The Presentation: The Lord Coming to Meet US

Today’s feast of the Presentation of the Lord falls on Sunday only once every seven years. Do you know what that means? I can recycle an old homily and no-one will notice!

I fought back that temptation, for two reasons. The first was that somebody might notice. And the second was that nobody would notice, which would prove my 2014 homily wasn’t memorable!

Of course those weren’t the only reasons. I’ll tell you the big one a little later. But first, let’s take a look at the introductory address we heard at the start of Mass. It tells us what this feast is about, why it’s important, and what it means for us.

First, today is “the blessed day” when Jesus was presented in the Temple by Mary and Joseph, forty days after his birth. Of course we don’t know his actual birthday, but if you do the math you’ll realize February 2 is forty days after December 25, when we celebrated it.

Why is the Presentation so important? “Outwardly,” we read, “he was fulfilling the Law, but in reality he was coming to meet his beloved people.”

And what does it mean for us? Because we are invited to share the experience: “gathered together by the Holy Spirit,” the introduction says, let us also “proceed to the house of God to encounter Christ.” The introduction thus carries us from the Temple in Jerusalem more than two thousand years ago to Christ the Redeemer church, right now.

Just as Simeon and Anna recognized their Lord in the temple, so we find Jesus in this church today, recognizing him in the breaking of the bread, the Eucharist.

That’s a lot to celebrate and a lot to think about. But there’s more. The Presentation is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. In our first reading from the prophet Malachi, we read “the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.” This is exactly what happens in today’s Gospel, and both Simeon and Anna knew it straightaway.

The arrival of Christ in his father’s house not only fulfills a prophecy but marks a turning point in the history of our salvation. Jesus is the high priest, as we heard in the second reading, and he has come to make a sacrifice. But not a temple sacrifice of animals—the sacrifice of himself as victim.

Today’s psalm urges the very gates of the temple to throw themselves open to admit the King of Glory. Of course that’s a literary tool, called personification. The psalmist is calling us to open the gates of our hearts to the King of Glory, the Lord—to let him in so that he can share his glory with us.

The stakes are high. To take just one point from the second reading, Jesus will “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.” Each and every one of us, old and young, can find the peace of heart that Simeon found when he met the Messiah.

There’s still more to be said—about the connection of this feast to Christmas and the Epiphany, for one thing, and about Mary’s spiritual martyrdom, for another—but Sunday Mass-goers will have to wait another seven years. Because there’s a second homily sitting in the pews this morning, a living Gospel we do not want to miss.

I refer, of course, to the members of the Gatare family. The story of these brothers and sisters of ours are already well-known to most of you. You know how they fled Rwanda, only to find themselves in exile for a decade in Kenya; you know how long they waited even after our parish had officially sponsored their coming to Canada.

Today, they are with us as symbol of suffering—a sword must have pierced their hearts many times during the long ordeal—but also a symbol of hope. They remind us, as Simeon did, that faith requires waiting. In our instant culture we want things now, whether it’s fast food or freedom; but God has his own timing and we need to live our lives by his clock and calendar, not our own.

When Jesus came into the temple, that sacred space became holier by his presence. The same thing is happening in our church, this morning. Jesus has come into this church today just as he entered the temple in Jerusalem—we know this from his words “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

The Gatares, our brothers and sisters, and the brothers and sisters of Jesus, come to us today as symbols of his presence, as reminders of his salvation, and with the same gratitude to God that Mary and Joseph had when they brought their child to the temple.

So let us rejoice together, lifting up our heads and welcoming the Lord whom we seek, the King of Glory who has come to meet his people and set them free.