Posts
Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,
This wonderful Feast of The Meeting of our Our Lord in the Temple
commemorates the event recorded in the Gospel According to St. Luke
(2:22-40). This occurs forty days after the Nativity of Christ. Hence,
this particular Feast brings to a close an entire cycle that began
eighty days earlier with the onset of the Nativity Fast on November 15.
The Circumcision of Christ that occurred eight days after His birth
falls between the Feasts of the Nativity and the Meeting.
One
of the hymns for the Meeting nicely brings out this sequence of events,
placing them in the context of fulfilling the Scriptures:
Search the Scriptures, as Christ our God said in the Gospels. For in them we find Him born as a child and bound in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger and fed upon milk, receiving circumcision and carried by Simeon: not in fancy nor in imagination but in very truth has He appeared unto the world. To Him let us cry aloud: Glory to Thee, O pre-eternal God. (Great Vespers, Litiya)
It
is interesting to note how this hymn stresses the true humanity of the
Lord by such expressions as "not in fancy nor in imagination but in very
truth." Our Lord did not seem to be human, but He was truly human,
otherwise He could not have saved us. For, as St. Gregory the
Theologian famously said: "What is not assumed is not healed."
Christ
is brought to the Temple in Jerusalem by His mother and Joseph in
fulfillment of the Law (LEV. 12). Unable to afford an unblemished lamb,
they offer a pair of turtledoves. Yet, the Mother of God is carrying the
unblemished Lamb of God in her arms and then offers Him to the
righteous Simeon. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, St. Simeon prophecies to
the Virgin Mary: "and a sword will pierce through your own soul also"
(LK 2:35). This has always been understood as pointing to the maternal
suffering of the Mother of God who will behold her Son dying on the
Cross.
In
a wonderful homily, Fr. Sergius Bulgakov (+1944), revealed the humility
of the Lord as the beginning of the path that would lead to His
ultimate sacrifice:
The Infant was born on earth - the eternal God in a humble manger, but there was a place for Him in the Temple, for the Temple was built for Him. And He was brought into His Temple, where it pleased His Name to dwell (I Kings 8:29). But He came there not to receive veneration, but to serve many, in the form of a servant, veiling the radiance of His Divinity with the abject humility of the flesh.
He came there as a son under the law, obedient to the law which He Himself had given to Moses, manifesting Himself as the model of obedience; for He came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it.
His Mother came to dedicate Her firstborn Son to God, to give God the Son to God the Father, and to offer the redemptive and purifying sacrifice. In giving birth to the Infant, She did not know sin; but just as He, sinless, came to receive from John the baptism of repentance, so She too, in Her immaculate birth, came to offer a sacrifice for sin, having in Her arms the One who truly was the Sacrifice for the sins of the entire world...
It is not for glory but for the offering of sacrifice that the Lord is brought into His house, which had to receive and encompass the One who cannot be encompassed.
(Churchly Joy, p. 59-60)
If
we search carefully, we discover that all of the Feasts commemorating
the events in the early life of the Lord also point forward to the
sacrifice of the Cross and the life-giving death of Christ. Bound in
swaddling cloths and lying in a cave at His Nativity anticipates His
later entombment when bound in burial cloths. The blood shed at His
circumcision anticipates His blood shed upon the Cross. And being
offered as a lamb in the Temple anticipates His sacrificial death as the
Lamb of God.
In
a very wide context, we realize that the Old Testament "meets" the New
Testament when the Messiah is brought to the Temple, the dwelling-place
of God. Jesus Christ is now the place of the divine presence, for His
flesh is the "temple" of His divinity. The representatives of the Chosen
People for this meeting are the righteous elder Simeon and the
prophetess Anna. The elder Simeon received Christ into his arms and
blessed God in the process. The Old Testament (Symeon) meets the New
Testament (Christ). We are all quite familiar with the magnificent hymn
of St. Simeon, known as the Nunc Dimittis, chanted at every Vespers
service:
Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation,
which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel. (LK 2:32)
If we, too, could depart from this life with those words on our lips and in our hearts, that departure would be glorious!
Sadly, the prophetess Anna would probably be seen as a "fanatic" today because "She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day"
(2:37) for the greater part of eighty-four years! Both Simeon and Anna
realized that this meeting was of the deepest significance possible, for
the young Child promised to be "the redemption of Jerusalem" (2:38). For this reason, the prophtess Anna "gave thanks to God" (2:38).
Participation
in the liturgical cycle of the Feasts is a major component of the
"battle of the calendars." This is especially true when "competing"
with entertainment or sports events.
Considering
the depth of the great Feasts of the Church's liturgical cycle,
expressed in a kind of theological poetry that amplifies what is found
in Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church; revealed in beautiful
iconography; and further enhanced in our communal liturgical gatherings;
it seems only natural for Orthodox Christians to avail themselves of
the opportunity to come together in worship whenever possible.
Lacking
in "fun," but filled with divine grace, the Feasts make present the
events being commemorated by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Actually,
nothing is lacking - except perhaps "instant replay." But this is more
than made up for by the fact that there are no interminable "commercial
breaks" that would break the flow of the service. Expert pre- and
post-Feast "analysis" is provided by the writings of the Holy Fathers
and contemporary Orthodox theologians who offer insightful commentaries
on the deepest levels of meaning of the Feast.
There is no final score, but "those who keep my words to the end" are all considered to be "conquerors" promises the Lord (REV. 2:26).
Fr. Steven
