Presentation of Jesus in the Temple – Year A

Malachi 3:1-4; Psalm 2:22-40; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40

“When you hear a boy ask why the sun comes and goes, tell him because there is no light without the dark.” – Mago de Oz

                Jesus is only eight days old, and the old people, Simeon and Anna, see darkness and light, light piercing the dark.  Psychologist Carl Jung would jump up for joy that his theory of synchronicity is proven true.  Why are all these people converging at just this right moment?  Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna, and baby Jesus.  Carl Jung says that synchronicity is never accidental.  It is a force of basic reality stuff that brings things and people together for meaning.  He does not say what that stuff is.  But Luke does.  He tells us that the Holy Spirit guided Simeon (Luke 2:27).  Simeon and Anna were mystics.  They saw what others were not seeing, not even Joseph and Mary (Luke 2:33).  They saw a light (Luke 2:32), but one that must first come through the darkness of opposition (Luke 2:34), and through Mary’s pierced heart (Luke 2:35).  It is not only the Spanish music group Mago de Oz that knows there is no light without the dark.  We too.  Let us be Simeon; let us be Anna; let us be Mago de Oz.  On this day we commemorate Jesus being presented in the temple.  But every day people are presented to us, strangers out of darkness.  Let us see the light in each other.  Because of the darkness that shadows so many of us, we are afraid to look.  We can be brave.  It is as simple as this: two strangers enter the same room, at the same time, from opposite doors.  Eyes lock from afar.  And the world is never the same.


                In the Greek (Luke 2:36) the first letter in Anna’s name has a rough breathing mark.  Therefore, it is pronounced Hanna.  Why do all of our translations have Anna instead of Hannah?? 


In dark no terror.

A pin spot point of light, see.

Now life days enough.