[stephenkhoo]

Thursday, 02 February, 2012, Feast of The Presentation of the Lord
CHRIST OUR REDEEMER COMES TO PURIFY US SO THAT WE CAN MAKE OURSELVES A WORTHY OFFERING TO THE LORD
SCRIPTURE READINGS: MAL 3:1-4; HEB 2:14-18; LK 2:22-40

The feast of the Presentation of the Lord concludes the season of Christmastide. For at Christmas, we celebrate Jesus as the Light to the world and who revealed Himself to the Jews. At the feast of Epiphany, Jesus was revealed as the Saviour to the Gentiles. This is then followed by a series of further revelations. In the first week of Ordinary Time, we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord when Jesus was revealed as the Son of God and the Son of Man. The Feast of the Presentation therefore is a fitting conclusion to the season of Christmastide because today we celebrate Jesus as the light to the nations and the glory of Israel as prophesied by Simeon.

Today’s feast of the Presentation of the Lord actually celebrates the last of the two rites required by the Jews when a male child is born. The first rite, which is the circumcision of the child, takes place eight days after birth. Forty days later, the child is offered to the Lord to be redeemed, and the mother is to be purified through the offering of two turtledoves or pigeons. Jesus’ entry into the temple is a symbolic way of showing His intention to renew the temple and the covenant as the first reading suggests. We are told that He is the messenger of the covenant. Most of all, this feast celebrates Jesus as the One who will redeem and liberate us from our sins. Anna confirmed this when she spoke of the child as the one who would deliver Jerusalem.

But how is Jesus coming to save us? We are told that He comes to purify the temple so that we can offer true worship to God. As Prophet Malachi said, “Who will be able to resist the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ alkali. He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver.” Indeed, Jesus comes to perfect the sacrifice of the Old Testament offered by the priests of Levi, the offering of goats and bulls. The sacrifice of the New Rite is the sacrifice of oneself so that there will be a true liberation of sin and death. Only through this sacrifice is our reconciliation with God perfected. As the prophet said, only then will “the offering of Judah and Jerusalem… be welcomed by Yahweh as in former days, as in the days of old.”

How does He purify us so that we can make ourselves a worthy sacrifice to the Lord? Firstly, He identifies with us in our weakness. He emptied Himself of His divinity so that He can share in our humanity and go through the same struggles that we go through. As the letter to the Hebrews says, “because he has himself been through temptation he is able to help others who are tempted.” For this reason, we can no longer say that God does not understand us or that we cannot live a life of holiness like Jesus. The truth is that in Christ Jesus, we too can now resist temptations through the grace of sonship that we share with Christ. To know that a man like us has overcome temptation and sin gives us hope that we too will be able to resist the temptations of the Evil One.

Secondly, He purifies us by “being the light of the nations.” He has come to enlighten us in the way of life and truth. That is why Simeon said, “my eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared for all the nations to see, a light to enlighten the pagans and the glory of your people Israel.” Jesus is for us the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is also the revealer of the Father and the revealer of God’s plan for humanity, which is to be with Him, sharing in the fullness of His life.

Thirdly, we are purified by the light because our sins are exposed. When we come before Jesus, the light of the nations, then even our secret sins, or as Simeon puts it, “the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare.” Jesus is “destined for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel, destined to be a sign that is rejected.” Indeed, we must come to Jesus our light who can light up all the dark areas of our lives that need healing and liberation. Through His light, we are now able to walk in the truth and in love.

But Jesus does not simply manifest our sins to us, for that might lead us to despair. More importantly, He also reveals the face of God’s mercy. The mercy of God is shown in the death of Jesus and His identification with us. As Hebrews says, “it was essential that he should in this way become completely like his brothers so that he could be a compassionate and trustworthy high priest of God’s religion, able to atone for human sins.” Jesus could empathize with us in our sins because He Himself underwent the struggles we go through in fighting against sin.

Finally, Jesus saves by conquering sin and death. Hebrews once again says, “Since all the children share the same blood and flesh, he too shared equally in it so that by his death he could take away all the power of the devil, who had power over death, and set free all those who had been held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.” This is the ultimate victory that frees us from all that enslaves us. It is His death that convicts us of the seriousness of our sins, reveals to us the love and mercy of the Father and brings us to conversion of heart.

Today, we are fortunate because we have two models who purified themselves and made themselves as a living sacrifice to God. Simeon, we are told, “was an upright and devout man; he looked forward to Israel’s comforting and the Holy Spirit rested on him.” Simeon waited, and waited patiently for the Messiah. Whilst waiting, he cooperated by living an upright life and remained sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It was his faith in God that enabled the Holy Spirit to reveal to him “that he would not see death until he had set eyes on the Christ of the Lord.” Only because of his docility to the Holy Spirit and through keeping his temple, that is his heart, pure and holy, that he could recognize the Messiah when He came. Thus, the Lord rewarded his patience, perseverance, faith with the sight of Jesus, the Saviour of the world. He was then able to depart in peace saying, “Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace, just as you promised.”

Secondly, we have the example of Anna. She was made a widow in her early years of marriage. Instead of being bitter over what she had lost, she “never left the temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayer.” She, too, was given the gift to praise God when she saw Jesus as the deliverer of Israel. She persevered in a life of holiness by consecrating her entire life to God, serving Him in the Temple and worshipping Him instead of allowing her grief and resentment to overcome her.

For ourselves today, if we want to find happiness, then we must offer ourselves to God. We must grow in faith and wisdom like Jesus, praying that we will always remain in God’s favour by living a good and holy life. Like Jesus, we must offer ourselves to the Lord so that He can purify the temple in us and make it worthy to be His dwelling place. Indeed, we must pray with the psalmist in the responsorial psalm; that we will lift the doors of our hearts higher so that the King of glory may come to live in us. When that happens, then we are truly redeemed because God is with us.