The Presentation of Christ in the Temple

St Mary’s, Barnes, 8 am

Today’s gospel for the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple is one of the loveliest in the New Testament. In accordance with Jewish custom Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem. Waiting there is devout Simeon who recognises Jesus to be the longed for Messiah who will bring in God’s new age. Simeon now feels  ready to depart this life and utters what we call the Nunc Dimittis, which is said at evening prayer every day. ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for my eyes have seen thy salvation.’ You may also know that T. S. Eliot wrote a moving poem on this story, ‘A song for Simeon’.

But there is another character in the scene who has been less noticed. Anna, described as a person who had been married for 7 years and then lived as a widow until she was 84. She too recognised in Jesus the one they had been longing for.

As Christians we are in some was in a similar position to Simeon and Anna. Like them we too are longing for God’s new age. As day by day we learn of yet more human suffering we pray more ardently  ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.’ Yet at the same time like Simon and Anna we believe that in some deep and irreversible sense God’s Kingdom has already come in Christ. In Christ crucified, risen, glorified and present in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, God already reigns, his rule has begun. So while we continue to long and pray for a different, better world, we can know within ourselves and in our own lives, the present reality of that kingdom.

For most of us this will not be in anything dramatic, just present in the ordinary little things of life. To live conscious of God in and through all thing, to bring our daily duties, burdens and pleasures into that presence, is from time to time to know there is something we should do, and in doing of it we find a special peace. As in stillness we rest in God, wait on God and look to God we may find ourselves prompted or led in some particular way. To respond is to find blessing, and in that blessing Chrit’s kingdom has indeed come in us and will one day transfigure the world.