a sword will pierce
Ah, mea culpa, all week I've been looking at the wrong readings for today. Sure, today is the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, but I overlooked the calendar of the church year, which specifies (BCP 16 and 20) that the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple, observed on 2 February, "takes precedence of a Sunday", which means it supplants the usual appointed readings.
So this morning we have Malachi 3, Psalm 24, Hebrews 2, and the story at Luke 2:22-40 in which Simeon and the old prophet(ess) Anna recognize and acclaim Jesus as the Messiah. Thus, we have the Song of Simeon, which should be sung on this day,
The Song of Simeon Nunc dimittis
Luke 2:29-32
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word;
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
which thou hast prepared before the face of all people,
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles,
and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.
And we have this mysterious, ominous, foreboding sign from Simeon to Mary "... a sword will pierce your own soul also". Mary, who would be puzzled and troubled by Simeon's words until a Friday afternoon some thirty years later,
when Jesus stumbles in the street, and falls with the weight of his Cross, and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpa_D4K8c1c
Mary pushes out through the crowd, runs to him as memories flash through her mind, and he says to her, "See, mother, I make all things new".
Although the words are from Revelation not from a gospel, they summarize Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ and define The Incarnation in a sentence.
A bit later the same Friday afternoon, Mary is there, stunned and broken with grief as Jesus is taken down from the Cross, and Simeon's prophecy is complete.
Someone wrote critically that The Passion of the Christ is a film for insiders, and that certainly is so: if you don't know our stories, you will not Get It, nor will it bring you down. But for a Christian first seeing it, the film, which I have on DVD and watch again at some time during Holy Week each year, stuns the senses. My own memory is of seeing it alone at a local theater as soon as it arrived in Panama City. Several hours long, as it ended and the credits rolled, I remained in my seat dazed and overwhelmed, then got up, went to my car and drove home, where I sat on a step of my back porch for seeming hours, unable to speak.
A man whose trust and friendship I treasure is a father now traversing middle age, whose sons are grown and gone, yet he still sometimes speaks lovingly of each one as "my little boy". Just so, The Passion of the Christ is the story of a Mother and her little boy. Click the link above and watch the clip from the film.
T+
pics courtesy The Passion of the Christ
So this morning we have Malachi 3, Psalm 24, Hebrews 2, and the story at Luke 2:22-40 in which Simeon and the old prophet(ess) Anna recognize and acclaim Jesus as the Messiah. Thus, we have the Song of Simeon, which should be sung on this day,
The Song of Simeon Nunc dimittis
Luke 2:29-32
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word;
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
which thou hast prepared before the face of all people,
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles,
and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.
And we have this mysterious, ominous, foreboding sign from Simeon to Mary "... a sword will pierce your own soul also". Mary, who would be puzzled and troubled by Simeon's words until a Friday afternoon some thirty years later,
when Jesus stumbles in the street, and falls with the weight of his Cross, and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpa_D4K8c1c
Mary pushes out through the crowd, runs to him as memories flash through her mind, and he says to her, "See, mother, I make all things new".
Although the words are from Revelation not from a gospel, they summarize Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ and define The Incarnation in a sentence.
A bit later the same Friday afternoon, Mary is there, stunned and broken with grief as Jesus is taken down from the Cross, and Simeon's prophecy is complete.
Someone wrote critically that The Passion of the Christ is a film for insiders, and that certainly is so: if you don't know our stories, you will not Get It, nor will it bring you down. But for a Christian first seeing it, the film, which I have on DVD and watch again at some time during Holy Week each year, stuns the senses. My own memory is of seeing it alone at a local theater as soon as it arrived in Panama City. Several hours long, as it ended and the credits rolled, I remained in my seat dazed and overwhelmed, then got up, went to my car and drove home, where I sat on a step of my back porch for seeming hours, unable to speak.
A man whose trust and friendship I treasure is a father now traversing middle age, whose sons are grown and gone, yet he still sometimes speaks lovingly of each one as "my little boy". Just so, The Passion of the Christ is the story of a Mother and her little boy. Click the link above and watch the clip from the film.
T+
pics courtesy The Passion of the Christ