“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word”
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Malachi 3: 1-5; Hebrews 2: 14-18; Luke 2: 22-40
The opening line of Simeon’s song of praise is so familiar to all who pray Compline.
Some days it seems to come with its own sigh of relief – or even groan of relief: –
thank goodness this day has ended.
We can easily imagine an aged Simeon clutching his retirement paper and pension claim form and heading for the Temple’s main exit with a renewed skip in his step.
This past week has been a deeply saddening one for the Church of England, and especially here in the North, as we have become more aware of the travails of the Diocese of Liverpool, my ordaining diocese, and the agonies which both Bishop John and Bishop Beverley have been undergoing.
And when we hear the judgements enumerated by the prophet Malachi, drawn from the Levitical code, it is not difficult to hear them as an indictment of our nation and world. – adulterers, the oppression of hired workers, thrusting aside the alien.
So let us see what this Feast of the Presentation and Simeon’s expression of it in song have to say into our bewilderment.
A humble couple with a tiny baby step into the vast Temple, probably thronging with crowds.
Their action, and our memory of it, also have a vast space behind them – a background well-populated through Jewish scriptures.
There are the provisions of the Mosaic law which distinguish the people Israel.
And these call to mind the Exodus and the life of slavery in Egypt which it ended.
The God to whom Mary and Joseph present their child Jesus
is the God who has come to the help of Israel and rescued them [from slavery].
In the Epistle to the Hebrews we heard the writer making the link explicit – Jesus comes now in flesh and blood to free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
And the Temple itself, where Jesus and his parents are, stands for the ancient Tent of Meeting, the proof of God-with-them through their desert wandering.
But then in Luke’s telling, the story also calls to mind Hannah – the namesake maybe of Anna – presenting her first-born Samuel to the Lord: “for his whole life he is lent to the Lord.”
Samuel, and indeed royal David whose son built the first Temple, were called forth by God at the end of a time when Israel’s faithfulness had grown weak, the Judges self-willed and the nation adrift.
“The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his Temple.”
That line from the prophecy of Malachi comes from a comparable period after the building of the second temple, when the nation lacked a sense of God’s presence and action.
“Who can stand when he appears?” Malachi asks.
But his appearing is not for the purpose of destroying, but to refine, as with fire, and make fit for purpose.
Likewise, we hear Simeon saying, “the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.”
The time of Jesus’ birth was another such time – the nation adrift and the Temple no longer speaking to many of God active in their lives.
The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come – in a time of slavery.
The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come – in a time of aimlessness.
There is yet another – a third – era of Israel’s experience recalled in this story of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.
And it’s experience which we have had in view in Mirfield this whole season of the Incarnation from Christmas Eve to today.
Simeon looks forward to the consolation of Israel.
As his song makes clear, that consolation is the salvation announced by Second Isaiah during the Exile. Again and again Deutero-Isaiah speaks of the suffering servant as bringing light to the nations.
That was in a time when Israel was learning about the nations the hard way.
The Temple of the son of David had been reduced to rubble.
The people were displaced.
It was experience of an era when the bonds of human society are smashed.
And for Luke himself, his times may have been another such era –
the Second Temple, the one Mary and Joseph entered, was reduced to rubble after 70 AD, and the society of Israel scattered.
We have lived with this in the crib James and Ryan have provided for us this year.
It evokes the destruction of Gaza, of Mariupol, of the life of Goma and of the cities of Sudan.
If you’ve not yet looked properly at it and prayed, look today – it is its last day.
The crib is made of fallen stones, of rubble. And among these stones the infant Jesus is presented. Mary and Joseph stand contemplating his wonder.
The Song of Simeon, taking its cue from Isaiah, expands our horizon.
God is able to help those being tested – not just Israel, not just the descendants of Abraham, Palestinians and Jews, but all peoples, the nations.
The image he offers is that of the miracle of light,
as daylight dismisses darkness and expands our world – and colours it and patterns it.
So this morning, we have each carried one small candle light.
We have affirmed that God is, and will be, our light.
We have added our story to these many generations past whose needs and hopes have converged where God has taken the initiative,
where Jesus is present, the merciful and faithful high priest, our brother,
who is able to help those being tested:
[tested] by fear; [tested] by lack of hope; tested by loss …
and the darkness has not overcome the light.
This flesh-and-blood Presence is present in this church, this people of God, this Eucharistic thanksgiving, today.
So here to conclude is a one-off paraphrase of Simeon’s opening line;
you could call it The New Enhanced Version:
“Master, now you are manumitting your slave to be a citizen of your own Realm of Peace; for, by the light you send from heaven, my eyes have gained sight.” –
A song for our hearts in the midst of the world’s troubles. “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.”