The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, by Rev’d Lucy
Malachi 3:1–5; Psalm 24; Hebrews 2:14–18; Luke 2:22–40
Have you ever had that sense of knowing something about the future before you could articulate it? Perhaps something about where your vocation is leading you, or a particular relationship, or a decision you have to make. There are certain tacit instincts that draw you forward, but when someone asks what you’re looking for, you find yourself struggling to put it into words. You know you’re waiting for something that hasn’t arrived yet, but you can’t fully describe it in advance.
And then, sometimes gradually, and sometimes suddenly, you come to recognise something – or someone – as the answer. Not because you had a clear template that has now been filled in, but because something in you responds: Yes! This is what I was waiting for. Heart of my own heart. The thing that brings me joy and peace. The decision I can rest in – that makes sense of everything else.
I want to hold onto that experience as we turn to today’s Gospel reading, where Luke depicts a scene in which centuries of waiting converge on a single moment.
The scene begins with an act of quiet obedience. Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus to Jerusalem to do what the Law required.
Forty days after giving birth, a mother would come to the Temple to offer a sacrifice that completed her period of purification and restored her to full participation in the worshipping life of Israel. A firstborn son would be brought with her, to be presented to the Lord, because every firstborn belonged to God.
Luke repeats the phrase “according to the law” three times in three verses. From the beginning, Jesus is placed inside the faithful, worshipping life of Israel.
The offering Mary and Joseph bring, a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons, is the smallest sacrifice the Law allowed, permitted to those who could not afford a lamb. This isn’t a family making a big show, they’re simply being obedient within their means. So, nothing about this would have drawn attention. The Temple received children like this every day. Priests moved from one family to the next. A child was named, an offering received, a blessing spoken. And then the next family stepped forward.
There was nothing to mark this child out from any other. No visible sign that this was the one Israel had been waiting for.
Centuries earlier, Malachi had written: “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his Temple.” And in the Temple, there were those who waited for this, a community shaped by prayer and Scripture, looking for the consolation of Israel.
Simeon is one of those who had been waiting. Luke introduces him with care. He is righteous and devout. He is looking forward to the consolation of Israel. The Holy Spirit rests on him. It has been revealed to him that he will not see death before he has seen the Lord’s Messiah.
The Greek verb translated here as “looking forward to” is prosdechomenos (προσδεχόμενος) which carries the sense not of passive delay but of active orientation: the whole person turned toward what is approaching, prepared to welcome it when it comes.
Simeon would have known the prophetic texts. He would have read Malachi’s words about the Lord coming suddenly to his temple. He would have known Isaiah’s promises of consolation, of light dawning on those who walked in darkness. He trusted those promises. He lived within their horizon. But he could not have known exactly what he was waiting for, or when, or in what form. And he could not have recognised a baby as the Messiah by his own discernment.
What sustained his expectation was not a clear mental image but decades of faithful practice – of worship, prayer and immersion in Scripture – through which the Holy Spirit formed his capacity to see. And now, guided by the Spirit, he enters the Temple at precisely the moment when a couple from Nazareth arrives to fulfil their legal obligation.
He takes the child in his arms. And the Spirit gives him words.
His prayer, the Nunc Dimittis, is the prayer of someone whose waiting has reached its end: “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation – a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” What the prophets promised, what the Law prepared for, what generations had waited for, Simeon now holds in his arms.
Yet Simeon’s recognition does not end in comfort. He turns to Mary and speaks words that cast a shadow forward: “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
The letter to the Hebrews helps us understand why. Christ had to become like us in every respect – vulnerable, sharing flesh and blood, subject to testing, capable of suffering – so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest. God did not send help from a distance. God came among us. The child in the old man’s arms will one day make the offering that no pair of turtle-doves could accomplish. But he will do so as one who knows opposition, who has been tested, who has suffered. And that is why he can help those who are being tested.
Then there is Anna. Luke tells us she is a prophet, placing her in continuity with Israel’s prophetic tradition. She belongs to the tribe of Asher, one of the northern tribes often counted among the lost, and her presence signals that Israel’s hope is not reduced to Judah alone. The whole people, scattered and gathered, is represented in this moment.
She was married for seven years, then widowed, and is now of great age. She never leaves the Temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day: prayer layered on prayer, fast following fast, presence sustained across decades. Like Simeon, she has been formed by faithful practice. Like Simeon, she is ready to receive what approaches.
When the moment comes, Anna gives thanks to God and speaks about the child “to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” She addresses a waiting community, people who share her orientation, whose lives have been shaped by the same scriptures, the same promises, the same expectation.
The Law, faithfully observed by Mary and Joseph, brings Jesus to the Temple. The Prophets, absorbed through years of prayer by Simeon and Anna, enable recognition. The Holy Spirit, at work in both the obedient parents and the waiting elders, orchestrates the encounter and gives the words to name what is happening. Centuries of preparation, the commands given to Moses, the promises spoken through the Prophets, the patient faithfulness of generation after generation, find their purpose and fulfuilment here in a forty-day-old child held in an old man’s arms.
After this scene, Luke tells us very little about Jesus’ life until his adult ministry begins: “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favour of God was upon him.”
But we are told that his parents went to Jerusalem every year for the Passover. Again, this was something that the Law required, and they kept it. When Jesus was twelve, they took him with them, but on the return journey they discovered he was missing. After three days of searching, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions. Mary asked why he had treated them this way, to which he replied: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Jesus himself was formed by the same faithful pattern we see in Simeon and Anna – by regular observance, immersion in Scripture, and a life oriented toward God. The practices that enabled recognition in the Temple that day were the same practices that shaped him as he grew and prepared him for his ministry.
The word that Luke uses for Simeon’s looking forward – prosdechomenos –appears again in the letter to Titus (2 v 13), where it describes the posture of Christian life: “awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
And in the Creed, which we will say shortly, we use a related word: prosdokōmen (Προσδοκῶ/προσδοκῶμεν) – “we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” The Creed doesn’t say that we believe in these things as abstract propositions. It says we look for them. We are people whose present is shaped by what we are waiting for.
Simeon and Anna spent decades in faithful practice: worship, fasting, prayer, attention to Scripture. The Holy Spirit formed their capacity to see. Not by giving them a template in advance, but by shaping them into people who could recognise what God was doing when He appeared.
So, if we find ourselves in a place of discernment, uncertain of the future, unable to articulate what we are waiting for, this passage suggests where to stand. Not in frantic searching, but in faithful practice. Daily prayer. Reading scripture. Worship. These things don’t manufacture revelation, but they prepare the ground in which revelation can be received. The Spirit who rested on Simeon, who guided Anna's years of patient attention, is the same Spirit given to us, searching the deep things of God and disclosing what we could not discover by our own effort.
The child they recognised is the same Lord who comes to us still, in word and sacrament, in the gathered community, in the stranger and the neighbour. The Law and the Prophets prepared for him. Simeon and Anna waited for him. We look for him still.
This feast concludes Epiphany and turns our attention toward what lies ahead: the journey to Jerusalem, the cross, the empty tomb. The candles we carry recall Simeon's words: “a light for revelation to the Gentiles.” The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.