Sermon on the Feast of The Presentation of Christ in the Temple Sermon - Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters

[MUSIC] Maybe given to me to speak in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please do be seated. [BLANK_AUDIO] Today we celebrate the feast of the presentation of Christ in the temple and in so doing, we close our celebrations of Christmas and Epiphany. Today we mark the occasion on which the Holy Family offered sacrifice and ritual purification rights for Mary and dedicated Jesus to God, the Father. There are a few things to note about this occasion which is only discussed in Luke's Gospel. The first is that the introduction to this account which St Luke gives from the Greek translated to English is grammatically ambiguous. He writes, or at least it's translated, "When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem." St Luke here, note, refers to the time for their purification. But in fact, it was only Mary who had to be purified in the temple, according to the scriptures. According to Leviticus chapter 12, a woman would be richly and pure for seven days after the birth of a male child, and would then remain at home for a further 33 days. After that, she was required to come to the temple and present a sacrificial sin offering and a sacrificial burnt offering, and then undertake ritual washing. This would allow her to rejoin society and the worshipping community. Mary and Joseph came then to offer these offerings, making their poverty offering as laid out in Leviticus 12 verse 8, they gave a pair of turtle doves, the cheapest offering that could be given. At the same time Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph presented Jesus to the Lord. Now according to Exodus chapter 13 verse two, every firstborn male belonged to God and was to be consecrated to him. The father therefore would present the child to a priest and then redeem him back by paying five shepherds, according to the instructions in Numbers chapter 18 verses 15 and 16. This symbolised that the child remained with the family but still belonged to God. So interestingly this presentation of Christ in the temple didn't in fact need to take place in the temple, It just needed a priest. So there isn't any theological reason why Joseph had to make sure that it happened in the temple. Why did he do it then? What probably logistics? Mary had to go to the temple for her purification that couldn't happen anywhere and Jesus had to be presented to a priest. So it would have made sense to do both activities together. If there was one place you were sure to find a priest, it would be the temple. Perhaps Mary and Joseph also wanted to mark the occasion, to celebrate this active devotion together at the place which was the heart of religious life. But there's more to it than that. Because whilst the Lord didn't require the baby Jesus to be at the temple, there are theological reasons why he might have been, which St. Luke is keen to draw out. By his presentation in the temple, as opposed to a local synagogue, St Luke was emphasising the theological connection between Jesus and the prophet Samuel. Many ancient Jews understood time and history, not in a linear sense, but rather as a repeating pattern. Their worldview understood that because all time is bound in God and because God is perfect on unchanging, his actions would be repeating patterns establishing and then re-establishing his will in creation and amongst his people. And so, St Luke was establishing this pattern by emphasizing a topology connecting Jesus and the Prophet Samuel, a topology, meaning that Jesus was a type of Samuel, a follower of Samuel, that he echoed Samuel. So we can see some typological links in Scripture. First, Hannah, Samuel's mother was unable to have children. But after praying to God in the temple, she fell miraculously pregnant. Mary, Jesus's mother, was unable to have children because she was a virgin. After being visited by God however, she too felt fell miraculously pregnant. When Hannah gave birth to Samuel, she sang a joyous hymn of praise, attesting to the goodness of God and the favor that he'd shown her, describing the favor he shows to the meek and lowly. This song is echoed, not just in structure, but in theology, by Mary's magnificat, the song that she sang when she greeted her cousin Elizabeth. It seems more than likely in fact that Mary had Hannah's song in mind when she sang a hymn of praise because they're so similar. It's almost like Mary's magnificat is chapter 2 and Hannah's song is chapter 1. A very least, St. Luke was keen to deliberately highlight the parallel between the two. When Samuel was born, he was presented by Hannah to the Lord. He was brought to the temple. Hannah left Samuel there under the care of the elderly Eli, the high priest. When Jesus was born, he too was brought by his parents to the temple and presented to the Lord. And he was greeted, not by one elderly figure, but two, by Simeon and Anna. Simeon who was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel. Anna, a prophet, advanced in years, constantly worshiping in the temple. And so we can see the links. Jesus follows a very similar pattern to Samuel. The presentation of Samuel to the temple led Samuel to become the final judge of Israel. This was around 1050 BC, and it was at the time when the Israelites had been defeated and occupied by the Philistines. Through his ministry as judge and prophet Samuel led the Israelites to victory over the Philistines, pushing them out of the land that God had given them. And he crowned their first king, King Saul, and later Saul's successor, King David. So during Samuel's ministry, the Israelites were taken from defeat and subjugation to a period that many considered Israel's golden age, the age of King David. With that clear topology between Jesus and Samuel, it's easy to see how people in the first century Israel hoped that Jesus's