The Presentation of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Temple

Date: 01 February 2006 10:52:32

February 2 is the commemoration of the event forty days after Christ's birth, when He -- the God-Infant -- was taken to the Temple.

Troparion: Rejoice, Virgin Theotokos, full of grace! From you shone the sun of righteousness, Christ our God, enlightening those who sat in darkness! Rejoice and be glad, righteous Elder; you accepted in your arms the Redeemer of our souls, Who grants us the Resurrection.

Kontakion: By Your nativity, You sanctified the Virgin's womb and blessed Simeon's hands, O Christ God. Now You have come and saved us through love. Grant peace to all Orthodox Christians, only Lover of mankind!

Archimandrite Ephrem's wonderful site has a page with the services for the Feast, one of the 12 Great Feasts of the Church Year. Here are a few hymns from the services:

Let heaven's gate be opened today. For he who is without beginning, the Word of the Father, taking a beginning in time, yet not abandoning his godhead, is being willingly brought into the temple of the law as a babe of forty days by a Virgin Mother, and the Elder receives him in his arms. The servant cries to the Master, ‘Release me, for my eyes have seen your salvation'. You have come into the world to save the human race. Lord, glory to you!

Today Symeon the Elder enters the Temple, rejoicing in Spirit to receive in his arms the One who gave the Law to Moses and who fulfils the Law. For Moses was counted worthy to see God through darkness and a faint voice, and with his face veiled he rebuked the unbelieving hearts of the Hebrews. While Symeon carried the pre-eternal Word of the Father incarnate in body and he revealed the light of the Nations, the Cross and Resurrection. And Anna was shown to be a Prophetess as she proclaimed the Saviour to be the Redeemer of Israel. To him let us cry, ‘Christ our God, through the Mother of God have mercy on us.'

He who rides on the Cherubim and is hymned by the Seraphim is being brought today into God's Temple according to the Law and enthroned on aged arms. By Joseph he receives gifts befitting God, as a pair of turtle doves the unblemished Church and the newly chosen people of the nations; as Author of the Old and New Covenants, two young pigeons. Symeon, having received the fulfilment of the oracle concerning him, blessed Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, and foretold the symbols of the Passion of the One born from her. From him he asks for his release, crying out, ‘Now you release me, Master, as you promised me; for I have seen you, the pre-eternal light, Saviour and Lord of the people that bears Christ's name.'

Psalm 45: My heart is overflowing with a good theme ...

Let us run to the Mother of God if we wish to see her Son
Being brought to Symeon.
From heaven the Bodiless Ones are amazed as they look on him and say,
‘Wondrous and marvellous, incomprehensible, ineffable are the things we now see,
For the One who created Adam is being carried as a babe;
The uncontainable is contained in the arms of the elder;
He who is in the uncircumscribed bosom of his Father
Is willingly circumscribed in flesh, but not in godhead,
The only Lover of mankind'.

I love the comparisons such as 'the uncontainable contained in the arms of the Symeon' and the hymns that reflect on those in the Old Testament, such as Moses, seeing God through darkness and now Symeon holds God incarnate. A great mystery indeed! And the rich imagery contained therein reflecting on Biblical history and narrative. Such rich hymns.

Happy Feast Day! to all!