THE PRESENTATION OF JESUS IN THE TEMPLE

Luke 2:22-40

1st Sunday of Advent Christmas, December 29, 2024

Pastor Ritva H Williams

We gathered here four days ago to celebrate the birth of Christ. We looked back to his birth in ancient Bethlehem even as we opened our hearts for the Christ-child to be born anew within each of us.  It is still Christmas here in the church and in our homes — at least for those of us who keep the 12 days of Christmas.  

Today on this first Sunday of Christmas our gospel reading touches down very briefly on the eighth day after the birth of the babe of Bethlehem to tell us that he was circumcised and named Jesus.  Then the story jumps ahead six weeks, to the family’s visit to the Temple in Jerusalem. As a firstborn son, Jesus is dedicated to God, and sacrificial offerings are made to acknowledge Mary’s role in the miracle of birth. 

Catherine Smith describes the scene lyrically in these excerpts from her poem “Simeon and Anna: Life-Rubbed Glory.” (February 2, 2022, hemofthelight.com)

On the steps of the temple,

Nearly invisible, a couple pauses in the outer court to make their purchase. 

The man’s rough fingers count out change for a pair of pigeons, 

all they can afford to purchase as a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the birth of their son. 

With the humblest offering permissible,

Jesus is brought into the community of religious tradition, 

the Temple, a place with which he will not always be in easy relationship. 

We watch the young couple.  

We watch their tired posture, for they have travelled far in the last forty days, 

from Nazareth to Bethlehem to Jerusalem. 

We watch the pair cross the vast temple court floor, 

one holding the baby and the other the doves in their makeshift carrier.  

We see from the look on Joseph’s face that he feels a tinge of failure 

He longs to provide more than a pair of dun brown birds for this one 

whom shepherds have come down the hills to worship.  

We wonder as we watch this man, about the expectations religious community 

may place on those who have little money to give. 

We wonder how we might ease the burden of those who carry great blessing 

with little material resource to support their work in the world. 

We feel this question as we watch the face of Joseph 

and as we notice the ragged hem of Mary’s faded clothing, 

the way she sets her feet down, blistered with walking, with carrying the child of blessing.

And then we see Simeon. Moving over the temple floor, we see him.

This man of great age, his skin thinned and soft, his eyes worn with seeing,

his step achingly deliberate on the stone tiles.

Somehow he knows that this scared man and this foot-bruised woman 

bear the Messiah he has long waited to see. 

… 

Simeon. A still-hearted man.  A tall, quieted man on the temple steps.

A man known for his self-containment now bursts in one hugely inappropriate act into song. 

…

Simeon is not passive or quiescent. 

He is not unaware of the troubles all around this couple and this world; 

he has prophetic, weather-beaten words for Mary, “this child is for the falling and rising of many”, and “a sword will pierce your heart” too. 

They are terrible and tender words; all the love that fills him is in them. 

He is not unaware of trouble, 

but he knows what he has been given and he stands content and constant still,

offering himself to the weary young couple who have so much further to go.

By Simeon, there is Anna, daughter of Phanual, to teach us. 

Watching it all from behind the temple drapery, its soft purple cloth clutched in her tremorous hand, 

the joy of the sight of this infant Messiah both tendering and emboldening her. 

Anna will soon burst from the temple in which she has lived like a ghost for 80 years  

In the bright outdoors, squinting and grinning she will share uncontainable joy with those who have come mostly for law and ritual and out of habit 

Eighty years new Anna will somehow infuse all those with whom she speaks with the possibility of the overflowing now. 

She will stand to this day as a prophetess of joy and wholeness.

Finally and firstly there is the child given into our tired arms into our often flagging hopes. 

God, carried into the midst of all our religious ritual and tradition in arms of poverty and uncertainty. 

God embraced prodigally by one who all his life has been sustained only by hope in a divine promise. 

God witnessed to by a reclusive, aging woman. 

God written into this day by people we may never have noticed had we met them downtown or had them slide into the pew next to us. 

In Simeon we are shown, that hopes long nurtured may in an unlikely instant be fulfilled.

In Anna, that however quietly one has watched the progress of life one may be in an instant, transformed into a vibrant witness of Joy. 

That like the Holy Child we may sometimes need to be carried in arms we can scarcely believe are capable…

Who are you in this gospel story? Mary and Joseph, deeply committed to their faith, doing the best they can with the resources they have at hand? Simeon, old and steadfast, thankful to see salvation manifest, but worn out by years of faithful service, ready to be done? Anna, widowed and alone, finding meaning in her commitment to God’s mission, energized and inspired to begin a new ministry of sharing the good news?

Here is another set of questions to ponder. When you behold the Christ child who and what do you see? Anna sees in the Christ-child the redemption of Jerusalem—the deliverance of the holy city from foreign occupation, injustice, corruption that result too many of its residents living in poverty and sickness. Simeon sees in the Christ-child, God’s salvation of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles —i.e. non-Jews, non-believers, “those” people, “others” not like us.

As a reminder: Redemption is about deliverance and liberation from whatever ails us. Salvation is about healing, reconciliation, flourishing and wholeness. 

May these questions and pondering help us to discern how to got about doing what comes next, because we know that … 

When the carols have been stilled, when the star-topped tree has been taken down, 

When family and friends are gone home, when we are back to our schedules.

The work of Christmas begins.

To welcome the refugee. To heal a broken planet.

To build bridges of trust, not walls of fear.

To share our gifts. 

To seek justice and peace for all people.

To bring Christ’s light to the world. 

(adapted by Michael Dougherty from the original by Howard Thurman). 

Amen. Amen. Let us make it so.