St Luke’s, Havelock North – Presentation of Jesus in the Temple – ‘Being Enough’

Reading: Luke 2: 22-40

“For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

This is the second time in just over a month that we’ve heard those words from Luke chapter two, first on the Sunday after Christmas and now on what’s traditionally seen as the last Sunday in the season of Epiphany. After Christmas our focus was on rounding out the nativity story, today though, as we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation, this reading leads us in a different direction, not backwards in a return to Bethlehem, but forwards into the Gospel story and beyond.

Of course from a purely literary point of view what this reading is about is practicalities. Luke takes great care to offer an account of Jesus’ circumcision, naming and presentation, each of them practical requirements of the Hebrew Law. So in this story he tells us that Mary has reached the time for purification, 33 days after giving birth, and Jesus is brought to the Temple to be presented, as every first born son was meant to be, and there Mary offers two birds as a sacrifice, which was the prescribed offering for those who couldn’t afford to offer a sheep, the implications of which I talked about a month ago.

For Luke all these practicalities serve a purpose. By reporting them as he does he underlines the point that all this is done ‘in accordance with the Law of Moses’. He does the same thing with John the Baptist, he makes sure we know that all the religiously required boxes are ticked and that both these men, Jesus and John, come from true Hebrew families, devout followers of the Torah.

This is an important point for Luke because what we find in his gospel and in Acts is a deep concern for continuity. For Luke Christianity is not a new religion as such, but rather the true successor to Judaism, or more accurately, the true evolution of Judaism. Luke’s Jesus never flouts or damns the Law, and those Jews who come after him are still expected to living according to the Law unless led specifically away from it as with the rules surrounding food in Acts 10. What Luke is doing here in the presentation story is laying the foundations for a very specific theological understanding which was clearly prevalent in the early Church but by no means universally accepted. Mark’s gospel, for example, presents a very different view, as does Paul.

I want us to recognise Luke’s agenda here because it’s important that we understand that while there’s a whole lot of deep and meaningful stuff we can draw from this reading, most of it isn’t the major point of the story at all, or at least not as far as the author was concerned. Luke’s main focus here is ideology as much as theology, but that said, there’s still plenty of theologising to be done as well, so let me ask you this; what is it that Simeon sees when he takes Jesus in his arms?

We’re never told much about Simeon, except that he’s old and devout and that somehow, at some time, he had been told that he wouldn’t die until he had seen the Messiah. Just imagine that. We don’t know when he got this news, but what if it was when he was a young man? Maybe he spent years trying to be sure not to see the Messiah because once he did he knew he might die? Or perhaps he had spent years searching for the Messiah, going along to see every would-be saviour who popped up from time to time, following up on all the gossip he heard about this rabbi or that. We don’t know and we never will, and we know even less about Anna who pops up briefly at the end of our reading. All we know is that these two devoutly religious and faithful people saw Jesus and recognised something special, something incredible, something divine within him.

But he was just a baby, and nothing else had really changed. Rome still controlled Israel, Herod still sat on his throne, the rich were still rich and the poor still poor, and such would be the case for years to come. By the time Jesus starts his ministry as such – some thirty years in the future – both Simeon and Anna will be long gone, as will most of those who encounter the baby Jesus, yet still, despite all that, still they saw him, just like the shepherds and the magi, and somehow, somewhere in that small, defenceless, vulnerable baby, they caught the barest glimmer of who and what he really was, and it was enough.

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word”. Simeon sees enough to know that his waiting is done, he has seen what he was told he would see, and it’s enough. Anna catches just a glance and immediately starts rejoicing and telling everyone she sees about this baby who would change everything. She will never see the changes, she will never know the adult Jesus, but she sees the baby, and it’s enough. Sometimes I wish I could be like that.

Sometimes I wish that even though I’ve only glimpsed the tiniest bit of what God is doing around and among us, it would be enough for me. Sometimes I wish that I could rejoice in the knowledge that something’s going to happen, even though I don’t know what or when. I – we – seem to live in a time and place where just a little is never enough. We don’t want a bit of understanding, or a little insight, we want it all. We won’t settle for a taste of God’s promise, we want the lot, and that’s OK. I believe God wants us to want more. I believe God needs us to be unwilling to settle for just a bit, and determined to make it more. But sometimes I still wish that a little was enough.

And sometimes I wish that I could see those faint glimmers of hope at all. I am, as I’ve said before, a natural pessimist and I do believe there is a cloud for every silver lining, but I suspect even the worlds biggest optimist would struggle sometimes to find hope in the most hopeless of places. And that, I believe, is a big part of our task, our work, as Christians – to be those who see light where others see only darkness and hope where there is no hope to be found, and to pass on that hope, to reflect that light, to those around us, just as Simeon and Anna did before us.

We must always remember, however, that ultimately our task, our calling, is not to be Simeon’s or Anna’s, worthy as they were. Ultimately our calling is to be the baby.

We are the body of Christ, we are Christ made visible and tangible in this place and time. And our task, our calling, is to be as Christ, to be the light, to be those within which the Simeon’s and Anna’s can find hope enough to rejoice in. We are they who must shine and call out in the darkness so that those who have eyes may see and those who have ears may hear.

It’s not enough just for us to catch a glimpse of the holy or recognise the spark of the divine. We need to be where the glimpse can be caught and the spark recognised. We need to be what is seen, and what is seen needs to be in us.

It’s true that Luke doesn’t set out to specifically make these points when he recounts this passage, but what this and the few other stories we get of Jesus’ childhood do make clear is that within this ordinary family with its ordinary child doing ordinary things like visiting the Temple and following the Law there lurks an extraordinary something and for Simeon and Anna that something is enough. As we move on into this new year may we live up to our calling. As we live our ordinary lives and do our ordinary things, may we too be those within which something extraordinary lurks. And as we seek to be Christ’s body, Christ’s work in our world, may we be enough. Amen.