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The feast of Presentation |
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Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, this man was righteous and devout… guided by the Holy Spirit Simeon came into the temple… he took the baby in his arms and praised God saying…
There was also a prophet Anna… she was of great age… she never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day… she began to praise God and to speak about the child…
Luke 2.22-40
Today I wish to commemorate and celebrate with you two devout friends of God: Simeon and Anna. I wish to honour a Jewish man and woman who were particularly sensitive to the guidance of God’s Spirit. May I take this opportunity to highlight presence of many elderly people in our Christian communities who like Simeon and Anna, are dedicated friends of God.
I would like to see more churches dedicated to Simeon and Anna, more days in our liturgical year when we reflect upon the value and irreplaceable presence among us of those elderly members whom we know so well, yet almost never appreciate enough. So today, as we read the Gospel about Jesus’ presentation in the temple and Simeon and Anne’s role, today is the feast of all our elderly brothers and sisters!
I have enormous respect for Simeon and Anne for many reasons. May I point out just some of them. First, I do admire their faithfulness to God in His holy place, in the Jerusalem temple, expressed by Simeon’s and Anne’s very personal connection with this special place. Year after year, night after night, they both were around if not inside God’s realm. Their dedication to YHWH, to the Holy God of Israel, and to his chosen place speaks volumes. Secondly, I admire Simeon’s and Anne’s love and commitment to their religion, Judaism. Certainly they both knew many passages of the Hebrew Scriptures by heart, daily meditating upon them and trying to understand their meaning, like for instance, the prophecies about the forthcoming Messiah. Simeon and Anne were rooted in their Jewish religion and that tradition offered them inspiration, meaning, a sense of belonging to the ancestors, direction, hope, understanding of God’s mystery, and a perceptive comprehension of their role….
I could continue my eulogy of Simeon and Anna for hours, but let me now focus on the crucial part of their greatness which attracts my total admiration. Often in our culture elderly, devout people are stigmatised by the labels such as ‘conservative’, ‘traditionalist’, ‘without understanding of modernity’, ‘people of the past’, ‘people without desire for change and challenge’. There are so many unjust labels about the elderly in our churches and society. And then, look at Simeon and Anna, they are the true leading reformers of their own religious tradition! They both proclaimed that the baby carried by Mary is more than just yet another boy dedicated to YAHWE, this is the Messiah! They both praised God because the time of dramatic change within their own tradition has just arrived! They welcomed change, they were the most progressive members of their own society and religious establishment. They were ready to welcome the One who would change parts of Judaism for good and for ever. Can Christianity exist without Judaism – no, it cannot. Can Judaism exist without Christianity, I dare to say, it needs us Christians, to reaffirm its crucial values. But Simeon and Anna proclaim publicly that the time of crossing the boundaries has just come, there is no way back…
We all can learn so much from Simeon’s and Anna’s relationship with God, but do we wish to? Are we brave enough to begin to think in Simeon and Anna’s way: the new life with Christ will transform my self understanding, including my most precious ideas about God, worship and the role of the Temple? Can we accept their challenge: if you wish your faith in God to grow, something important must die. Because without death there is no new life, without winter there is no spring and in the space where everything is as it was before, in a quiet, predictable and static existence it is hard to say whether or not we are alive or already dead….
Simeon and Anna proclaimed the beginning of the New Covenant, a new stage of life, a new level of relationship with God – even though they would not witness Jesus’ first miracle, nor hear his first parable… Still the new kingdom of God was already planted in their young and imaginative hearts and minds…
Revd Dr Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski, Richmond/London
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6 |
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47 |
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57052 |
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