NL 319: Simeon and Anna - Luke 2:22-40
image: “Presentation in the Temple” by Father Georges Saget (Wikimedia)
December 27, 2020
Luke 2:22-40
Initial Thoughts
Read through verse 40
Associate pastor Sunday? Christmas hymn-sing?
New family coming to the Temple. Presenting their baby. They have been through a lot. Can hardly believe it all, then they walk in, and some old guy grabs their kid. Think about a family, bringing their first child to church for baptism or Christening. Mix of awe, exhaustion, wonder. Everything is new. Everything is terrifying.
Bible Study
Literary Context
Interlude between John/Jesus stories. After the birth of the babies, action has moved away from the John/Jesus stories, and now it’s Jesus/Temple. Will then pick up again with John in the wilderness.
First of two stories of Jesus in the Temple. This is at circumcision, with reaction of two elders. The other is at age 12 during Passover.
Totally unique to Luke in the canonical Gospels. Only stories between birth and ministry occur in Luke 2.
The Temple and The Law
Luke places Jesus and his family squarely in the Temple.
The rejection of Jesus, which is foreshadowed, is not because of his rejection of the Temple.
The passage begins and ends with the Law
v. 22 “When the time came for their ritual cleansing, in accordance with the Law from Moses, they brought Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord”
v. 39 “When Mary and Joseph had completed everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to their hometown, Nazareth in Galilee.”
The next story tells us that Mary and Joseph go to the Temple every year. This is a deeply devout family.
They present turtle doves- a symbol of poverty
But Why does Jesus get presented? What does he need to be purified from?
Women had to be purified after giving birth
First born sons belong to God and had to be redeemed- literally ransomed from God (Exodus 13:12-15)
Even though he is the son of God, Jesus is till rooted in community - it isn’t until he is connected to a greater community that he is filled with wisdom and grace (like his mother was - Luke 1:28)
Simeon
Simeon was “Righteous and devout.” He was “ Anticipating the restoration of Israel.”
Introduces two themes that are a part of the Luke narrative:
“Light to the Gentiles and glory to Israel.”
Salvation through this seemingly unremarkable baby is to all - Israel and Gentiles.
“[Jesus will] be a sign that generates opposition”
Coming conflict is part of the plan, not a result of unfaithfulness.
An all or nothing ideal
“It is not that, if we go with Jesus, our lives are 17 percent better, our happiness 14 percent higher, our marriages 16 percent healthier. It's all or nothing. You fall. Or you rise.: - James Howell, Feasting on the Word – Year B, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration.
Notice the order- we fall and then we rise, we die then we are risen, we lose our life then we are saved
“Now I may go in peace,” are ominous words for an old man.
“Now I’ve seen everything…”
After serving at a church for about a year, and presiding over several funerals, I once had an 90+ year old man tell me “I want to die before you leave this church.” It was a strange thing to be told, but also highly complimentary. He died the week I was told I’d be moving churches, and I was able to preside over his funeral.
Resignation of death is not a sad thing, it only comes with the ability to be grateful for what has come.
Anna
“Two people give witness to his greatness, and to the significance of what he will accomplish: Simeon and Anna. Characteristically, Luke balances a prophetic utterance from a man with another from a woman. Both are profoundly religious. Both are elderly… Both are prophets. Upson seeing the child, both praise God and make declarations about him, although Simeon’s words are quoted in the text, and Anna’s are not.” (Justo Gonzalez, Belief. A Theological Commentary on the Bible: Luke, WJK, 41).
84-year-old widow, who was only married 7 years. Basically lives in the Temple.
Anna in Greek is Hannah - drawing a closer connection with 1 Samuel 1-2 (Also the Magnificat echoes Hannah’s song
Connection between Samuel who was Judge and Prophet to Jesus who is King and prophet
v. 38 “She approached at that very moment and began to praise God and to speak about Jesus to everyone who was looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.”
The first evangelist was a widow woman who lived in the Temple.
Closing
This is the end of the infancy narrative
The grace and wisdom given to Mary at the annunciation are now passed down to Jesus
“Luke’s infancy narrative demonstrates that God’s love is rooted in neither social status nor gender nor geography” Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, True to Our Native Land
Thoughts and Questions
The first evangelist of Jesus was a widow woman who fasted and praised God in the Temple. She was something in Jesus that could not have been apparent but through the eyes of discernment.
Simeon was able to declare that he was ready to die because he had seen the reconciliation of Israel and the saving of the Gentiles.
Both of these people did not see the present state, but were able to see in the coming of what seemed like an ordinary child, the coming of God. How do we develop the eyes of Simeon and Anna?
What does it feel like to see the beginning of something new - and imagine its completion ahead of time.
Can we see the church in the same light? At the start of a project - or at the start of a new year - can you see the promise that is to be?
Opening music: Misirlou, One Man 90 Instruments by Joe Penna/MysteryGuitarMan at MIM
Closing Song by Bryan Odeen