Fr Alex Swain

Beloved in Christ,

Today is a holy day marked as “Other Feasts of Our Lord” (BCP 16). It’s none other than the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple!

This moment of the infant Christ’s life is chronicled in Luke 2:22-40. Mary and Joseph bring their son, God incarnate, to Jerusalem. 

While there, a man named Simeon sees Christ and “took him in his arms” and then recites what we now know as the Nunc Dimittis or the Song of Simeon. We pray these words of Simeon every night during Compline (BCP 135) and during Evening Prayer (if you pray it with two readings. BCP 120).

Simeon is inspired by the Holy Spirit and sees the Christ child precisely for who He is: “for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples…” he cries out.

Shortly after Simeon’s canticle, the Prophetess Anna was there and sees this take place and begins to praise God and to speak about the redemption of Jerusalem.

These two people—Simeon and Anna—are some of the first people to recognize Christ for who he is: Salvation and redemption incarnate. God incarnate.

But they don’t do it alone. It is by the Holy Spirit working in them that they are able to bear witness to God’s savings power in the world. Simeon and Anna remind us that it is by being rooted in prayer, and being open to the discernment of the Holy Spirit, that we are able to truly see God’s imprint on our lives each and every day.

This week, try asking the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to you throughout your day. See what that does. Record how it feels. Give thanks for the gift of a loving God who wants each and every one of us to sing and praise and rejoice at the salvation and redemption brought to us in Christ.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Alex