Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Festival of the Presentation of our Lord and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Posted on February 2, 2021 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: St. Luke 2:22-32 (NKJV)
 
2:22 Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”), 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
 
25 And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 27 So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, 28 he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said:
 
29 “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word;
 
30 For my eyes have seen Your salvation
 
31 which You have prepared before the face of all peoples,
 
32 a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”
 
Devotion
 
The Holy Spirit had made it known to Simeon that he would not die “before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” Simeon trusted in the Word, and he beheld the fulfillment of the Word in the day in which the Holy Family came to the Temple for the presentation of our Lord and the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
 
It was the Lord’s will that Simeon would not receive this blessed revelation only for his personal consolation, but that he would proclaim the fulfillment of that which was first promised to our first parents in the Garden of Eden: the coming of the Seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. No doubt the words of Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis will be sung in Church to the day when the Christ returns in glory at the end of the age. The Presentation of our Lord, and the hymn which springs forth from that presentation, proclaim the fulfillment of the divine Word and the consolation of the saints which comes through that fulfillment.
 
Prayer: Almighty and Everliving God, we humbly beseech Thy Majesty, that as Thine Only-Begotten Son was this day presented in the Temple in the substance of our flesh, so we may be presented unto Thee with pure and clean hearts; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
 
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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