Waiting for Consolation:
The Presentation of Christ at the Temple – 2/2/2025
Anthony G. Cirilla
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord my Strength and my Redeemer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
How many of us here would say that they love waiting? When you get to the DMV and see a long line, or to the doctor’s office and see a full and overbooked waiting room, doesn’t your heart just soar with joy? Not only do most people hate waiting, it can often make them impatient and nasty. That feeling of being stuck can be so frustrating. Waiting for a call for that job interview, waiting for an answer from your doctor or for news about a family member undergoing surgery, waiting for answers to prayer made over the course of many sleepless, maybe tear-filled nights – all of this waiting can often feel worse than the bad things we worry about. I think it’s fitting that the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, as a liturgical feast day, occurs on Groundhog Day. Many of you probably know the movie of the same name, where Bill Murray plays the self-important weather anchor Phil Connors who sees himself as a hot shot and treats everyone around him with demeaning disrespect. For reasons unexplained, Phil Connors is caught in a strange time loop where he relives that day over and over, and in the repetition of each day, he goes from a selfish egoist to a confused nihilist and finally to a penitent servant of his community. The frustration of waiting becomes for Phil a training ground through which he is able to transform his identity. Like the Epiphany associated with the three wise men, the Gospel lesson today documents another Epiphany, this a twofold revelation of Christ’s identity as Saviour and Messiah on the part of Simeon and Anna the Prophetess in response to Mary bringing her son to the Temple. Luke tells us that Simenon was “waiting for the consolation of Israel,” but indeed all three of these individuals teach us about how to endure waiting for consolation, Mary had to wait forty days after the birth of Christ before returning to the Temple. According to Leviticus 12:1-8, a Jewish woman would wait for this period of time and come to make a sacrifice to witness her return. That’s why today is, in fact, the Presentation of Christ at the Temple and the Purification of the Virgin Mary. As Mary came to the temple to share the light of her Son, it’s often the tradition at Candlemas to bless new candles and some churches have a candle-lighting ceremony as well. The Book of Common Prayer has a service drawn from the Virgin Mary’s example called the Churching of Women, a service traditionally conducted 40 days after the birth of the child, to thank God for the mother’s survival of the dangers of childbirth and to pray over her as the new challenges of motherhood are taken on. In fact, from what I have seen forty days is actually kind of a fast turn around time, but the idea of the tradition I think is a wonderful way of praying for the demanding role a mother takes on, one no longer associated in the same way with purification as it was in the Old Testament. But forty days away from Church is hard. Even though He was the Son of God, Jesus was still a baby with needs, and I’m sure Mary was tired and longed for the comforts and consolations of temple worship. It’s worth noting that the offering made, turtledoves and pigeons, was one specified for those in poverty. As generous as the gifts of the three wise men had been, the finances of Joseph and Mary were still clearly restricted. So, as instructed, Mary waited. And as instructed, they made the proper sacrifice in the temple for her purification, and in this dutiful waiting and obedience, Mary heard from Simeon and Anna a public vindication of the meaning of the gifts of those three wise men, vindication of the kingship, the divinity, and the sacrificial power of her son and saviour.
Simeon waited to hear the promise of the birth of the Messiah, and both the promise and the fulfillment gave him comfort. We are told that Simeon had been told directly by the Holy Ghost that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah. We are not told how long Simeon had waited, but the implication of not seeing death before meeting Christ suggests he would have to expect to wait. The statement that he was “waiting for the consolation of Israel” is interesting, because depending on Simeon’s age, perhaps he could remember the events of 37 BC, when the Herodian Kingdom had formalized its subordination to the Roman Empire, tightening the hold Rome had on the region and setting up Israel’s eventual status as a province of Rome. As a Jew, Simeon might have been understandably tempted, as others were, to wait for a purely political Messiah. But he never forgot the purity of the promise the Holy Spirit planted in his heart, a promise we sing every night at Evening Prayer: “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 lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” Rather than succumbing either to bitterness or indifference to the situation of his people, Simeon saw in Christ the true hope of his fellow Israelites but also a figure of hope to bring enlightenment to Gentiles, which would include the Romans occupying his homeland. Waiting is much easier when it isn’t filled with resentment or hopelessness, both harmful emotions which Simeon could resist only because he had planted his heart so firmly in the hope of the Holy Spirit. Simeon also recognized that the hope that came from Christ would not be some fancifully happy ending but one with pain, joy alloyed to sorrow: “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” The division Christ’s teachings would cause, to the point of his own death, was perhaps not the kind of encouragement Mary was hoping to hear, but sometimes the job of a priest is to name the hard truths so that the hope he shares is an honest hope. Simeon warns about the pain of Mary seeing her son brutally tortured to death, but also gives her a promise: that the Light which shone from that event would bring healing to Jews and Gentiles alike in the forging of the Spiritual Israel.
