Malachi 3:1–4
Hebrews 2:14–18
Luke 2:22–40
This feast we know now as the feast of the Presentation is known in Eastern Churches as the Feast of the Encounter or Hypapánte. It is the feast of the meeting. It is the meeting of the Lord with his own people. He encounters them in the Temple, the very place where his people come regularly to meet the Lord and offer sacrifice. The temple in Jerusalem is the meeting place par excellence.
The meetings that take place there today are on several levels. We see the old Simeon and Anna meeting the young couple and child. And the young are the joy of the old. Simeon and Anna are given much space today in the story; this old couple as it were, hanging around in the meeting place of the temple, are somehow in forefront. These old people are wait for and living for the young, for the child. Both the young couple and the old couple realize that the child they hold and see is a gift. A gift that came out of promise. The old Simeon and Anna especially are able to see in the child something more than just a young parents’ child. This old man and woman in the temple recognize what we might crassly call the potentiality of the child the young couple hold. But in terms of potential, the scale today tips a little bit in favor of the older couple. The young couple of Mary and Joseph say nothing but listen to what the old Simeon and Anna say about their child.
Today’s feast is an intergenerational feast. While old may meet young, and the young are surprised at what the old have to say, there is not a picture here of a gap between the ages but rather an encounter, a meeting. The young and the old both hold the child in their arms. The old people and the young couple with child each give and receive something from each other. The young couple is silent, perhaps a bit taken back. The old people do all the talking and the talk is all about the child, who he is, what he means for them and for the community. The old man and woman are able to recognize and say who the child is. They are able to say in plain terms, they have experienced a dream come true. The old people have lived for this child to come; they have lived for this day. For the young couple and their 40-day old child it is perhaps a revelation. The old couple see completion, their life coming to its fulfillment in the coming of the child. The young couple see the beginning, the beginning of a new story, of a new wonder wrought by the God of Israel. The young and the old today are not opposites—but together they are part of one story. It is a meeting of the ages so that they are not to be seen as two separate ages but as an age that is moving on from the hope of the old. And the old is wise and loving enough to see in the young the power and energy that can be both light and honor.
Let us look at the old man Simeon. His arms are holding the Child Jesus. Can we picture ourselves, too, holding a young child and seeing its beauty? Seeing God’s smile in its smile? Can we gently hold the child to our bosom as something precious, something that is both wonderful and fragile? Something that seems weak and needs, for a moment, the strength of my arms? Let us go one step further. Can we join Simeon in holding Christ in our arms for a moment? Can we recognize the one whom God has sent into our midst as out of nowhere? Can we hold in our arms the light of the world? Can we who have lived some years recognize when Christ is among us? Or do we presuppose that he can’t be in that person or in that place? Do we have Simeon’s vision? And just as important are we led by the Spirit to see today where Jesus is and to recognize him there? Do our eyes light up with recognition when we see this Jesus? For Simeon, Jesus was a mere 40-day old child, young and fresh.
There is a good hint in today’s story that he is with the poor and the elderly. The young couple who come in have a child by unusual means and are offering what poor people offer, a pair of birds. And the old people today: Simeon, devout and attentive to the Spirit’s movement; Anna, a widow with no one to stand by her side. These are God’s people, Jesus’ people, and the ones he has come to meet. And yet these have a precious treasure: trust in God’s word and hope that God is faithful. These are the people who are stripped of everything but trust in God. These are those who know how to wait for God because there is nothing else. No wonder Jesus can come to them and they move toward him.
When the new comes, when the young appear suddenly, the old poor of God see, they give praise, they can announce the good news and then die in peace. Their old arms and their old eyes are not so weak after all. Their age has graced them with wisdom and patience and hope in a word kept. They see clearly and they hold in their sight and in their arms the promise of the future, God’s future for the world and its people.
Are we people of hope gathered here to embrace the future God holds out to us in this place of meeting?
~Fr. Joel Macul, OSB