The Feast of the Presentation
Candlemas
Luke 2:22-40
Simeon took him [Jesus] in his arms and praised
God, saying, "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have
prepared in the presence of all people…”
How important do you think you are? I hope you think you’re important.
I hope you let those around you know that
they are important too. We spend a great
deal of time as parents, spouses, employers, care-givers, older brothers and
sisters, uncles and aunts showing the people around us that they are
important. It would be a hard message
indeed to tell somebody that they weren’t important – that they didn’t matter –
except we do also need to let people know – especially our young people - that
they aren’t the centre of the universe.
Their individual importance can, and indeed sometimes must, take second place to larger projects
and a larger story.
Small particles are attracted to large
bodies. We call that gravity.
And, after all, aren’t our treasured attributes
oftentimes inherited? They’re not,
then, completely our own. We glean
things from teachers, we share our mother’s sense of
humour, our parents’ DNA. We are creatures of our culture and age and
so the thing that is us in a sense isn’t completely us or at least isn’t completely our own
possession.
Maybe we get that point when we’re very old –
like Simeon or Anna in this Sunday’s Gospel reading - and learn to lean away
from ourselves into something better.
We got bored with our own importance long ago. We have been waiting for a long time to see
something which is not us and is not ours but is nonetheless beautiful and promising. It is so wonderful that it can never be owned
even by the holiest of men and women. We
hold that child in our arms and think that, yes, we could die today. What we have in our own curriculum vitae
doesn’t hold a candle to what the Spirit of God is about in the world, to what
God has done in the birth of this child, and it is enough to have witnessed it
and to tell others about it.
Proclaim the importance of the people around
you. Help the little ones you raise and
the people you care for gather to themselves the sense of self-worth which is requisite
and necessary in this life. But in the
full flower of your maturity do cultivate that ability to let it slip to the
side in the presence of things which are bigger and better than you can ever
hope to be.
