we will never understand ourselves through them.
And so, on this day, on a feast that contains both joy and sorrow, in a temple that contains both blessing and burden, we learn this:
Every so often, someone of them will stop us in our tracks and change our story forever. Let us look for Simeon; let us look for Anna – enduring the darkness in confident hope of seeing God’s promises to us fulfilled. Let us see the light in each other. It is as simple as this: two strangers in the same place, eyes lock from afar. And the world is never the same.
Amen.