How we witness and embody our faith
The Presentation of Our Lord | Luke 2:22-40
Last week, we were in the synagogue, remember? That gospel was from Luke chapter four. Jesus had left the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan with power and Jesus keeps throwing it back at him. Is that all you got? That’s the vibe, right? You’ve got to do better than that.
So then Jesus goes home and is preaching and people aren’t just loving it, they are rapturously enveloped by it and amazed by him, and he heads to the synagogue and reads from Isaiah about this being the year of the Lord’s favor and Jesus says. The scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And the people are astounded.
We normally would get the second half of that story this week. The part where they stop listening to him and Jesus names their sin and they get mad enough to try and kill him. Which isn’t usually a response to being called out — it’s a response when you feel guilty.
But this Sunday lands on the Presentation of Our Lord, the day commonly known as Candlemas. So our gospel reading is drawn from earlier, chapter two, when Jesus’s parents, Mary and Joseph, brought the family to the Temple “for their purification according to the law of Moses.”
This is awfully pregnant wording the evangelist uses because there is a lot going on here.
So first, purification.
In the Torah (see Leviticus 12), it commands that women become ritually impure in childbirth and must wait a certain period of time before they can seek the rituals of purification.
For women, this was common, as variations of these rituals are done after menstruation, for example. So, while it is politically complicated, it was very normal to the female experience in that era.
The rules state that if you give birth to a boy, you are impure for seven days, which is then followed by thirty-three days of purification. Which is why we celebrate the purification of Mary today — it’s the end of the purification period. Now, if you give birth to a girl, you are impure for fourteen days, followed by sixty-six days of purification. Why? Well, let’s just say it’s hard to say it isn’t misogyny.
But notice that Luke said it is for their purification. The evangelist seems to be saying it isn’t about the thing the woman has to do — that this is a communal experience — and the family is being purified, not just the mother. Not just her femaleness.
And further, Luke ties into this an allusion to an ancient tradition.
The presentation.
In chapter 22 of Exodus, it refers to the offering of firstborn sons as a sacrifice to God. This was to match the tradition of offering the first fruits of the harvest and the first of the livestock to be slaughtered, which were given to the Temple as an offering. The best of the litter, as it were. And the command was to give the firstborn son to God, which would be reflected in the Hebrew scriptures as a familial tithe to the faith; an offering to the priesthood in liturgical service.
Centuries later, even as this tradition left the people, it would show up in an interesting corollary, as first born sons, rather than as an offering to God, became an offering to selfish power as these became the kings who assume the throne, ostensibly for the glory of God. And it was the second-born, like young Henry VIII, who planned to offer themselves to the church. A telling reversal of the traditional order. And many of us today tend to get our ordering confused.
The familial purification of the holy family, which is the family presenting itself to the temple to be an offering, a sacrifice, a common-bonded people to be renewed by the grace and mercy of God, receives an incredible welcome as Simeon unveils a response as moving as Zechariah’s months before, when his tongue was unlocked after the birth and naming of Jesus’s cousin, John. Simeon declares that Jesus is the bringer of justice that Mary sang about at the angel’s invitation, that the glory of God would fall upon her, the lowliest of servants. That the mighty would be brought low and the glory of God would be upon them all.
And here, the message is even bigger than they imagined, amazing in its scope. The God of all creation, the cosmos, is not just a liberator of the oppressed, and the father of these children of Israel, but would be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles,” bringing the good news to everybody.
Another prophet, Anna, an octogenarian widow, started proclaiming the good news, praising the child, and offering more joyous revelation of God, for those “who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Presentation as Symbol
It should be noted that we refer to this as the Presentation of Our Lord rather than the Purification of the Holy Family. I suspect the evangelist we call Luke might consider this a regrettable decision. But Christians have long considered this witness of God’s glorification in Jesus, as a presented offering, the firstborn sacrifice to God as mirroring the sacrificial love in the crucifixion. And that this further ties the two covenants together into one. Jesus becomes the new covenant as a reflection of the old. And because we can see the glory in Jesus, we therefore can experience his grace ourselves. In baptism and communion, in sacramental life and in common fellowship with one another.
The Presentation then becomes a symbol; not merely of sacrifice, but of pattern, ritual, liturgy — the life of pursuing connection to our common grace.
And I suspect that is the reason the symbolism so affected people of faith. Not that the theological connection between Jesus and Levitical laws is all that inspiring (I mean, seriously!) — but it is very human, physical, to do something. To know what you are supposed to do in a given situation. To bring the first born to the temple to offer, to honor, to give and receive grace. We do the same with church; arriving with expectations for our service. And grateful that we know what we’re supposed to do when we wake up on Sunday.
Liturgy isn’t itself enough, however. And brunch or sleeping in or weariness of other people become simple opportunities to overwhelm our convictions. To go against our desire for continuity, commitment, and practices we appreciate.
Sometimes we doll it up.
We make our liturgies a little extra. That’s how this day became known as Candlemas. Because, at some point, someone made a candle mass, when people would bring candles to be blessed for use throughout the year, drawing from Simeon’s praise of Jesus: “a light for revelation to the Gentiles.” Extra, novel.
The novelty of annual traditions is notable and familiar to all of us. And no doubt some of us are sitting here thinking “I wish I had brought some candles to church today!” And I assure you that this is a fine tradition. We can bless them later if you like. But these traditions are flights into more liturgy rather than diving deeper into the purpose of these traditions, these acts of praise.
As much as this gospel reveals an event in which the holy family came for purification and Jesus’s presentation, the story has so little to do with that. And it has so much to do with the grace of God and the witness of people to that grace. Of Simeon and Anna proclaiming the good news, of Mary, Joseph, and the people hearing these words of revelation. Of our hearing this revelation about the Messiah. Who he would become and affirming what we know him to be.
Witnessing small incidents
It is, as the church describes in Lesser Feasts and Fasts, a “small incident.” One that we might discover has resonance for us. For how we see Jesus and his ministry in the world — as one with creation and as salvation and redemption for it.
Doesn’t this resonate with what we’ve been exploring the last few weeks, too? That a huge part of faith is bearing witness — not just to the grace of God but to the grace of God through other people? That the light has come, not only in the person of Jesus in a historical moment or in the reading of Scripture, but in the grace and mercy of people of faith who know him?
It is a miracle to be able to observe it with our own senses. Just as Mary and Joseph do — not just in the child Jesus growing with them “filled with wisdom; and the favor of God” — but in Simeon and Anna proclaiming what they see.
We witness to the Spirit’s power, her presence with us, in us, around us, among us, through us, above us, in all of us and how do we respond? Sometimes it is just “Wow!” That is all we’ve got. “Wow!” Sometimes it is way more than that. Paragraphs and paragraphs about the amazing thing we’ve seen.
And if it’s been awhile since you’ve said “Wow!” Let me suggest this simple response: take a break. You’re welcome to do this now. It can be done anywhere. Stare out a window or close your eyes. Let your mind go quiet. It might take some time. And think of a time when you felt loved. Stupid loved. Loved by someone who didn’t need to love you like that. What does it feel like? What does it feel like now?
Maybe now think of someone you have wronged — and they still loved you afterward. What does that feel like? Picture them. Their face. What color is their hair? Their eyes? Maybe acknowledge their touch, a hand on a shoulder or an embrace? Sit in their love and say “Wow!”
We all know love — even if it is only from one another here. We all know love and grace. We are witnesses to that love and grace, and we are grounded in that love and grace. This is our light in the darkness, the true note in the noise. Find that joy every day. Sit in it and really know it deep down. And then share it because it is the foundation of all our work.