The Presentation, 2 February 2020

Grace Episcopal Church, Galveston
Gospel: Luke 2:22-40
February 2, 2020

My grandson not long after he was born.

Hey, what happened to the 4th Sunday after the Epiphany?  Our bulletin covers and scripture inserts, today, are all entitled with “The Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple.”  Some of you have heard me say before that I thought it would be fun to have Episcopal churches in Galveston compete in a liturgical quiz bowl.  This may never happen, but I still want to prepare you, so here ya go with an explanation of the missing 4th Sunday after Epiphany.

In the Book of Common Prayer, near the front of the book, beginning on page 15 is a section on the Church Calendar.  The 7 principal feasts, or holy days, are listed first and include 3 on fixed dates: All Saints’, Christmas Day, and the Epiphany.  According to the rules (rubrics), whenever one of these principal feasts occurs on a Sunday, it will take precedence over however that Sunday might have been designated otherwise.

Then, we find on page 16, a list of three other holy days that take precedence over a Sunday: The Holy Name, The Presentation, and The Transfiguration.  The Presentation is a feast appointed on a fixed day, February 2, every year.  But when it occurs on a Sunday it takes precedence.  So if you are ever representing Grace at a liturgical quiz bowl and you get the question: “When Epiphany 4 and The Superbowl and The Presentation all occur on the same Sunday, which of them will govern the liturgy for that day?”  Now, you know the answer.  Go team!

Our Gospel reading describes the occasion of The Presentation...but first, some background.  According to the Law of Moses, every first born boy literally belonged to God.  At the time of the Exodus, when the Egyptians were dealt the final blow, the firstborn male of every household died.  But God spared the firstborn of each Hebrew household where the blood of a slain lamb was painted on the doorposts.  So, from that time all firstborn boys were henceforth thought to belong to God.  The way that devout families recognized this claim was The Presentation. This involved presenting their boy child at the Temple in Jerusalem and redeeming him, that is, buying him back from God.  According to the law, the price was a choice lamb to be sacrificed at the altar.  But lambs were expensive, and the law made an allowance for families who could not afford a lamb.  Families could redeem their child less expensively with 2 pairs of birds.  Jesus’ humble family origin was underscored by this more modest sacrifice.

In Luke, Jesus’ family is said to have visited the Temple every year, but we have stories associated with only 3 times Jesus actually entered the Temple.  Once in the final days of Jesus’ life, when he most likely precipitated his arrest by disrupting Temple sacrifice by driving out the merchants.  Then, again when Jesus was 12 years old, he stayed behind unbeknownst to his parents who eventually found him sitting and conversing with the teachers.  Needless to say, Mary and Jesus were upset. Jesus was in big trouble.  And first of all, Jesus was brought to the Temple not long after he was born, in order for his parents to fulfill the law by redeeming their son with a sacrifice.  

With each Temple visit something about Jesus was revealed.  He was shown to be both fully God and fully human.  So, near the end of his life, God’s justice shines out when Jesus confronts the Temple practices that excluded the poor.  He said, “You have turned it into a den of robbers.” In speaking truth with his “fully-God” authority, Jesus incurred the ire of the religious leadership.  Fully human, also, Jesus was vulnerable in the face of those who were seeking his life.  When he was 12 years-old, Jesus, stayed behind after a family visit to the Temple. In this way, he demonstrated devotion to his heavenly Father’s house.  But when corrected by his parents for going missing, Jesus was respectful and obedient to them as the law required of any normal child.  And, at the Presentation, Jesus is redeemed by his parents as would be the first born boy of any devout family, but then he gains the notice of 2 exceptional individuals, Simeon and Anna.  In a profound twist, Jesus is brought to the Temple to be redeemed but is, at the same time, proclaimed to be in himself the promised redemption of God, the very embodiment of God’s Love.  Jesus is the One who will redeem the world from Sin.

So, on the Feast of The Presentation, we are celebrating when Jesus was brought to the Temple for the first time and revealed to be both fully human and fully divine, God embodied in flesh, and blood, and human history.  We refer to this as the Incarnation, and it is astonishingly good news for us that Jesus was both fully God and fully human.  As one of us, Jesus was able to lay down his life.  As the Son of God, Jesus was able to defeat death and win for us eternal life.  

I don’t have to tell you that we live in a broken world with lots of stuff to worry about.  We live in a world deeply divided; we live in a world where novel diseases emerge and spread rapidly; we live in a world beset with calamities: earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, and impending climate change.  Bottom line: if the best we have to offer in the face of these challenges is selfishness, nationalism, and corporate greed, we are toast!  

But, there is good news that our world desperately needs to hear. The fallen nature of humanity is not the final word.  As the Episcopal Branch of the Jesus movement, we have a share in spreading this good news in the way we treat others, in the things we say and do.  The call is to live each day in a way consistent with faith that Love has already won. We belong to something that is greater than the challenges we face.  Bottom line: we are loved by God and God’s love is stronger than we could ever ask or imagine.  The Presentation gives us a window into this Love. AMEN.