Coming Face to Face with God

The Rev. Amy Morehous

Feast of the Presentation

Church of the Ascension

February 2, 2014

Let us too stand in the Temple and hold God's Son and embrace him; and that we may deserve leave to withdraw and start on our way towards a better land, let us pray to God, the all-powerful, and to the little Jesus himself, whom we so much want to speak to and hold in our arms. His are glory and power now and always. Amen.

                                              -Origen c. 184-254

Today was once one of the great feast days in the church - it's the Feast of the Presentation. It became commonly known as 'Candlemas' because it was most frequently celebrated by blessing the candles for the coming year, in honor of and thanksgiving for "the light for the revelation to the Gentiles." It is a celebration of the Light of the World coming into the Temple, into the holiest place in all Israel.

One of the first writers to describe this early church feast was a very adventurous nun named Egeria, who took a pilgrimage to the Holy Land early in the church's history. She sent letters back to her sister nuns, and her letter she wrote: "On that day there is a procession, in which all take part ... and all things are done in their order with the greatest joy, just as at Easter. All the priests, and after them the bishop, preach, always taking for their subject that part of the Gospel where Joseph and Mary brought the Lord into the Temple on the fortieth day." So, just as Egeria described in 342, we're casting back to the spirit of the early church, and all the clergy are going to take turns preaching a full sermon today! (Just kidding - we wouldn't do that to you.)

As a faithful Jewish family, Mary and Joseph arrived at the temple to present Jesus for dedication to God, and for Mary's rites of purification after childbirth. According to the ritual laws of the time, this is the first time Mary and Joseph and Jesus would have been able to go to the temple together as a family. They go for blessing and sacrifice and for worship.

If you've had children yourself, when was the first time you went somewhere together as a new family? How did that feel to you? When we first took Katherine anywhere, I was painfully aware of how much more vulnerable this new person was. Anne Lamott says having a child is suddenly realizing that your heart is walking around outside your body. I had no idea how many more things I had to fear until I became a parent.

Mary, Joseph and Jesus bring this tiny, vulnerable human on the six-mile trek from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, to the Temple - the place where the Jewish people believe God is actually present on earth. While they are there, they are found by not one but two extraordinary people - Simeon, and Anna. Remember that Temple complex itself - buildings and markets and courts - was about 35 acres. This is not just like walking into church, and speaking to your neighbor. This is being drawn by the Holy Spirit to a small infant, a small family, in the midst of a small town.

Simeon and Anna are both drawn to Jesus, and they both go to seek him out - they could have resisted, but instead they follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. They leave what they were doing before, and they go to greet this new family. In doing so, they step outside accustomed rules and roles and practices, and do something extraordinary. In doing so, they come face to face with the living and incarnate God.

Anna has spent most of her 84 years as a widow in the temple.  For decades, she has seen people come into the temple, and go. But this child...this child is different. This child is life changing. Something about her encounter with this child makes Anna not only a prophet, but also an evangelist. She "began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem."

And then, Simeon. Simeon, who gives us this beautiful, lyrical song of thanksgiving and praise - the Nunc Dimittis - a canticle that affirms that God keeps promises, affirms that we can rest in peace - for an evening or for a lifetime. The words from Simeon's song close out the service of Compline and have for hundreds of years. It reminds us that God has not forgotten God's people, that God has intervened in history in the wondrous gift of this tiny, vulnerable child. Simeon must have even asked to hold Jesus in his arms. There is something miraculous in holding someone so tiny - it can be almost as if we are looking into the face of the future. In the child he holds, patient, faithful Simeon sees not only possibility, but he sees a promise fulfilled. He holds the light of the world in his arms, and is so moved that he begins to prophesy.

Anna becomes an evangelist. Simeon becomes a prophet. How about you? Have you had an encounter with the living Christ? How did you see him? In the kind act of another faithful person? In worship? In service to someone else?  Where did Christ meet you in surprising and unexpected fashion...and how did you respond? How did your life change? Or has it?

