Let the Scriptures Speak

Good Will Fishing

“For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in sight of all the peoples” (Lk 2:30-31)

If Mark captures the turn of the ages in the baptism scene and his tight summary of Jesus' preaching of the Gospel of God, Luke conveys this movement in a more leisurely mode in the seven episodes of his prologue, of which the Presentation is sixth. Everything in this episode signals the apocalyptic transition from “the present age” to “the age to come.”

The persons we meet here embody Israel living out her ancient covenant relationship with the Lord of the promises. Here is Simeon, righteous and devout, led by the Spirit, awaiting “the consolation of Israel,” that is, all that the people of Israel looked for in the promised messianic age. And here is Anna—briefly a spouse, long a widow, known as a prophetess, one who had learned to pray always—waiting like Simeon for the redemption of Jerusalem. And here come Mary and Joseph with the infant Jesus, to do what the Mosaic Law required regarding the purification of a new mother and the consecration of a newborn child.

The prayer that Luke puts into the mouth of Simeon to illuminate this moment is so full of poetic power that it has long been at the heart of the Church’s night prayer as the canticle called the Nunc Dimittis. The old man speaks for all Israel as he takes the child in his arms and prays to God using words from Isaiah 40:5, “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all the peoples” (Luke 2:31). Drawing on imagery from other parts of that prophetic scroll (Isa 42:6 and 49:6), he celebrates the child as “a light for the revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel” (Lk 2:32).

Then he addresses Mary, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted” (Lk 2:34), thereby forecasting what will be elaborated in the rest of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. When he tells Mary, “(And you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Lk 2:35), he is not only speaking of the personal sorrow that lies_ahead for her as mother of a rejected prophet and pilloried enemy of the empire; he is also addressing her as representative of a people that will be painfully divided in its response to this news of the fulfillment of time. At this, the prophetess Anna, representing responsive Israel, joins the shepherds of Christmas night as one of those first non-writing evangelists who, early on, emerge from among the little people.

No need for Tarot cards, crystals, and spirit channeling; the Lord's New Age has been with us for two millennia. It will take further conversion for us to know its fullness.

Dennis Hamm, SJ

**From Saint Louis University