Luke 2:22-40
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
We don’t hear many stories about the childhood of
Jesus. The most most of us ever get is
the stories about his birth. We hear
them every year. We spend a month
building up to them. But in the weeks
that follow, we fast forward through the decades and hear stories of his
calling and baptism, and the beginnings of his ministry.
Mary and Joseph seem to fade into the background. No one tells us much of anything about how he
got there.
One of the few exceptions to this is the story we hear today
- the story of his Presentation in the Temple.
This isn’t one of the stories that most of us have written
on our hearts. It is a “major feast of
the church” - at least on paper - but the truth is, in practice, our
congregations often let it slide. We
don’t usually have big, festival celebrations.
We don’t gather the family in from all the corners of the Earth. For most of the people you know, there’s
probably more excitement today about Groundhog Day than there is about the
Feast of the Presentation. And almost
definitely more excitement about the Super Bowl.
But this oft-neglected feast lets us in on some pretty
important details about the life of Jesus.
Remember that “how did he get there?” question? The lessons we hear today point us to an
answer.
Mary and Joseph were leading a young, but pious and devoted
Jewish family. One of the expectations
of faithful Jewish families was that they would offer their first-born sons to
the service of God. Forty days after he
was born, his parents would bring him to the temple, make sacrifices for his
purity, and pledge his life in the service of God.
To my mind, that’s the most important thing we learn about
Jesus’ upbringing from the Feast of the Presentation: that he was raised in a
faithful home by faithful parents. Mary
and Joseph did everything in their power to raise Jesus as a good Jew. They raised him to know the traditions of his
faith, and to worship the God that they were meant to honor, even from his
earliest days - even before he consciously knew what was happening. The faith was ingrained in him.
Earlier this week there was a story in the New York Times
about Vern L. Bengston, a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California. For the past 45 years he’s been studying
religious heredity. He’s found that in
the past four generations - despite popular cultural beliefs to the contrary -
the rate at which younger generations embrace the faith of their parents has
been holding steady. He found that while
denominational loyalty is down - a child may leave the Baptist church to become
a Presbyterian - the core elements of belief, and even the practice of those
beliefs tends to span the generations.
Interestingly, however, one of the variables that he
discovered in the study, is the closeness of the relationship between the child
and his or her parents. Children who are
raised in warm and supportive homes are more likely to practice the faith of their
parents. Children who felt more distant
from their parents are more likely to seek another path.
This trend could be seen across a range of faith traditions,
including atheism. Even if children left
the practice of faith that they had been raised with for a time, they were more
likely to return as adults if they felt loved and supported by their parents as
children.
So the other thing we learn about Jesus’ childhood and
upbringing from the story of his Presentation in the Temple is not just that he
was raised in the faith, but we can deduce that that faith was practiced in a
warm, stable, loving, and supportive home.
We may not know many of the details about Jesus’ childhood,
but a picture begins to emerge. The
Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is really a celebration of the
family. It’s a time to give thanks for
the faithful and loving family that raised him, and also a time to examine our
own families - to discern the quality and character of the faith that we’re
passing down to the children in our own lives, and to strive to see that those
seeds of faith are planted in the fertile soil of love and support. That’s the surest way to pass the church on
to the next generation.
But the Presentation isn’t just about the nuclear
family. It also has a lot to do with the
support that family receives from the wider community.
Jesus’ Presentation in the Temple wasn’t just a discreet,
private event. Whether or not they
wanted to, Mary and Joseph didn’t just slip in by the side door, do their
ritual, and leave unnoticed. They were
embraced and celebrated by the wider community.
First we hear the story of Simeon - a man on whom the Holy
Spirit rested. He had spent his life in
search of the Messiah, and he knew that his life would not end before he found
the one he sought. While most Jews were
looking for a powerful king to come and save them, Simeon saw the infant Jesus
and knew the truth in his bones. He
embraced the baby and proclaimed with the relief of a life’s mission ended:
“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.” (from the Book of Common Prayer)
Then we hear the story of Anna. She was an old woman - a prophet - who had
devoted most of her adult life to prayer and worship. When she saw the child, she, too, endorsed
him and celebrated him in the Temple.
From that time forth, she spread the word of his presence and his
promise.
Mary and Joseph didn’t do it alone. They had the support of their community in
raising their child to become faithful and devout. At every step along the way, other people in
their communities supported them. From the
shepherds and the wise men who came at his birth, to Simeon and Anna in the
Temple, to the people of Nazareth - Jesus was steeped in the lifestyle of his
faith at every step along the way.
No matter what our individual families may look like, we,
too, have a responsibility to play a role in passing the faith along to the
generations around us. Mary and Joseph
didn’t do it alone, and neither should anyone else. We all have a role in shaping the faith of
the little ones around us.
So, even if you’ve never really given much thought to the Feast
of the Presentation, the ideas that it celebrates should ring true. It’s about faith, and family, and
community. Moreover, it’s about how
those three intermingle, and the great things that can come from them. It’s a celebration of the past, but also a
charge for the future.
We are all fleeting elements in the story of this faith, but
the ways that we live our lives now - the ways that we share our faith with
each other and support one another in each other’s journeys will ripple through
the generations. It’s part of how we
live. Amen.
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