Didn't Mary and Joseph remember the angel?

The Presentation, by Fra Angelico, located in a monk's cell in San Marco, Florence.

Text: Luke 2:22-40

The story of The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is not something we hear often. It takes place exactly 40 days after Christmas, February 2, which is not always a Sunday. It seems like it might be a set piece, a self-contained story, but since I know stories are never put into the Gospels as filler, I’ve always had a couple of questions. 

Like  — why on earth were Mary and Joseph amazed at what Simeon said? Didn’t they remember that angel coming out the sky to visit only a few weeks ago? And what did Simeon mean when he told Mary that a sword would pierce her heart? And why don’t we hear what Anna said? What is this story telling us?

Well, I’m glad you asked.

First, on the appointed day, 40 days after Jesus’s birth, Mary and Joseph arrived at the Temple to dedicate their firstborn son to God. They brought the proper sacrifice for people of their standing. And at the end of the passage we are told that they did everything that was required by the law. This tells us that Mary and Joseph are devout Jews. 

At the Temple, Simeon takes the child Jesus in his arms and says what we call The Nunc Dimittis, “Lord now you set your servant free …” which is part of our liturgy for evening prayer. He goes on to say “your salvation has been prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” And this is what amazed Mary and Joseph. 

Why? Because devout Jews believed that the Messiah, salvation, was for Israel only. That was their firm expectation. And here Simeon says not only that salvation is for all peoples (that means all inhabitants of all countries), but also he specifies the Gentiles first and then the Jews. Jesus is going to be for everybody - including but not limited to Israel. That’s a shocking thing to proclaim. So it’s not that they forgot what the angel told them - it was that they weren’t expecting that it meant THIS.

Simeon goes on to say the child will bring conflict, that people will oppose him, and some will welcome him and some will not. Some, who have the eyes to see a new thing that God is doing, will welcome him. And others will not.

We see that Simeon does have the eyes to see this new thing God is doing himself by literally welcoming Jesus - taking him into his arms. Simeon had been looking for this all of his life and immediately understood who the child was. Anna welcomed him too, by telling everyone in the temple that a new kind of redemption has come in this child. She also has the eyes to see. And this all happens in the Temple, God’s house.

So, Simeon and Anna, who are also Torah observant Jews - are the first of those who recognize in Jesus the unexpected salvation the he brings. And because the story of God has always been that God unexpectedly comes and disrupts things, then it is not a new idea of God that needs adjusting but people’s expectations that need adjusting, beginning with Jesus’s own parents. Salvation is not one for one people and not others but for all peoples.

In the grand scheme of things, this shouldn’t be a surprise. This is what God does. In his book, the Prophet Isaiah reported what God told him to say: Look! I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it?  

And sadly, often we do not. This is not just a question but a challenge. We want to hold God to our expectations when in fact God cannot be subject to them. God is utterly free, and if we cannot behold with amazement the new things that God does, then we are missing a key to knowing God. 

God does new things. One of the new things God did was to send his only begotten son to us who were not Jewish to save us to. To adopt us into the family of God as a new branch of the tree of life. And not the only branch.

So, if God embraces something and then wants to embrace more, to bring more into the circle of belovedness, then who are we, who hope to be devout ourselves, to try to restrict God to the past? Who are we to refuse to perceive the new things that God is doing in the world — accepting more people, contradicting the world’s beliefs, teaching us that love is what the kingdom is about and not hate nor exclusion. 

And maybe, like Mary and Joseph, we will be shocked. Unless we were expecting a new thing, it may take us a while to change our expectations — and in the meantime not only a nation will be divided but individual people will be divided too. Because we want to be faithful and also don’t want to let go of our expectations. We want to manage God more than we want to hear God’s challenges to us. 

But wasn’t that what Jesus said and did? People thought they were required to stone an adulteress to death, and didn’t Jesus challenge that? People thought that to be law abiding they must not allow certain people in the Temple, and didn’t God challenge that and pronounce “my house will be called a house of prayer for all people?” 

This is not a sweet story that happened a long time ago and now is over. It’s a story that happens over and over. It’s still not over. Challenges to our expectations about God, about Jesus, about God’s kingdom come again in every generation. And with them, division.  Later in Luke’s book, in fact, Jesus will even say that he came to bring division (which is also shocking, is it not?). 

But it’s not because God wants us to be divided. It’s because Jesus knows that some will welcome a new thing while others will resist it and even revile it. Because we humans always have. Jesus keeps trying to show people what God and God’s kingdom are like, and how God wants to keep building that kingdom more and more. But not all will go along with that. The crowds that followed Jesus kept diminishing as he challenged them more and more, until none of them were left except the ones who said, where are we to go if we don’t follow you, even if we are deserted, too? We believe you are leading us to new life, and we are coming to see that it will not be easy to get there.

Jesus’s challenges bring conflict. Faithful people can have different ideas about how to interpret God’s challenges to us. But those ideas must be grounded in love and welcome the ever widening circle of God’s embrace that our stories are showing us, or we will end up on the other side of the divide. We will be the ones who walk away because we could not adjust our expectations.

Following Jesus is hard. Coming to see a new thing may take a long time and maybe never will. But we do have a guide. The Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth is working in the world and working in us every day if we will have the eyes to see. 

And no matter which direction our struggles take us, God loves us anyway. We will never be cast out. 

And I give great thanks for that.