Presentation of Our Lord
Sunday, February 2, 2025
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Ashfield, MA
22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, [Mary and Joseph] brought [Jesus] up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
33 And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. – Luke 2:22-40
Many of you are probably familiar with the old story that goes around about a Christian who is facing a looming disaster – often the story is about rising floodwaters at his house. He prays to God to be saved. Along comes a car offering to help him evacuate before the roads are cut off. “No,” he replies, “God will save me.” The waters continue to rise and he continues to pray. Leaning out a window he sees a boat go by, and the people in the boat offer to rescue him. Again, “No, God will save me.” The floodwaters reach the roofline and terribly desperate, the man climbs onto his roof, praying all the harder. A helicopter comes by to rescue him. “No! God will save me.” Finally he is consumed by the floodwaters and arrives in heaven asking God, “Why didn’t you save me?” God replies, “What do you mean?! – I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter!”
Now usually this story is told as a bit of a mockery of the man who missed God’s practical interventions in favor of waiting for some supernatural fix that is more clearly – in his mind – divine intervention. Those of us who grew up in certain faith traditions, like the Episcopal church among others, that have long had an emphasis on God’s embodied action in the world, might easily fall in the category of those who are smugly judgmental of this silly man caught in the flood.
And yet, I wonder…how many of us have missed moments of God’s saving grace placed right in front of us because it didn’t match our expectations of what God can or should be doing?
What makes the presentation of Jesus at the temple one of my favorite biblical stories is that Simeon and Anna, through the wisdom earned by years of life experience, or years of prayer, some innate sensibility, or some combination of the above, recognize the divine salvation embodied in front of them in a tiny newborn infant. I am struck the by the faith it requires to see God’s salvation fully realized in this moment when very little has been revealed about what lies ahead.
Growing up I imagined that they had been somehow granted a holy vision of what was to come. If not the full picture, then some clear understanding of what Jesus would become, how he would die and be resurrected, and how this incarnation of God would transform the world. As an adult, I think…well, maybe that could be the case.
More and more, though, I am drawn to the dimensions of God’s salvation that are already fully realized just by God inhabiting a vulnerable human body. Not by any means to discount all that is to come and the importance of our being an Easter people. But that we have a God who takes on vulnerability and weakness, a God who joins the weak and disempowered ones, a God who gives priority to the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed – that in and of itself is salvation.
I think that’s what Simeon and Anna see. Maybe they are primed because they themselves inhabit bodies that have become more vulnerable with age. Though they carry deep wisdom and a lifetime of prayerfully nourished spiritual depth, they know, too, the fragility of life and the impermanence of being embodied creatures. They recognize that an infant, though full of possibility, is vulnerable just by virtue of being at the other end of the life spectrum. This, this infant who cannot even sit up much less walk or talk or feed himself, this is God’s salvation, now, in this moment. This is holy.
We sit now, as we honestly always have, in a world that defines itself by power over others, by success measured by physical strength and financial wealth. We are in a time when the struggle to be in control outweighs the collective work toward a common purpose. We are in a time when winning is celebrated and losing is mocked. Even as many of us ask what we can do to counter that kind of power, we, too, are deeply steeped in the culture of power and all too often contribute to its misuse.
In the midst of all that God comes to be embodied among us. God is embodied among us in the immigrant who is dismissed because they do not speak the dominant language or do not have the right papers. God is embodied among us in the people whose homes and schools and hospitals have been destroyed and whose loved ones have been killed as nation-states fight for land and resources and power. God is embodied among us in fragile ecosystems already tipped far out of balance and species on the brink of extinction. God is embodied in the very young and very old and the ones society has written off for their illness or for their different way of existing in the world. God is embodied among us in those who have lost their jobs and lost loved ones. Here is a hard one for me – God is embodied in those with whom we vehemently disagree, for they, too, are God’s beloved creations. And dear people of God, I dare say God is embodied here, in you and me, broken people imperfectly seeking to live out our faith and transform the world toward God’s kinship community here on earth.
That is a risky move on God’s part, because all the people I just listed including you and me are vulnerable. Some even more extremely so than others. And God chooses not only to love us all deeply anyway but to be physically present in that vulnerable space with us, in us.
I think as we figure out where our calling is in this moment – in any moment – we would do well to model ourselves on Simeon and Anna, prayerfully looking to discover what God is doing. I do not mean that we ought to be passive and simply pat ourselves on the back for identifying God’s presence in very real suffering. But I do think we do well to approach every situation with their openness to the unexpected presence of God. I suspect that too often God shows up in our lives in ways we miss or dismiss.
I find myself too often convinced I know what God is up to. I have lots of opinions about how the church should meet the needs of the 21st century. I have opinions about how our society might run better. And those all get in the way at times of my seeing God’s salvation, of recognizing God’s transforming love showing up in my life and the life of the world around me. When I stop and listen, when I honor the humanity of the person before me, when I try to remain open to connection, those are the moments I most often find myself caught up in the work of the Divine. Whatever the circumstance, I long always to pause to recognize the face of God in the person in front of me.
Wherever we find ourselves in that this morning, God is embodied here – in this gathered community and in the bread and wine we share. In the Eucharist we experience again the body of Christ made vulnerable to our human need, broken apart that we might be joined together. It’s that feast that might again open our eyes to the presence of God unexpectedly appearing in our midst.
I share with you in closing the words of a hymn but Lutheran pastor and poet Susan Briehl. In the stanzas she highlights for us that God’s way of being in the world turns things upside down, the ways that God shows up often counter to what we expect – with glory in the ordinary, power in weakness, beauty in that which is despised, wisdom in folly, and ultimately life found in death:
(As the text is copyrighted, I share it here as a video and the text can be viewed here: https://digitalsongsandhymns.com/songs/6547)
-Pastor Steven Wilco
Stewarding the Word 