Homily – Presentation of the Lord – 2^nd February 2025

It was a precept of the law of the law of Moses that the firstborn male offspring of everything alive, animal as well as human, was to be consecrated to the Lord, literally given to him.

Joseph and Mary were simply acting in accord with what they were; faithful Hebrews, devoted to the law of Moses and the sure promises of salvation offered by that law.

St. Luke, the author of this passage of scripture, makes quite a point of that in order to make the next point, a point about Christ, because the very next scene in this passage also flows from a precept of the Mosaic law. It was that in any proposition made under the law, if two witnesses could be found to testify freely to the truth of the proposition, it was to be held as true by the law.

Luke presents two witnesses, Simeon and Anna. And the testimony they offer is that is that the child is the One foretold by Isaiah, the messiah. What is being said is true, with the incontestable truth of the law itself. It is interesting to see the virtues with which Luke itself. It interesting to see the virtues with which Luke describes these two people.

Simeon is described as just and pious, well versed in the law and scriptures. Those were social virtues for the Hebrews, especially justice, concrete ways of dealing with other people.

So, Simeon was probably an active man, active in the temple, in society, in business – very much immersed in his time.

But Anna is pictured in a rather different light. She had known marriage and family life, and she had known solitude. As a widow, she would have known poverty. She would have known from experience the goodness of other people and their harshness as well. The virtues Anna would have brought with her to that meeting in the Temple would have been patience (years of it), faithfulness, self-disciple, and courage.

Quieter virtues than those of Simeon, perhaps, but every bit as saving.

But whatever their difference may have been, the result was the same. They were both brought to that place in the Temple and there, blessed with the spirit of prophecy. Prophecy, in the most classic Old Testament sense, is the ability to see beneath the surface of the obvious, the ability to see and to proclaim openly what is really happening in what seem to be the most commonplace, ordinary events.

Perhaps there is a sense in which it is time to say that prophecy is the first role of every believer, perhaps we too, are urged by a constant call to see beneath the surface and to proclaim openly what is really happening in our lives, to be a witness to the fact the Christ is growing in what we do, in what we see, no matter how ordinary, even difficult it may seem to be.

Fr Andrew