4 Epiphany 2014

4 Epiphany 2014

Some of you may be a little in shock today—not so much about the weather—but because of the number of possible Feasts that we could choose to commemorate today.

Yesterday was the feast of St. Brigid, one of the great women saints of Ireland. Tomorrow is the feast day of both St. Blaise and St. Anskar. Today, of course, happens not only to be the feast of both the Synaxis of the Holy Groundhog, and the Holy Super Bowl, but also (eh.) Candlemas and the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.

Now, I can guess which one of these most of you are hoping for, but I have decided to wait to observe the Synaxis of the Holy Groundhog until next year. So, today, we’ll just have to make due with the Presentation.

Well, the Presentation, for those of you who don’t know, is the day that we remember when Jesus, as a baby was presented in the Temple. This was a requirement according to the Law of Moses—as we have read in the Gospel reading. However, while this is a feast commemorating  an important event in the life of Jesus—in reality, it has more to do with Mary. Because, what we find if we look at what the Law of Moses says, we find that it is a requirement that a woman go to the Temple to offer sacrifice a certain number of days after she has given birth to a child. In keeping this Law, then, she is allowed to be considered ritually clean, and able to return to normal life.

However, before we start wondering why the feast day isn’t called something like “The Ritual Purification of Mary After Giving Birth to Jesus Day,” there is another part of the Law’s history that needs to be considered. And this is the idea that a first born son is supposed to be taken to the Temple, and dedicated to God, as a reminder that Israel was delivered from Egypt—and the first born sons of Israel were spared… So, perhaps it’s a bit ironic that Jesus, who we call our Passover Lamb should receive this sacramental sign.

Well, what happens when Jesus is presented in the Temple is actually pretty amazing. We know that Mary and Joseph presented the required sacrifice of two turtledoves—this was acceptable because they were poor and couldn’t afford the preferred yearling lamb. We also happen to know that when Simeon, the priest sees Jesus, he is overwhelmed, and we’re told the he was promised not to die before he saw the Messiah.

What I think is lovely about this is that even as an infant, the presence of Jesus was enough to give this elderly man comfort. And, of course, he offers this beautiful prayer that we still use today in our prayer offices—the Nunc Dimittis. (Legend: Only one of the 70 rabbis responsible for translating the Septuagint was said to have translated Isaiah to say that "a young woman will conceive," with the others translating it as "a virgin will conceive." The legend tells that this one rabbi was told that he would not rest in death until it was proven to him that God's plan was for a virgin to conceive a child. This rabbi was supposedly Simeon, and upon seeing Jesus, the promise was fulfilled.)

Anyway, along with Simeon, we’re told that there is also this woman, Anna, who is called a prophetess. Of course, like Simeon, when she sees Jesus, recognizes him as the Messiah. And the reading tells us that she spent the rest of her life telling people about the Messiah having been born.  

Now, even though I sort of made light of the Presentation being a Feast of the Church; what I do find to be interesting is the story behind it. I mean, the New Testament is full of people whose lives were changed by a simple brush with Jesus. There was the Roman Centurian; the Syro-Phoenican Woman; the Woman at the Well; the Gerasene Demoniac; the Woman with the Hemorrhage; and Blind Bartimaeus—and these are only a few. Obviously it’s hard to miss that most of these people don’t have names, but their stories are integral to the Gospel narratives.

In fact, the Gospels are made up with the connective tissue of people who are briefly touched, or brushed by the divine in Jesus Christ. Of course the purpose of these accounts is to reveal the identity and power of Jesus.

However, in our Gospel reading today…these two people who encounter Jesus are meeting him as an infant. And while I know there are a number of legends about Jesus performing miracles even as an infant—in our reading today, we have no indication of that sort of thing. Simeon and Anna just know—they just know, and perhaps they know because they’ve been waiting their whole lives to finally see the Savior.

Now, while this was obviously a life changing moment for Simeon and Anna—and, of course, an important enough event for it to be a feast day; what I also find interesting is that this event was probably not noticed by anyone else in the Temple…

I suppose in our imaginations, we have this vision of everything being quiet and reverent. Maybe we think that Simeon and Anna were in some centralized space; and in the quiet solitude of Temple worship, Jesus was presented, and all in attendance were suddenly enlightened by his presence.

Well, while this would make a great scene in a movie, this probably wouldn’t be what the experience was like. After all, we might remember from Jesus’ later life that the court outside the Temple functioned a lot like a marketplace, and there were stalls with people selling animals and everything else pilgrims would need for Temple sacrifice.

And then, you have to remember that the Temple priests were there offering sacrifices all throughout the day—and not all of the priests were responsible for sacrifice. There were the priests who were probably in charge of making sure food items were kosher. There were others who were taking care of the various other offices like circumcision—and like Simeon, offering the rites for children being presented in the Temple.

So, if we consider all that is probably already happening in the Temple proper, and then add-in the number of other children probably being presented in the Temple…well, the scope and scale of the presentation of Jesus is kind of diminished a little bit.

However, far from taking away from the importance of the event, I think it instead firmly roots it in reality. Powerfully so, even…

Because, I think if this event were as big as our imaginations make it out to be, we might stop and wonder how this fits in context with the rest of Jesus’ life. Obviously after this moment, Jesus was not immediately accepted as the Messiah by all of Israel. Instead, like everyone else, Jesus and his family went back home and went on with their lives. And if the Gospels are any indication, the next 30 years were unremarkable.

However, like Simeon, Anna, and all of the other nameless people that we meet throughout the Gospels—the people who had a real brush with God in the person of Jesus Christ; well, nothing about him was unremarkable.

In fact, we know that Simeon felt that he was allowed to finally rest, because he had seen the Savior. Anna, this elderly prophetess who had found her role in the life of the Temple finds renewed meaning in her work as she begins telling people about the Messiah being born. And it’s because of this small brush with Jesus that they’re remembered in Church Tradition as the last of the Old Testament prophets, and are venerated as saints.

But they’re obviously not alone. The Gerasene Demoniac (you remember “Legion”), tradition tells us, turned up not only later on as a follower of Jesus, but is even apparently present at the Resurrection.

The Syro-Phoenecian  woman, with her clever repartee with Jesus about dogs and crumbs is even now the subject of conversation and controversy—but is still a person whose story teaches us.

The woman at the well, whose witty conversation with Jesus scandalized the disciples, but still remains an example of Jesus reaching out to the disenfranchised.

Again, these are only a few examples, but all of them are remembered for their small part that they played in the Gospel narratives. However, while their parts might seem small in the context of the whole, I would imagine that for them, their brush with Jesus was the most important moment in their lives. So much so, that we remember them and respect them today not as foils for Jesus—but as people who were able to reflect the glory of Jesus Christ through their frail humanity. 

So with all of this in mind—this idea of a brush with Jesus changing lives, and how such moments shape and give form to the Gospel narratives: It makes me wonder…

Where have our brushes with the divine been in our lives? Where are the places where we have met Jesus Christ in our lives?

Were these more than just slight brushes, or were they life changing events? Either way, as we’ve seen in the examples of Simeon and Anna, even the smallest experience with Christ in our lives is enough to change us. What’s more, it’s such moments that shape the Gospel narratives.

So, I suppose for us, whether our experience was momentary, or momentous—how will we allow such experiences to be known? And how will we allow our stories to be part of Christ’s story and the Gospel?