On the Meeting of the Lord
On 2/15 February, we celebrate the Great Feast of the Meeting of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which commemorates the 40th Day of His Nativity, on which His Most Pure Mother and St. Joseph brought Him to the Temple of the Lord, in obedience to the Law of Moses. In a beautiful hymn for the Liti of the Feast, we sing these words:
Today Simeon takes in his arms the Lord of Glory whom Moses saw of old in the darkness, when on Mount Sinai he received the tables of the Law. This is He who speaks through the prophets; He is the Creator of the Law. This is He whom David announced; He is fearful to all, yet has great and abundant mercy.
In these plain and beautiful words, the Church tells us and tells everyone that Jesus Christ is the Lord of Glory. He is God, One with the Father and the Spirit. His still, small voice it was, and no other’s, that summoned Elias to the mouth of the cave on Mt. Sinai. His voice spoke to Moses and the prophets. His voice called to our first parents in Paradise. By means of Him, the pre-eternal Word, the Father spoke in the beginning, saying, “Let there be light.” Whoever does not believe in Him as God may believe in a phantasm of God or an idea about God, but he does not believe in the actual God.
Though He is the Giver of the Law to Moses, however, He does not place Himself as a man above this Law, but as a man submits to it. The Law commanded that, on the 40th day after birth, every first-born male child be brought to the Temple and offered to the Lord. In place of the child himself, they sacrificed a lamb or goat, or in the case of poor people, like the Mother of God and St. Joseph, two doves. God commanded this in order to remind the people that at the time of the first Passover, He had slain the first born of the Egyptians but had spared the first-born of the Israelites. So every Jewish family owed their first-born to God. They had to redeem him, that is, buy him back, with a sacrifice to God.
The Law also commanded that on the same 40th day, the mother had to be purified by prayer from the uncleanness of childbirth.
Now think about this: Our Lord Jesus Christ did not have to be ‘redeemed’ in the Temple. He was the One who had come to redeem all mankind and the whole universe from death. But He submitted to the Law in humility, to give us an example that we have humbly to obey God’s Law, because we are fallen children of our father Adam, not ‘gods’.
Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos, also, did not have to be purified – She is the All-Pure One, who conceived without a man, without passion, and who gave birth without any corruption or uncleanness of any kind. But in humility she submitted to the prayer of purification in order to give Christian women an example for all generations, that they must acquire humility, gentleness, and patience, so that they can be lifted up above the fallen nature of Eve by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
If the God-Man Himself and His All-Holy Mother thus voluntarily humbled themselves, how much must we sinners necessarily humble ourselves! How can we do this?
- We can humble our bodies by fasting.
- We can humble our vanity by being quiet and grateful, not resentful, when other people do not recognize our efforts or thank us but instead ignore us or criticize us. You actually get criticized for what you do for the Church or for your family or for other people? Then REJOICE. God PLANNED this exactly, just for you, so you can be saved.
- We can humble our minds by filling them with prayers, with Scripture, with the Church services, instead of all the insane stuff we run to every day for distraction, like TV, movies, and radio.
- We can humble our tongues by being quiet, by saying only good things about other people, by saying grateful things instead of resentful things.
All of this is readily available to us! All the ‘tools’ for humility are at hand – all we have to do is reach out and use them.
God, for His part, has already reached out to us. This Feast is called “Meeting” because God came as a tiny baby to meet His people in person, in the Temple, on this day. As always, He comes 90% of the way – we only have to respond with 10%, and He makes us not slaves or employees but His children and friends. Let us go, then, to meet Him, with humility.