Blessed Feast!
Hieromonk Herman, my former teacher at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, sent my his sermon for this feast that he gave at St. Tikhon’s Monastery back in 2018. I was greatly edified and believe you will be too!
Today, dear brothers and sisters, on this great and joyful feast, this last of our winter feasts of light … which we’ll mark in a special way a bit later with the blessing of candles … today I would like us to meditate together on Our Lord Jesus Christ coming to his people in three different capacities: he comes, first, as one who consoles, he also comes as one who judges, and he comes as one who makes an offering. Our Savior comes, in other words, as Consolation, as Judge, and as Priest.
Let’s talk first about consolation. ‘Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel.’
If you lived at the Temple in Jerusalem, as Simeon did, the presentation of a forty-day old boy was a routine affair. Simeon would have witnessed countless similar occasions. But today, he beheld something for which he had been waiting—for which he had been yearning—all his long life: he saw before him, held in the arms of a young mother, the one who was to be “the consolation of Israel.” The Holy Spirit, speaking deep in Simeon’s heart, revealed this to him: this Child has come to console Israel: he has come to bring comfort and strength and tidings of gladness to the people whom God has chosen as his own.
This boy, when he is grown, will say to a woman caught in adultery, who was about to be stoned to death: “I do not condemn you — go and sin no more.”
He’ll greet the widow of Nain, coming out of the town with the funeral procession of her only son: “Weep not,” he’ll say to her, and he’ll restore her son to life.
And he will stand outside the grave of his friend Lazarus. “Come forth!” he will command, and the tears of Mary and Martha will turn from sorrow to joy.
“Woman, why weepest thou, whom seekest thou?” he will say in the garden on the morning of his own resurrection. “Mary,” he will call Magdalene by name, comforting her and strengthening her. And she will respond, “Raboni—teacher,” recognizing in his voice the voice of the good shepherd, risen from the dead.
Truly Christ has come to grant us consolation. And not only that but, as we sing in the troparion of this feast, he has come “to grant us the resurrection”: to lift us up from sin; to raise us up from death.
“Simeon said unto Mary his mother, ‘Behold, this child is set for the fall and the rising of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against.’”
The Consolation of Israel comes as a double-edged sword. This boy, Simeon says, is set for the fall and the rising of many. If he comes as Consoler, he also comes as Judge. And it might very well have been that Simeon, that morning, with the clarity of his spiritual vision, foresaw another day many years later, when this boy, as a full-grown man, would return to this same temple, not held in the arms of his mother, but holding in his own hands a whip fashioned of chords, to drive out the money-changers, to cleanse his Father’s house, to purify the sons of Levi, as the prophet Malachi foretold. “And who may abide the day of his coming? Who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire!”
St John the Baptist knew this, and he warned the people: Christ is coming, he said, “with a winnowing fork in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” He is set for the fall of many: for the bringing low of the proud, for the confounding of those who stubbornly oppose God’s will.
And Simeon also says, “He will be a sign which shall be spoken against.” He comes as Judge, but men will dare to judge him. And they will condemn him and they will crucify him. And that sword of agony will pierce through the heart of his all-pure Mother. But by this Cross, the Lord saves us. Thus, again in the festal troparion, we hail Simeon as the one who “accepted in his arms the Redeemer of our souls.” He redeems us by making an offering of himself.
And thus he comes, thirdly, as our priest. Now: forty days after he was born — yes? Christmas was exactly forty days ago, right? — as a forty-day old boy, Jesus was offered in the temple in accordance with the law, but on that occasion he himself was redeemed by the sacrificing of pigeons instead of him. The birds are slain, their blood is offered on the altar; the boy is spared: dedicated to God, yes, but not slain. Not then. But Simeon foresaw the Cross. He knew that the slaying of the pigeons then, and the slaying of every goat and cow and lamb that had ever been brought to that temple, were all types and foreshadowings of the one true sacrifice, the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. And Simeon knew that the priests of the old law who every day in the temple offered all those burnt offerings and whole-burnt offerings, that they were themselves only types of the true high priest, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now those animals were slain outside the sanctuary, and those priests had to take the blood from the animals and bring it into the Holy of Holies to sprinkle on the altar. So you had the sacrifice outside and the offering of that sacrifice inside. Our Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed himself outside the city wall. His blood was spilled on Calvary. But after his resurrection from the dead — in fact, exactly forty days after his resurrection — the Lord ascended with his living flesh and blood into heaven, the true high priest entered into the true and heavenly temple, the real Holy of Holies, of which the temple in Jerusalem was only a faint copy. And there he offered himself, his flesh and blood, his entire human nature — our entire human nature — to God his Father.
Now, we’ve talked a lot about Christ entering the earthly temple in Jerusalem forty days after his birth; and we see now how that foreshadows his ascension into the heavenly temple forty days after his resurrection. But there’s a third temple we should mention before closing; and that’s you and me. Our Savior desires to make our hearts into his throne; he wants to make our bodies a temple where he may dwell. And so he comes to us. He comes in the Gifts of his Body and Blood. He comes in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And we know that when he comes, he will come to console and to comfort us, yes, but he will come also to judge us and to purify us. And why? Because ultimately he comes in order to transform our entire life into a pure offering of love to God. Amen.