ministry might follow Samuel's militarily. Just as the Israelites had been subjugated by the Philistines, so Israel was subjugated under Rome. Just as God led Samuel to shepherd Israel from subjugation to a golden age. So many in first century Israel hoped that the coming Messiah would signify the return of Israel's kingly, Davidic line, the line into which the Messiah have been prophesied to be born, the line to which Jesus was born. So when Simeon and Anna met the baby Jesus, first time readers of St. Luke's Gospel, at least those who knew their Jewish history would have had every reason to suppose The first time readers of St Luke's Gospel, at least those who knew their Jewish history, would have had every reason to suppose very different prophecies were coming. Simeon and Anna had led their entire lives under harsh Roman rule. It would make sense that they too would hope for a military messiah, that they would give prophecies saying this Messiah will be like Samuel. He will free us and lead us back to our golden age. But of course the Holy Spirit gave them a very different insight into the Messiah that it actually arrived. A simian held. That baby come to be dedicated in the temple. He held not the baby of a royal line, not a warrior line, but a peasant family. And he attested to one who embodied salvation, but not from the Romans, from sin, and not just for the Jews, but specifically also for the Gentiles. Simeon saw that Jesus would be opposed by many, but a sword would pierce Mary's heart as happened when she stood on Golgotha Hill and watched her son die. When Anna met Mary Joseph in Jesus, she saw in Jesus a child who would bring redemption to Israel, but not the redemption of a nation state as most people hoped. Redemption to a new people of God, defined by relationship with the Trinity, called to worship, not on a mountain, not in a temple, but in spirit and in truth. As Jesus later promised a Samaritan woman, for he ministered to, at a well. Simeon and Anna were faithful to God, their entire lives. They lived lives of devotion, spent looking for the coming of God's anointed one. And when they finally encountered Jesus, they saw that he was not at all like the one their people were hoping for. But far from being disappointed, their only response was joy and thanksgiving. They praised God, not for who they wanted him to be, but for who he was and is and will be. All of us have a picture in our heads of who God is, who He ought to be, what He ought to do in our lives, in our communities, in our world. We have expectations because we hope for the picture of our ideal world. We expect that God will heal our hurts, They he will favor our people, whether they be ours because of nationality or culture or politics, or dare I say it, the color of their skin. Yet more often than not, we find that God is not who we think he is. At his plans, his plans are not what we hope they'll be. Sometimes that's because our plans just aren't godly, as was the case, for the Israelites who hoped for military victory over the Romans. But oftentimes it's just because they aren't a realization of God's perfect will. And so God can and does answer our prayers with a no, and a not yet. But of course getting that answer hurts. Often it feels like we've got no answer at all. It feels like God has let us down, but he stopped listening, but he stopped caring. And yet anyone who has been a parent, anyone who's been parented, know that no and not yet are tools in any good parents arsenal. Whilst we were away, I brought Esther a toy, which she absolutely loves. So much so that I've noticed just over this last week that she'll play with it and fight sleep to the point where several times she was crying with tiredness. And so I've had to take it away. I'm sure that that action of no felt a lot like I didn't love her from Esther's perspective. But of course when I took away her toy and held her hand and rocked her to sleep, it was an act of love. Esther is still so little and there will be so many times when I'll have to say no and not yet because those are the only loving answers I'll have to say no and not yet, because those are the only loving answers I'll be able to give. But I know that I'll get tears and tantrums when I do, because from Esther's perspective that won't be love. When we want something that the fulfillment of our want is always good, and the frustration of our desire is always evil. But a good parent never acts out of malice. God is the perfect parent, the always acts out of love. And so true faithfulness, as his people, is the faithfulness of a child's response. The response of Simeon and Anna. There, hopes, the hopes of their people were secondary to their trust in God their heavenly Father. And when they discovered that God had fulfilled his promise to send a Messiah in a form that no one expected and very few people actually wanted, they didn't complain, they gave thanks. They trusted in his goodness, knowing that whilst God often acts as he has done in the past, here he was choosing to do a new thing and he had perfect reasons for it even if they couldn't understand them. A candle mass we stand on the threshold of the rest of our year and we will come to God in prayer many times through this year. When we do, let us pray remembering Simeon and Anna. Let us remember that God is our perfect heavenly Father. He's not a supermarket. May we have this strength and trust to follow the plan that he has laid out for us, to hear the answers that he has for us, even when they're no and not yet. Whether he has plans to do this year a continuation of what he has done last year in our years past. Or whether he plans to do a totally new thing amongst us and in your life. May we have the strength and wisdom to greet his plans with gratitude. Amen.

Leviticus 12 · chapter mention Leviticus 12:8 Exodus 13 · chapter mention Numbers 18:15 Isaiah 2 · chapter mention Isaiah 1 · chapter mention