As a people, we like to intellectualize our faith - at least, I know that I do. It's easier to analyze it, to learn about it from a safe distance. There's nothing distant about this Jesus, this tiny, vulnerable human boy. This child is an extraordinary interruption in the ordinary course of events.

It was very easy, as I was writing this sermon, to clutter it up with facts about the Presentation, or Jewish rites of purification, or life in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. I find those things fascinating. And all those facts that I accumulated on paper or up here in my head do help my understanding of what's happening in this Gospel. But I can tell you every fact in my head and if you add them all up together, they aren't even slightly transformational. They weren't life changing, and I'm here to tell you that when the Incarnate Word breaks into your life, it rearranges your priorities and your vision for the future. It changes your very life, and you are never the same again.

Just as the disciples would do for Jesus, Simeon and Anna leave what they were doing, and become new people in Christ. If that doesn't make us uncomfortable...or even make us a little afraid, then maybe we aren't really paying attention. It's hard enough to be vulnerable and honest with one another. How hard is it to be vulnerable and open to God? To leave space for Christ to work within us, when our hearts and our lives are already crowded full of fear and uncertainty? Are we really willing to give up our illusion of control of our own lives? What if God doesn't come through? What if we are stuck here, trusting and hoping for something or Someone who never comes? In all the stuff that surrounds us today, it's easy to grow cynical, to become too cool and too hip to be hopeful. We put our cynicism on as if it were armor - to distance ourselves from potential pain.

So I am not here to give you facts this morning. I'm here to tell you that God keeps promises. I'm here to tell you that Jesus will show up somewhere in your life if you are looking for Him - and sometimes, even if you aren't. Jesus Christ is working within each of our lives already - even when we cannot see him. That's not magic - that's God's gracious gift of presence. Jesus may appear when you least expect it, and he may not look like what you thought.   Simeon may have expected the arrival of a mighty, conquering warrior. Instead, his life was changed by welcoming a tiny, visiting child, and holding him in his arms.

Today, I want to urge you to be willing to let the extraordinary break into the ordinary. To be willing to stop what you're doing, and to listen for the stirrings of the Holy Spirit, and follow where it might lead you. Don't keep Jesus at a safe distance. As Anna was, as Simeon was, allow yourself to be open to a living encounter with Him. If you want to throw caution to the wind, openly pray for Jesus to work in transformative fashion in your life. I challenge you to pray that, and mean it.  Leave open the possibility that He will work in your life, and have faith that you will be changed, that His light will shine from within your heart into the lives of others who still walk in darkness.  

Jesus works by invitation...not by force. Love invites...it does not terrify or compel. Today He is a tiny child, a Light cradled gently in a faithful man's arms.

May we be bold enough to follow the Holy Spirit's leading, and give Christ's holy and transformative light a home in our hearts and space in our lives. May that gift spill out into all the dark places, into a world in need of hope and transformation. And may that holy light illuminate the way home for all who wander.

Amen.

"Behold then, the candle alight in Simeon's hands. You must light your own candles by enkindling them at his, those lamps which the Lord commanded you to bear in your hands. So come to him and be enlightened that you do not so much bear lamps as become them, shining within yourself and radiating light to your neighbors. May there be a lamp in your heart, in your hand and in your mouth: let the lamp in your heart shine for yourself, the lamp in your hand and mouth shine for your neighbors. The lamp in your heart is a reverence for God inspired by faith; the lamp in your hand is the example of a good life; and the lamp in your mouth are the words of consolation you speak.

Then, when the lamp of this mortal life is extinguished, there will appear for you who had so many lamps shining within you the light of unquenchable life, and it will shine for you at the evening of your life like the brightness of the noonday sun."

                        -Guerric of Igny c.1070-1157

        quoted from Celebrating the Seasons, by Robert Atwell