Receiving The Lord
Adapted from a sermon by Fr Chad Hatfield
Luke 2:21-39
The Feast of the meeting of our Lord in the Temple is one that is often forgotten from our memory and experience, however, this year we are blessed that it falls on a Sunday. In Orthodox tradition, when we gather in the liturgy temporarily, we recreate the temporary setting of the temple – the place where the bloodless sacrifice is to be offered.
This Feast is the last of the Great Incarnation Feasts and ties together what the Church is presenting to us in the incarnation Feasts. The first of these Incarnation Feasts is the Feast of the Nativity. From the beginning of the Church year we understand that the Lord has come seeking you and I. It is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. It is written in scripture that this is incomprehensible by Jews and Muslims and other religions that God would humble himself to take our humanity in every way. That ours is a God who humbles himself to come to seek out you and I.
This message of God seeking us, is one that God himself spoke from the beginning of time, in the opening words of Genesis. Even in the disobedience of Adam and Eve, God seeks these beings who are primary elements of the universe and have come from dirt. Like Adam and Eve, we also are made of primary elements of the universe, we are dirt, we are minerals. Science today tells us we are primarily made of water – we really aren’t much.
We must remember that we have come from dust and will return to dust. However, we reflect the Glory of God, because God has taken on those primary elements and formed you and me who bears His image and His likeness. He is the One who breathed the breath of life into us.
God told man in paradise that we could have anything we want, save one thing – avoid this tree. What Adam and Eve lacked was good judgement, so they had to the learn the consequences. The Father of the Lie said to Eve, “Go ahead. Eat of the tree. Then you will have no need for Him. No need for the Life Source.”
When Eve presents the forbidden to Adam, he simply partakes of it himself. The Glory of God, the light which clothed them in their nakedness, was dimmed. It is here where God calls to them “Where are you?”. He still calls out those exact words to you and I. It is in the foundational book of Genesis that we see that God promises that He will not leave us captured in that state of Sin and Death.
This Feast begins a trajectory in which we can see God at work, bringing forth our Salvation and the opportunity to be restored to Paradise as was intended at the beginning of Creation. Throughout the Old Testament, God continued to proclaim the coming of the Messiah, where the prophets were sent to bring back the lost. We can see, it is all about waiting for the Lord to act. We see the trajectory of this Feast moving through the Scriptures where finally, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, fulfilling this path of Salvation.
Simeon, in his old age, sees the Messiah and is able to say, “Lord, let your servant depart in peace for my eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:29-30). God has moved and shown us our salvation. The incarnational feasts become a recognition of the truth of God’s love for you and I, found in the image of the babe in the manger in Bethlehem. In Bethlehem there is a great and open field where Passover Lambs are kept to be offered at the Temple without blemish or spot. Our Lord Himself is that Sacrificial Lamb, born without blemish or spot.
This Feast is known by another name, “The Purification of St Mary the Virgin”. We are told in the Gospel today the law was kept in its fullness. Anna the prophetess witnesses it. Simeon recognises it and it is transfigured, no longer simply the rules, but it is the very path to salvation by God’s great act of love – the giving of Himself for Salvation. We hear these words of fulfilment in the Epiphany, where God proclaims: “this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).
This is the challenge for us today in a world that is so busy. There are so many voices, so much noise, we struggle to hear the voice of the Lord. We cannot even recognise Him in the crowd like Simeon did when he took Him in His arms. We struggle. But our good and faithful Lord calls us as He called Adam and Eve.
On this Feast we thank God for His goodness and the path to restoration to a life of Salvation. But we must not forget the vehicle that intercedes for us and brought us this Salvation, the Mother of Our Lord, the New Eve. Our First Mother, Eve, in her disobedience, brings us sin and death. Mary, in her obedience, brings us life.
The icons we see day to day show her presenting us Jesus, our Salvation. In the Russian Orthodox Church, a very popular icon associated with this Feast is called ’She Who is the Softener of Evil Hearts.’ She is not holding Jesus in this icon, rather, she holds a sword, lifted from the scripture in Luke 2, where we are told that “this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce [St Mary’s] own soul too.” (Luke 2:34-35).
So in the commemoration of this Feast, we should rejoice in God’s goodness and thank God for the obedience of our Pure Mother Mary, that she will soften our evil hearts so that we may be prepared, like the aged Simeon, to receive the Lord into our lives.