Presentation
of Christ in the Temple (Purification), St Mark's, 2,2,97
Malachi 3.1-5 ("the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his
temple")
1 Peter 2.1-10 (Temple imagery: Christ as the cornerstone; stone of judgement)
Luke 2.22-35 (Purification; Simeon's song: fall & rise & sword) (2279
words)
Today is the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, also known as
the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and commonly called
Candlemas, a name based on the formerly widespread custom of lighting many
candles on this day because of Simeon's words about Jesus being "a light to
lighten the Gentiles". Because of the encounter of Jesus with Simeon
the Eastern Church calls the day "Hypapante", which means The Meeting,
that is, the meeting of our Lord and Simeon.
This feast originated in the late fourth century in the church in Jerusalem,
where it was observed on Fenruary 14th. But when Christmas day became
widely established today's feast was moved back to February 2nd to make it fall
on the 40th day from the nativity as required by the Book of Leviticus.
Obviously, today's Gospel is the basis for the feast, namely, the story peculiar
to Luke, of Mary and Joseph taking Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem in order to
present him to the Lord as the firstborn child and to make the two offerings
required by Leviticus, one to redeem the child and one for the mother's
purification.
Before we look more closely at his, let us stop to think
about what we have just done. Namely, we stood to hear the Gospel
although we sat to hear the other two readings. Have you ever asked
yourself why we do this? By centuries-old tradition the reading of
the Gospel at the Eucharist has been set apart by special ceremonies. In
its most solemn setting there is a procession during the Gradual. The
crucifer, flanked by torches, lads the procession, followed by a thurifer, then
by the bearer of the Gospels, and the one who is to chant or read the Gospel
brings up the rear. When the special place for the proclamation of the
Gospel has been reached, the crucifer and everyone else, including all the
congregation, turn to face the book, and the two torchbearers flank the book
itself.
Having announced the Gospel, the reader, traditionally a
deacon, takes the thurible and honours the book of the Gospels by censing it,
while all the congregation say or sing an acclamation such as "Glory to
Christ our Saviour". And when the Gospel has been read we have the
second acclamation, namely, "Praise to Christ our Lord".
Our gospels are not our earliest Christian writings.
Historically speaking, the letters that are actually by St Paul are earlier,
with the gospels as we have them coming one or two generations later, but yet it
is the Gospels that have the greater honour paid to them. why?
Initially it was because they were believed to consist of the precise words and
actions of our Lord, and therefore to highlight the book of the gospels with
special ceremonies was to help focus our full attention on what Jesus had said
and done. While we recognize today that not everything that is written in
the Gospels is precisely what Jesus said and did, we still have good reason to
give the reading of the Gospel our special, attention. and that reason is
this: each one of our four Gospels was written to be the unique and normative
form of the traditions about Jesus for the community for which it was written.
Let me unpack that a bit. Each gospel writer wrote for his own church, his
local community of Christians, or group of communities, to present the tradition
of what Jesus had said and done and to present it in a way that made it relevant
to the needs, hopes and challenges facing those Christians in their own
setting. So the Markan community had the Gospel according to Mark, the
Matthaean community had Matthew, the Lukan community had Luke and Acts and the
Johannine community had John, and we know that other communities had other
gospels, such as the Gospel top the Hebrews, which have been lost.
Incidentally, the names attached to the Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -
are what we might call no more than educated guesses made in the second century
AD. But our four Gospels were written for four different groups of
Christians, each with its own unique situation. As people travelled from
one church to another, so they became aware that a different gospel was being
read on Sunday from the one they were used to back home. And so the
various churches began to swap copies with each other, so that finally every
church had several gospels with the end result being what we have today.
But it remains the fact that each evangelist has, what we might call, a
different axe to grind, and so we nee to hear the unique witness to Christ that
each evangelist has to make.
That is why, incidentally7, from November of this year we
shall be able to use a new Eucharistic Lectionary, the so-called Common
Lectionary, which centres on a different Gospel each year and which will be the
Sunday lectionary in the revised ASB.
So let us now look at today's gospel, not simply as a story
about Jesus, but rather in terms of what Luke is trying to present in his
gospel.
Jesus is Mary's firstborn, and therefore if he were an
animal, he would have been sacrificed. Instead, being a human baby, he is
redeemed by the offering of one of the two turtle doves or two young
pigeons. In the Book of Leviticus, this was the least that could be
offered. If the parents were richer, they were expected to offer more,
with the redemption offering being a young lamb. So Luke presents the holy
family as not being well-to-do in earthly goods, but they are God-fearing and
God-loving parents, who taught Jesus to be like them by their word and by their
example.
If we had continued our gospel reading to the end of the
story we would have heard of the encounter with the prophet Anna and the
treading would have ended with: "They returned to their own city, Nazareth,
and the child grew, became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favour of God was
upon him" (Luke 2.40).
Luke's next story tells of the family going to Jerusalem when
Jesus is 12 years old for the Feast of Passover, the great feast celebrating
Israel's release from slavery in Egypt. Passover was one of the three
so-called "Pilgrimage Feasts", the other two being Pentecost and
Tabernacles. Like Muslims making the pilgrimage to Mecca, so even more
anciently, Jews were expected to travel to Jerusalem for these feasts if at all
possible, but Luke only tells of the family going up for Passover.
