
The Relevance of Ritual
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord, commemorating Mary’s purification and the holy parents’ presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple. The Jewish ritual of purification marked Mary’s safe return from the border between life and death after childbirth, which in pre-industrial times was risky for both mothers and their infants. Jewish law also required the presentation of every firstborn son at the Temple 40 days after birth, symbolically dedicating the firstborn son to God. The presentation ritual marked Mary and Joseph’s new lives as parents, and, with Jesus, as a family.
These rituals were so important, Luke’s gospel tells us, that the Holy Family came all the way up to Jerusalem for the occasion, at least a five-day walk from home in Nazareth through the dry, flat riverbeds of the Jordan Valley during the rainy season, when travel was treacherous and flood-prone. As columnist and author David Brooks writes, Rituals often mark doorway moments, when we pass from one stage of life to another. They acknowledge that these passages are not just external changes but involve internal transformation, symbolically walking you through the inner change the new stage of life will require.
Rituals can mark the loss of the old by burying something, the creation of a new community by passing something around, preparation or purification by anointing something, or embracing a new life and a new role by putting something on. Philosopher Abraham Kaplan calculated that over 60 percent of Judaism’s 613 commandments involve physical ritual — like lighting candles, ritual baths, or rising up on your toes in worship — that themselves become a kind of language expressing things that are too deep for words. Rituals connect and comfort us, reminding us that we’re not alone, making sense of the timeless passages of our lives and making our place in the ancient story of God’s people.
Simeon and Anna
I wonder what it was like for Mary and Joseph that day, bringing their new baby, just 40 days old, through the narrow, winding streets of the Old City to the Temple for these rituals that were ancient even in their times. There must have been other parents and firstborn sons there that day. After all, every Jewish family with a boy in it has a firstborn son. But this firstborn son, the newborn Jesus, attracts the special attention of two remarkable people, Simeon and Anna, who tell us in Luke’s gospel that Jesus’ arrival changes everything.
Our gospel today is short — just about three inches of text when it’s not blown up to eighteen-point font so I can see it. There’s not a lot of room for extra details, so it’s important to pay attention to the details that we do get. Twenty-five percent or less of the text refers to the Holy Family. At least 75% refers to Simeon and Anna, and how they respond to the holy. We’re told Simeon is a righteous man. The Holy Spirit rests on him. He lives in Jerusalem, Luke’s gospel says, and he’s guided by the Holy Spirit into the Temple, where he takes the baby Jesus into his arms. Simeon then sings the song that we say or sing in Evening Prayer to this day, that we read in today’s Gospel, and that we’ll sing again at the Offertory: Lord, you now have set your servant free, to go in peace as you have promised, for these eyes of mine have seen the savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see.
Anna, the second remarkable person in today’s gospel, is identified as a prophetess, which on its own is a singular fact. In the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament), I only count Isaiah’s wife, Huldah, Noadiah, Miriam, and Deborah as women prophets. Anna is the only one I can think of in the New Testament. But this prophetess Anna — every minute of 84 years old, the gospel tells us, who fasts and prays in the Temple every day — arrives just as Simeon is blessing Jesus. Right away Anna praises God and starts telling everyone who hoped for the redemption of Jerusalem — which is pretty much everyone living under Roman occupation in first century Jerusalem — that this new baby Jesus was their hope. Interestingly, Simeon’s response to seeing the Messiah is to say that now he can die in peace — stop all his work as a holy man. Anna takes one look at the baby Jesus and immediately gets right to work, full of energy at all of her 84 or 105 years, whichever it is. (It’s an equally likely translation of the Greek either that Anna is 84 years old or has been a widow for 84 years, which would make her about 105.)
All this detail about Anna’s age and status as a prophet, and Simeon’s song of fulfillment of his life’s mission on seeing the Messiah establish their qualifications to reliably identify the Messiah when they see him and show us now human responses to the holy. Like many people, even holy ones, in scripture, Simeon and Anna are not examples of good and bad or right or wrong. They are different, so we can see our own humanity interacting with God.
How to Respond to the Holy
How do we respond to the holy? Recognizing the holy is the first step. And the rituals and traditions of the church connect us to our ancestors in the faith, making us part of their long story of life with God, and sharing ancient rituals that meant so much to them. Today’s Feast of the Presentation of our Lord points us to the holy — to Jesus. Both Simeon and Anna immediately recognize Jesus as the Messiah, from all their human particularity and uniqueness. Our ritual today is to sing Simeon’s song — the Nunc dimittis and to celebrate the tradition many Anglicans call Candlemas — the blessing of the candles and procession at the beginning of today’s service that reminds us to look for the light of Christ in everyone we meet.
Take home one of the votive candles we blessed today, and light it when you pray, gathering up all of our best hopes and dreams for each other and the world, and guiding them into action. That’s what prayer is. The candles’ light reminds us of our baptismal covenant to seek and serve Christ in all persons, respecting the dignity of every human being. My prayer is that our worship together like these rituals today (the torches in the procession, the blessing of the candles, the singing of the Nunc dimittis, and the special treats at Coffee Hour that remind us of light)— themselves become a kind of language expressing changes in us that are too deep for words, giving us a place in God’s story as we work together every day to take the next right step and do the next right thing. Amen