Feast of the Meeting of the Lord

from Orthodox Feasts of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, by Hugh Wybrew

When Jesus was forty days old, Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple in Jerusalem “to present him to the Lord” [Luke 2.22], in accordance with the regulations laid down in Leviticus 12.  Saint Luke is the only evangelist to include this episode [Luke 2.22-38], and he depicts a scene of ideal Old Testament piety, in harmony with the rest of his infancy narrative.  Written up in the light of subsequent Christian faith in the crucified and risen Jesus as the Son of God, the account presents Jesus as the awaited “light of revelation to the Gentiles” [Isaiah 42.6 and 49.6].  He is the Messiah who brings the light of God’s revelation to all peoples, both Jews and Gentiles.

Simeon and Anna stand for all that is best in the religion of Israel.   Simeon is “righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel.” Anna is a prophet who “never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer day and night.”  In welcoming Jesus, they welcome the fulfilment of Israel’s hopes, and so, in Luke’s narrative, symbolize the transition from the first covenant to the new, whose beginning they bear witness.  Their commemoration follows naturally after the Feast of the Presentation, or Meeting of Christ, as the Orthodox call it.   Similar themes run through the texts for their commemoration as for the feast itself.

Saint Luke’s story provides the basic material for the hymns for the feast; and here, as in preceding feasts, the narrative is interpreted in the light of the fully developed understanding of the person of Jesus worked out by ecumenical councils.

:

“Today old Simeon, in spirit rejoicing, comes into the temple,
 to take in his arms him who gave the Law to Moses  and is the Law’s fulfillment. 
Moses was deemed fit to see God in darkness and by hidden voice,
his face veiled, he rebuked the Hebrews’ faithless hearts.  
Simeon held the Father’s word, eternally begotten, become incarnate,
and revealed the nations’ light, the Cross and Resurrection. 
Anna was revealed as a prophetess, proclaiming the Savior and Israel’s deliverer. 
To him let us cry:  Christ our God, at the prayers of the Mother of God, have mercy on us.”

[Hymns from Vespers for the Feast]

The Meeting commemorates an event in the life of Jesus Christ.   But as always, the liturgical celebration   involves us as well.  As the hymns make clear, we are invited to go and meet Christ, who comes to us, and welcome him.

Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem, where he met representatives of his people.  The temple was the place which God had chosen under the first covenant, where his presence could be found, and worship to him offered.   Jesus was critical of the temple: he once drove out those who bought and sold, in a prophetic act which perhaps looked towards the replacement of the old temple by  a new, in the new age of God’s kingdom [cf. Mark 11.15-19].   That new temple, the new Testament affirms, is none other than Jesus himself.   Saint John, in his account of that event, has Jesus say that if the temple were to be destroyed, he would raise it up in three days; and when the people were incredulous, John comments:  “But he spoke of the temple of his body.”

The new temple of God which is the body of Jesus is a growing body.  Sant Paul insists that all who come to faith in Jesus and are baptized, are baptized into Christ and become members of his body.  That means they become living stones in the temple of God which is the body of Christ, and themselves individually temples of the Holy Spirit [1 Corinthians 3.16].   So through the Spirit, Christ lives in us, and we are to offer him, in the temple of our own selves, the spiritual worship dedicated to him [Romans 21.1].

But that is only one aspect of the truth.  For it is also the case that we have to become the living temples that we already in principle are, and let Christ who comes to us in the Holy Spirit dwell in us more fully. The Christian life, according to the conversations of Nicholas Motovilov with Saint Seraphim of Sarov, consists in acquiring the Holy Spirit.  That is another way of saying that the life of Christ has to grow in us.  Christ in the Spirit is constantly coming to meet us, in the circumstances of daily life, and in other people, particularly those in any kind of need.  He comes to us who are his temple, in order that we may receive him into our lives more fully, and so become still more his temple.

Simeon and Anna welcomed the Messiah promised to the People of God under the first covenant.  Themselves within the prophetic tradition, they recognized the One whom the prophets had foretold.  Since then, Christians have believed that the Messiah has come: we have seen God’s salvation in Jesus Christ.  Yet, we recognize too, that the fulfilment of his saving work is for the future, even if its first fruits are with us now.  The Messiah has come in humility, but he will come in glory. So we can see in Simeon and Anna types of ourselves.  Like them, we are to be ready and waiting for Christ to come.  Like them, we have already received the gift of the Spirit, enabling us to perceive him when he does come.  We are to welcome him into the temple of ourselves, who are living stones in the temple of the Christian community.  So we set ourselves, through prayer, worship, and our endeavor to live according to the commandments of love, to become increasingly sensitive to his coming; and as we grow in our ability to receive him, his life in us is strengthened, and God’s salvation is seen more clearly.