This is the story in which the parents find Jesus in the
temple asking questions and saying he must be about his Father's business.
It may be that Luke's emphasis on Jesus asking questions is based on Passover
itself, for Passover is the feast on which the youngest child of the family asks
the question, "Father, why is this night unlike every other
night?" And this story, like the first one, ends with the words
"And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to
them. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in age of strength and in favour
with God and man" (Luke 2.51 f.).
Throughout the Old Testament, from the story of Joseph in
Egypt onwards, writer after writer and prophet after prophet talks of the marks
of a true human being or a true human community as being those of wisdom,
strength and well-being, with all of these coming only through total dependence
upon God and obedience to him. So Luke is telling us, both at the end of
today's story and at the end of the story that follows it, that Jesus grew into
the God-intended humanity. And Jesus does so by honouring and obeying Mary
and Joseph. And they in turn give him all the love and nurture he needs
for true human growth. It is through them that he learns of God's love, a
love he comes through them to experience so deeply that he calls God
"Abba". Through them he grows up into the one who uniquely could
call on God as "Abba", "Father", and teach his followers to
do the same, as we do every time we pray the Lord's Prayer.
Among the emphases in the Gospel according to Luke there are
three that can be found not only in today's Gospel reading but which permeate
both the rest of the Gospel and also its companion volume, the Book of
Acts. These are Luke's emphasis on Jesus' Jewishness, as seen in the
devout practice of his family, along with a special witness to the place of
women and a strong sense of outreach to the Samaritans and the Gentiles.
In the first century AD many a male Jew would pray, "I
thank thee, O Lord, that I was not born a woman," and only men were taught
the scriptures. It is in this context that John the Baptist's father, the
priest Zechariah, is initially struck dumb for his disbelief, and his wife
Elizabeth wends up as the one who names their son "John", effectively
upstaging her husband. The visitation of Mary to Elizabeth culminates in
the Magnificat, with its talk of the promise to Abraham, whom Jewish tradition
took to have been a proselyte, that is, a convert from paganism. Abraham
was not only reckoned to have been a proselyte but also a maker of
proselytes. In today's story Simeon speaks of Jesus as "a light for
revelation to the Gentiles", and then he directly addresses Mary. The
rest of the story gives prominence to the prophet Anna and her witness.
Furthermore, in the story of the finding of Jesus in the Temple, it is Mary who
speaks and who is said to keep all these things in her heart. It is
striking that Joseph is never presented in Luke as saying a single word.
Later on in the Gospel Jesus commends another Mary for sitting at his feet as a
learner over against her sister Martha who is busy with household chores.
In summary, Luke would have us understand Jesus as being
deeply rooted in Judaism, in the scriptures and the covenant. He would
have us know that women are top have an honoured place beyond the kitchen, so to
speak. And while maintaining Jesus' primary mission as being to his fellow
Israelites, from the beginning of his Gospel Luke looks toward bringing the good
news to all people.
If today is primarily a Christological feast rather than a
feast of St Mary, it is fitting that we should recognize the prominent place
that she has and represents in Luke's witness to the Gospel as brining equal
value to all people, male and female, Jew and Gentile.
There is one further thing that we ought to notice, and that
is that all three of our readings point toward the Messiah as bringing
judgement, a moment of crisis and decision. The reading from Malachi
speaks of the Lord coming to his temple and testifying against all those who
oppress the hired labourer, the widow, the orphan and the stranger. The
reading from 1 Peter speaks of Jesus as the temple's cornerstone which at the
same time is a rock of stumbling. And in the Gospel Simeon's words to Mary
are that Jesus is "destined for the fall and the rising of many in
Israel", and with Luke taking Mary as representing the whole og Israel,
Simeon is presented as adding, "and a sword will pierce your own soul
also".
So what should we take to heart from this feast? I
would suggest four things.
Firstly, it remi9nds us that our Lord was a Jew, and if we
would understand him well we cannot do so on the basis of the New Testament
alone but only through the witness of the whole of the scriptures taken in their
historical context, which is why we, the Church, need not only to read our whole
Bible but we also need the ongoing study and research of biblical scholars if we
would keep a keen cutting edge to our understanding of the Gospel.
Secondly, the prominent place given to women by St Luke both
in his Gospel and in Acts reminds us that the Gospel broke the bounds of
contemporary society then, and therefore, when properly understood, can continue
to judge and challenge the patterns of our society today, as we have seen in
such areas as the abolition of slavery, the combatting of racial and ethnic
prejudice and the ordination of women
Thirdly, the words of Simeon remind us that the Gospel is not
ours to keep but rather ours to share, and to share it without limit to the ends
of the earth.
And finally, this feast reminds us of the centrality of the
family. Let me repeat what I said last September when our Sunday theme [in
the ASB] was "The Family". It is God's intention that every family
should be a Holy Family. And you and I can help to support and nurture
them to that end, whether as sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers,
mothers, grand-parents, aunts, uncles, cousins or just plain neighbours - we can
all do our bit to encourage, give support, give valuable recognition and worth
to people, giving a helping hand and a listening ear that will help others
through a rough patch, etc. St Mary and St Joseph have shown us how.
Let us, upheld by God's love made known in Christ, incarnate that love in our
lives and the lives of those around us.