Malachi 3: 1–4 / Psalm 84
/ Hebrews 2: 14–18 / Luke 2: 22–40
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker
on Sunday, February 2, 2020.
“PRESENTED TO THE LORD”
(Homily text: Luke 2: 22-40)
Once every
five or six years (depending on how many leap years have come in between), the
feast of the Presentation is celebrated on February 2nd, when that
date falls on a Sunday.[1] The Presentation is always celebrated on February 2nd, which falls
forty days after Christmas. This year, the date falls on a Sunday, allowing us
to celebrate and observe it in a way that we might not do so, when the date
falls midweek.
Since we
don’t encounter this celebration and its attendant meanings very often, it
might be good to take a closer look at the importance of this day in our Lord
Jesus’ life, and – consequently – in our own lives.
This
festival is known by three different titles or names: 1. The Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ
in the Temple; 2. The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and 3. Candlemas
(sometimes spelled “Candlemass”, which offers a clue as to its meaning).
The first
two titles refer to the double meaning and ceremonial action that took place
when Jesus was presented to the Lord in the Temple on the fortieth day if His
earthly life. Both the importance and the meaning are to be found in the
requirements of the Law of Moses. (It’s worth noting that it is Luke, alone
among the Gospel writers, who relates this event to us.) The third title
denotes the Church’s practice of blessing the candles which will be used in its
liturgical celebrations throughout the ensuing year.
It is to
the Law that we now turn.
In the Law,
in Leviticus 12: 1 - 8, we find a requirement that the mother who had given
birth was to be purified. This event was to take place on the fortieth day of
the child’s life.[2] Apparently, the idea behind this requirement had to do with the view taken by
God’s people in those ancient times toward blood and its significance. Blood
was the life-giving force, they recognized, but contact with blood made one
ritually unclean. Hence this requirement.
But there’s
another meaning which is attached to this day, and we find those requirements
in Exodus 13: 11 – 16. There, God’s people are told that they are to offer
their first-born to the Lord. This is in remembrance of the last and final
plague that God visited upon the Egyptians when God’s people were held in slavery
there. God’s angel of death visited the Egyptians, killing their first-born,
but the people of God were spared whenever the angel saw the blood of a lamb
which had been applied to their doorposts and lintels. (The event is known as
the Passover.) So God’s people were to remember this event, God’s deliverance,
and they were to offer their first-born to God in thanksgiving for His saving
act.
But instead
of losing their first-born, God’s people were to redeem them back by the
offering of a lamb, or in the case of people who were poor, but the offering of
two pigeons or turtledoves.[3]
The
instructions in Exodus make it clear that the ensuing generations were to be
told what the meaning of this redemption was, making it clear that God had
saved and had redeemed His people, and so His people, in thanksgiving for this,
were to redeem – to receive back – their first-born by paying the price of
redemption, that is, a lamb or two birds.
Luke tells
us that Jesus was presented to the Lord in accordance with the requirements of
the Law, and that Mary was purified in accordance with those requirements. But
nowhere in the Law is there a stipulation about the timing of the presentation
of the first-born. It’s possible that, over time, the two events were conflated
into one observance. Luke indicates that the two events took place at the same
time.
The Law’s
requirements amount to a liturgical observance. We would say that the Law’s
requirements amount to a sacramental act, a Sacrament being defined as an
“outward and visible sign of any inward and invisible grace.” Liturgy involves
doing something that is outward and visible, but something which points beyond
itself to a deeper and truer reality. The Exodus text makes it clear that the
meaning was to be explicitly explained to the ensuing generations, whenever the
outward act was done.
While we’re
thinking about liturgy and about the Sacraments, we should point out that the
ceremonies of the liturgy bring about change. When people are married, for
example, their lives change and they remember the day of their wedding for the
years which will follow. Liturgy has the capacity to cast a beneficial shadow
over the lives of those who are involved in it. Liturgy, properly done,
Sacraments, properly observed, have the ability to change things.
In a sense,
you and I have been presented, dedicated, to the Lord. We have also been
redeemed, given back our lives as God’s gift. This is the basic meaning of baptism.
In Holy
Baptism, we die to our old selves and our old lives (see Paul’s explanation in
Romans 6: 3 – 9), but it is God who has paid the price of our redemption in the
sending of Jesus Christ to take on our humanity. God is
the redeemer, we are the beneficiaries of that redemption. When babies or very
young children are presented for baptism, it is the job of the child’s parents,
Godparents and the entire Church to let that child know about the meaning of
their baptisms, in much the same way that God’s people in ancient times were
told to instruct their children, grandchildren and the generations yet unborn
about the meaning and the importance of God’s redeeming acts, done in Egypt.
We said a
moment ago that liturgy, properly done, casts a beneficial shadow over the
times which will follow it. Life is forever changed, somehow. For, you see, we
are called to remember. Remember is a word which means to “re-member”, to put
together again just like the first time. Remembering is much more than a mental
exercise, it is bringing the past forward into the present and into the future.
The
question then arises: In Holy Baptism, we were presented to the Lord, and we
have been redeemed, given our lives back, if you will, given a better, fuller
and more wonderful life. In thanksgiving for that gift, we are called to
continue to present ourselves to the Lord.
How are we
doing that? In what specific ways are we pointing to God’s generosity, made
present in the past, but brought forward into the present, with the guarantee
of its blessings in the future?
AMEN.
[1] The Presentation may be celebrated on a
Sunday when February 2nd is a Sunday. It is one of three Feasts of
our Lord that may be celebrated on this day. Other feasts are transferred to a
weekday when their assigned dates fall on a Sunday.
[2] The Law doubled the time frame if the child
was a daughter.
[3] Apparently the fact that Joseph and Mary
offered the two birds was in indication that they were not well-off.