Anna the Prophetess provides as well a model of steadfast and enduring faith. It’s not clear exactly what Anna’s age is based on the reading, but the phrase “widow of fourscore and four years” could either mean that she, the widow, was 84 years old, or that she had been a widow for 84 years, making her somewhere around 105 years of age. Either way, Anna’s husband had died after only seven years of matrimony, and her dedicated life of service at the temple makes one wonder whether she’d had any children. This was clearly not the life she had hoped for, and yet her remarkable faith endured. Commenting on the significance of the events at the Temple, Anglican preacher Dean Wickham had this to say: “If the Bible had professed to remove the mystery of pain, the mystery of evil, the mystery of ignorance, it would fairly be charged with undertaking what it did not fulfill. But it tells us beforehand that it leaves these mysteries. In a sense, it even emphasizes them; for it paints on every page the beneficence, holiness, and wisdom of the Almighty power in whose realm they exist. It deepens our feeling of the contrast; it shuts us out from the easy solutions which get rid of the difficulty by closing the eyes, and denying half the factors of it. It leaves the difficulties, even if it softens and explains them in part; and in any case it fortifies the soul to meet them in patience; it teaches [the soul] to sing, ‘Now latest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,’ even while it faces doubts that it cannot solve, and mysteries that hang heavy on the heart.” Another Anglican writer, Dean Vaughan, observes the force the example of figures like Simeon and Anna have as exemplars for the faithful as we move towards later years, writing, “Few men, in the abstract, desire old age; few men, in their own experience, find it desirable.” It seems like our natural response to aging may be similar to our natural response to waiting – we don’t like it. But Vaughan goes on to say, “The influences of a good old age are incalculable,” because like waiting, if we use the addition of years to seek godliness, we can in the rejuvenating power of worship tap into the “Ancient of Days” who “is still, as ever, young with a perpetual youth.” If your back hurts, remember that the human back of Christ is about two thousand years old now and it doesn’t hurt, and in the meantime you can still strengthen your spiritual spine. In the immortal person of Christ now at the right hand of Christ, Vaughan points out that we know of one man now older in body than any of us here whose existence is a promise that “the weary limb” and “the lost memory” will “recover themselves in the first sight of the Eternal, and are made new with that immortality which is the life of God.” Anna, at age 84, or maybe 104, spoke to any who would hear her – Are you looking for Redemption? Redemption has come! She probably spoke with such vigor none would have guessed her real age.Just as aging is a form of waiting, so is growing up. Even Jesus went through the waiting: “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.” Even though He was the Everlasting God incarnate, Christ waited, but not the waiting of the frustrated, the confused, the bitter. His waiting was holy, and the holy waiting added perfect wisdom and strength of spirit to His human life. Like Simeon and Anna who have the promise of Christ, we have a choice about how waiting can affect us. It can weigh us down, bend us over, weaken us. But since at the end of the waiting period, we will nonetheless depart either way, why not consider departing in peace? People tend to think Christianity’s consolations are suspect because they offer relief, but in addition to the fact that that objection doesn’t acknowledge that Christianity also asks us to deal with hard realities, it’s also a bit like arguing that you shouldn’t take Advil because you’re just taking it away to relieve your headache. If Christ brings real peace that sustains and endures despite the tears and the heartache, then perhaps He is the peace we’re looking for. We can practice an active waiting, a waiting that makes us stronger in mind, body, and spirit, where we relentlessly train our vision to see the salvation of our God here in the waiting room. Like the repeated Groundhog Days of Phil Connor, we revisit the Liturgy, we revisit prayer, we revisit worship, we revisit the Word, we revisit the memory of baptism, and we taste again in the Lord’s Supper the living presence of Christ through the power of the same Holy Spirit that sustained Simeon with the promise of prophecy, so that as our period of waiting comes to an end, we can say, and really mean, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” Amen.