Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem
to present him to the Lord,
By bringing Jesus to the temple Mary and Joseph were fulfilling the prophecy of Malachi, who wrote of when, "suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek, And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire". The king of glory was entering the temple, as the psalmist wrote. Yet a superficial glance did not indicate the need to enlarge the entryways for this still very small child. Neither did the circumstances of his entrance seem to correspond to such glory. His parents, after all, were so poor as to make offer only "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons" for Mary's purification.
But who will endure the day of his coming?
And who can stand when he appears?
Those who endured the day of his coming were did not do so in virtue of their own strength or righteousness. They were not prideful and self-assured. For prideful ones would have looked to the messenger of the covenant to be strong himself to confirm their own sense of their strength and their righteousness. To such ones a little child would have gone completely under the radar. Instead those who endured his coming were people such as Simeon and Anna. These were people who longed for the fulfillment of the promises of the Lord. They knew what had been prophesied by Isaiah and the other prophets and they had genuinely come to desire the fulfillment of those prophesies as the greatest possible fulfillment of their own lives.
Now, Master, you may let your servant go
in peace, according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples
In his own song of praise Simeon referred to the prophecy of Isaiah that "the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken" (see Isaiah 40:5). Simeon understand that the promises of worldly pleasure and success could not compare to the promises of God. He had this in common with the prophetess Anna who seemed to have been worshipping night and day in the temple with fasting and prayer waiting for that very day when Jesus arrived at the temple. Because she had waited with holy desire she came "forward at that very time", giving thanks, and speaking about the child to others who were also waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem, but who had not yet noticed that it had begun.
For he is like the refiner’s fire,
or like the fuller’s lye.
He will sit refining and purifying silver,
and he will purify the sons of Levi,
Refining them like gold or like silver
that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD.
Who would have thought that by coming as an unassuming child Jesus would purify the people? Yet in order to receive Jesus as the king of glory into our own hearts we must embrace the humility found in Simeon and in Anna. We must renounce our pride and turn and become like little children ourselves if what we desire is the Kingdom of Heaven (see Matthew 18:3). It is paradoxically by becoming small ourselves that we lift up the gates of our hearts to give Jesus room to enter.
Since the children share in blood and flesh,
Jesus likewise shared in them,
that through death he might destroy the one
who has the power of death, that is, the Devil,
and free those who through fear of death
had been subject to slavery all their life.
We have been given still greater promises than those which motivated the entire lives of Simeon and Anna. Yet we still often look to the world for our fulfillment and joy and only look to the Lord as a backup strategy when our own plans fall short. On this feast let us pray to find in Jesus a fulfillment so complete that when it is time for us to go the way of all flesh we too will go in peace, with eyes blessed to see what we have seen.
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