
Feb. 2 | The Presentation of Our Lord, Year C
Malachi 3:1-4
Psalm 84
or Psalm 24:7-10
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40
Malachi tells us that the sins of God’s people will be dealt with, and the human-divine relationship will be restored. This reconciliation, however, is not in our power to achieve. The healing of our relationship with God is totally dependent on the mercy and loving-kindness of God. Our role is to accept God’s refining fire and purifying wash. Like the trauma patient in the emergency room, our self-inflicted wounds must be cauterized and the contaminating debris scrubbed free before healing can proceed. These metaphors make it clear that our reconciliation with God will not be painless — but it will be thorough and eternal if we submit to his treatment.
God will give us every chance to respond to his offer of reconciliation. Since we are so accustomed to the status quo, he will send us someone to announce his coming to cleanse us. Without God’s help, we cannot recognize that we have a problem in our relationship with him, let alone identify the One who comes as our healer. As the answer to our blindness, God sent John the Baptizer to announce the coming of Jesus as our Savior.
The prophecy continued through Simeon and Anna. Jesus was brought into the Temple and the prophets witnessed to his identity as God’s Messiah, the Promised One sent to the Temple for the salvation of his people.
Jesus is the answer to the corruption of the priests and infidelity of the people that Malachi lamented. In his body he purified the Temple and priesthood, and also made the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the people. As promised by God, he will bring the offering of reconciliation to us.
The aged Simeon adds that this long-awaited Savior will be the salvation not only of Israel, but also of the Gentiles. In his words are the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abram that Israel would be blessed to be a blessing to the nations. Israel’s glory — her true nature — was in her role as God’s chosen people. That role in the world was to be the revelation of God’s loving-kindness and sovereign nature to the nations so that they would see the goodness of God and seek him. Jesus succeeded where Israel failed — not as an alternative, but as the perfect fulfillment of the sign that was Israel. As all of this took place in the Temple in Jerusalem, the prophetess Anna reminds us that Jesus is at the center of the city of God — the new Jerusalem — and that the nations will be brought into it.
Yet even here at the very beginning of Jesus’ life, the prophecy is that although the offer of salvation is universal, its realization is not. The cleansing and reconciliation will not come without a cost. In the severe mercy of God, we will be cleansed through the blood of Jesus. His destiny is to present a choice to all people, and their answer will determine their eternal well-being. Not only will he be opposed and his offer be rejected, but he will be pierced, as will his mother’s heart and that of all those who believe in him. Each of us must move beyond the nostalgic sepia pictures of the babe in the manger and embrace the harsh reality of the cross if we are to rise with Jesus in the new Jerusalem.
Look It Up: Joshua 24:15
Think About It: God will honor your choice.
The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, former rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, teaches anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School.