Normally the Feast Day of the Presentation of the Lord does not fall on a Sunday – but this year it does, so we are going to forget Groundhog Day and get a taste for the historical and liturgical richness of the feast day!
In the Christian calendar, this feast is the culmination of the cycle of light – beginning in Advent, four weeks before Christmas, when we light candles for hope, peace, joy and love and then Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, the very Light of God come into the world. Then the Feast of the Epiphany, when the wise men from far away, follow the star of light to honor this child as a light to the nations, and now the final Feast of Light – the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, also called Candlemas.
This is the Feast in which Mary and Joseph bring their newborn son to the Temple, so Mary can complete the purification cleansing ritual forty days after giving birth to a son. When he sees them, the elderly blind prophet, Simeon, takes the child into his arms and proclaims that he can now depart in peace because he has seen God’s salvation, a light for all peoples.
This is an incredibly ancient festival. In 380 A.D., Egeria, an intrepid pilgrim to the Holy Land from the area we now call Portugal, wrote about it in her letters back to her people at home. Here’s a portion of what she wrote:
XXVI. “The fortieth day after the Birth of Christ is undoubtedly celebrated here with the very highest honor, for on that day there is a procession, in which all take part, as in the Anastasis, 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, and Symeon and Anna the prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, saw him…And when everything that is customary has been done in order, the sacrament is celebrated, and the dismissal takes place.”
This is long church, friends! Hours and hours- not sitting in pews, but most likely standing. All the priests and the Bishop preach on the passage that is our Gospel reading for today! The church still has many of the sermons preached on this passage from early church luminaries, including among others the bishops Methodius of Patarg in 312, Gregory the Theologian in 389, Gregory of Nyssa in 400 and John Chrysostom in 407.
Super Bowl is our huge feast day occurring during February! But this infancy narrative scripture is still so important that it is reflected in our own modern day prayer book – in sections that may or may not be very familiar to you. The first is the Thanksgiving for a Child found on page 439, and the second is in our daily offices, Evening Prayer, found on page 115, and Compline, found on page 127. Let’s first turn to the service for Thanksgiving for a Child. The instructions for this service say, that ‘as soon as convenient after the birth of a child, or after receiving a children by adoption, the parents, with other members other the family, should come to the church to be welcomed by the congregation, to give thanks to Almighty God… and at the proper time, the parents and other members the family present themselves before the Altar.” Sound similar to what is happening with Jesus and his mother and father?
For Anglicans, this service has replaced what used to be known as The Churching of Women – which was practiced for many, many years among, many Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican and other denominations. The Churching of Women occurred forty days after the birth of a child, reflecting this passage from our Gospel today. The ceremony included thanksgiving for the woman’s survival of childbirth, and was performed even when the child is stillborn, or had died unbaptized. The Churching of Women was not only a liturgical event, but a social event, in which the new configuration of the family was welcomed by the community back into the swing of things!
All these ways of honoring the physical, emotional and spiritual health of the mother and of dedicating children to God and to the care of the community are a way of acknowledging the sacredness of birth and the sacredness of the family.
When we advocate for parents, for parental and family leave, for children, for safe schools and safe drinking water, safe playgrounds, safe streets, enough food and medical care, we are taking the spiritual insights of our scriptures and our sacred cycles of time and applying them to the public sphere. We honor this feast day when we advocate for all forms of family, and all children, regardless of gender or identity, or nationality.
The second place this passage shows up in our prayer book is in Compline, which is the last of a round of four daily prayer services, morning, noon, evening, and Compline – just before bed. It’s a lovely way to end one’s day in peace, rather than in the blue light of scrolling Instagram or binging on the latest Netflix series.
The service begins with this request: ‘The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end.” And it ends with Simeon’s words from our gospel reading today, his prayer as he gathers the infant Jesus in his arms: “Lord, you now have set your servant free, to go in peace as you have promised. For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, a light to enlighten the nations and the glory of your people Israel.” Because he held this child, the very Light of God made visible, in his own arms, Simeon could face death in peace, his own transition into the Light from which all Light comes, in trust.
It is the same for us. When we hold this Divine Child of Light close to our hearts, we too can face into darkness with courage and with peace, whether that is the literal darkness of the night hours, or of our own death, or the figurative darkness of disruption and chaos and cruelty we are in already, barely two weeks into the change of administration.
So friends, along with Simeon, gather the Christ child close to your heart, feel his divine heartbeat against your own, align your own breathing with his divine peace and warmth. With him, together we can face into whatever darkness comes our way in confidence and trust. And we can carry the light that has been given us for however long we are given to carry it, advocating for parents, advocating for children, advocating for health and wellbeing and light for all. Amen.