(Please read the Scripture passages before reading the homily.)
Today is forty days after Christmas, not Groundhog Day. Christians celebrate it as the Presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple. Greek Christians call it the Hypapante, a word that means meeting. As meeting we celebrate the meeting of God in God’s temple with Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna, Jesus, and his Father. Mysteriously, however, we also are there.
We are there because Jesus shares with us the same blood and the same flesh. When God took on human nature in the womb of Mary, God and we were united in a bond more sacred than that of marriage.
Jesus shares with us the same human nature. He did not take to himself the life of angels, but he came as a descendent of Abraham. He came as our brother. He came to identify himself as the same as us, his sisters and brothers. In this way Jesus could destroy the power of the devil. As one of us Jesus became our high priest. This is the Jesus whom we meet in the Temple today, Jesus, one of us, meeting Simeon and Anna and taking possession of the Temple as his own house and home.
This is mystery, that we are there, because in baptism we are united to the whole Christ, the Christ of the Presentation and the Christ of Glory.
Many Christians carry lit candles in procession today. They go as bringing the light of Christ to the peoples of the world. This is another part of the mystery. Not only are se present in the meeting of Jesus with his Father and his people, but we are also commissioned to carry the light of Christ to people beyond us.
Jesus came, not as light for the village of Nazareth, not even as light for the whole of God’s people. He came as light for the Gentiles, for all the other people in the world. God’s blessed people of Israel gave us Jesus and through the Jewishness of Jesus, light comes forth the shine on all the other peoples of the earth. This another layer of the mystery of today’s celebration.
After the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, Jesus went back to Nazareth and lived under the authority of his parents to prepare for his adult work. After our celebration today, we go forth to the duties we have in the world as we mature in age, wisdom and favor before God and people.