Dear Parish Family,

“You may let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.”

Forty days after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary brought him to the Temple in keeping with the Jewish law of purification. A first-born male child was always consecrated to the Lord in a special way. They remembered the first Passover in Egypt, when the angel of death slew the first-born of the Egyptians but spared the children of the Hebrews. From that day forward, a child was seen as a special gift of God, and the parents made a symbolic offering to redeem their child. The offering made by Mary and Joseph was the one offered by poor people with the sacrifice of a pair of two young pigeons. Jesus was going to grow up in a modest household of working people, like most of us.

Joseph and Mary were amazed at what Simeon and the prophetess Anna said about their son. Here were two elderly people who were very much alive and coping  well with the challenges of old age. They had not yielded to the temptations of old age to live in the past, forgetting who or what should really be important in their lives. They were looking forward to a better time in the future, trusting in God to bring about, and now they see in this child the future fulfilment of their hopes and dreams. This revelation came to them in the Temple, where they spent much of their time seeking union with God in prayer and worship.

Simeon was a righteous and devout man and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ. So he is so overjoyed at seeing the newborn messiah that he says his life is now complete, and God may call him at any time. But first he prophesies about the child. Jesus is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel. He will be opposed and rejected by many, and they will bring great grief to those who love him. No mother wants to outlive her children, but Mary’s heart will be pierced by a sword. Jesus will be a man about whom no one can be neutral. Either we are with him, or we are against him. If we stand with him, we will be among those who Simeon said were destined to rise. And with him, we too can say, “My eyes have seen your salvation, … and glory for your people….”

Ask yourself: “What things in my life indicate that I stand with Jesus, and not against him?”
 

“Deacon Rob Pang