The Presentation of our Lord: February 2, 2025
The Rev. Nat Johnson
Readings: Malachi 3:1-4 | Hebrews 2:14-18 | Luke 2:22-40 | Psalm 84
This sermon was adapted from Michael Toy’s sermon “The God of Time, The Presentation” on Sermons That Work, a ministry of The Episcopal Church.
God is the God of time. The readings appointed for this week in the lectionary each give a powerful reminder that God is not an aloof entity who stands above and outside of our world. We worship a God who has actually entered into human history. Even more perplexing and mysterious is the claim these readings make that God continues to enter our story. The season of Epiphany offers an extended meditation upon this remarkable theological claim.
The liturgical cycle begins each year with Advent, that season leading up to the great feast of Christmas. If Advent is a time to express waiting, longing, and hope, Epiphany is a season to reflect on encounters with the divine: those hopes made reality. Over the last several Sundays, we have heard stories of encounter and revelation – the story of Jesus’ baptism, in which Jesus is affirmed the beloved of God and empowered by the bodily descent of the Holy Spirit. We heard the story of a wedding in Cana in which Jesus performs his first sign, revealing the extravagantly abundant grace of God as Jesus turns water into wine. We heard the story of Jesus’ inaugural sermon in which he declared the shape and scope of his Spirit-fueled mission to bring a word of Good News to the poor, the oppressed, and the outcast. Today, we celebrate the Presentation of our Lord. The passages from Malachi, Hebrews, and the Gospel of Luke each speak a deep truth about God’s presence in our world.
The prophetic book of Malachi speaks of God’s sudden arrival: “Thus says the Lord, ‘See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord who you seek will suddenly come to his temple.’” God’s appearance, according to Malachi, will be abrupt. In Luke’s story, Mary and Joseph have taken Jesus to the Temple in obedience to the purification laws. When they arrive, the righteous and devout Simeon greets the holy family and declares that he has now seen God’s salvation, who will be a light to all people. Simeon also adds that Jesus will be opposed and will cause the falling and rising of many.
As if one strange Temple encounter was not enough, Luke continues the story with another. Immediately after Simeon blesses the holy family, the prophet Anna comes. Anna then prophesied about Jesus, proclaiming him to be the fulfillment of the redemption for which the people were longing and hoping.
In the story, Anna and Simeon had been waiting a lifetime to encounter the Messiah. Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he laid his eyes on God’s anointed. When Simeon encounters Jesus, he takes him in his arms and praises God, saying, “Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised; for these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see. A light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.” God is the God of time, and God has chosen to enter into human time. The Song of Simeon reminds us that now is the time of the Lord. Now is the time of salvation. Now is the time for peace.
In a world of increasing political turmoil, polarization, and anxiety, it can be difficult to see where God is present. Looking to the war zones across the globe, it certainly does not seem like the Prince of Peace reigns over this world. Browsing the vitriol on social media on either side of the political aisle does not look like it brings glory to God. The anxiety in young people is almost palpable, exacerbated by things like the climate change crisis, in addition to increasing stress around school, body image, and the economy.
But one of the pronounced lessons in the readings from today is that God does not make an appointment for God’s arrival in our lives. As Malachi says, the Lord will suddenly appear in the temple. Even Jesus’ own parents were amazed at what Simeon said about him. God appears unexpectedly. God appears in God’s own time frame. And God will appear again.
For many, to speak of the arrival of God on earth is to speak of Jesus’ triumphant return. Perhaps there will be a rapture or a descent on the clouds on a white horse. Biblical scholars and theologians have wrestled for many centuries over the who, what, when, and where of the second coming. But there is divine presence still among us, even amid the turmoil and anxieties of every present age. And that’s what the season of Epiphany is there to remind us: God’s reign is here in our midst.
The author of Hebrews makes clear that Jesus has fully entered into our world of time and space: “He had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect.” This is a theological claim that the church has proclaimed since the early councils: Jesus was fully human. And Luke’s gospel teaches us that Jesus grew “in wisdom and stature.” When the church embraces the sudden and unexpected dimensions of God’s character, the church, like the Christ child, grows in wisdom and stature.
Friends, last week I suggested that we find ourselves in a Kairos moment, a moment of grace and opportunity in which God has issued a challenge to decisive action. Now more than ever we find ourselves in a moment of divine invitation to double-down on our commitment to the missional values of liberation, restoration, and healing. It is a moment of invitation in which we must reorient ourselves to the crucified Christ, embracing the Way of Love and the Way of the Cross. Today, I want to further suggest that this moment we find ourselves in is decisively a moment of growth, an invitation to deepen our faith, to risk expanding our love for one another, to risk reaching out beyond the walls of our Sunday gathering to embrace the lost and the lonely, to speak a word of Good News to the poor and the outcast, to comfort the terrified and the tortured.
In just a little bit, we will gather downstairs in our Lower Parish Hall to celebrate the year just passed and to dream about the year to come. Our goal today is to begin to forge a path for our mutual ministry – to dream together about how our deepest passions might meet the deepest longings of the world. We will begin to discern the ways that God has empowered us through the gifts of the Spirit to bring the Good News of liberation to our little corner of the world. Over the course of the next year, we will intentionally enter a season of growth as we rebuild the ministry of St Peter’s Episcopal Parish here in Seattle.
One of the ways we will engage this work will be to develop a Parish Connection Committee. These folks will work alongside me and the vestry to develop a pathway of incorporation into our common life and ministry. St Peter’s has a strong foundation of welcome and hospitality and we are committed to being a place of respite and refuge for the wounded and weary in our community. The Parish Connection Committee will be focused on helping those who enter our doors get connected and oriented to who we are and what we do, to develop intentional systems of invitation to relationships within the parish community, and to offer pathways of belonging within our common life and ministry.
In addition to the Parish Connection Committee, we will be forming a Community Connection Committee. This committee will be charged with deepening our relationships with members of the larger community in which we gather, to strengthen our historic relationships and to develop new relationships with people and organizations that align with our missional values. The focus of their work will be to help us as a congregation reconnect with our parish neighborhood, to identify opportunities for service and community partnerships that will help us to live more fully into being bearers of God’s Good News in our world.
Today, we will gather to dream about what these two new ministries might look like for us in this moment of grace and opportunity. This is a moment of growth for us here at St Peter’s, it is a moment in which we are invited to respond to our encounters with God and to reflect God’s presence with us. Today, let us open our hearts and our imaginations to the Spirit who empowers us. Let us remember that within the story of scripture, within our own story of St Peter’s Episcopal Parish, is a message of God moving into the messy reality of human space and time. This is a time to reflect on these encounters with God, past and present. Encounter with the divine sparks movement and in our world today, there is plenty of room to move for justice, peace, and proclamation of the gospel. As we move in response to our encounters with the divine, may we in turn embody God’s presence to each other and to the little corner of the world in which we gather. Amen.