Presentation of the Lord - Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons

Rembrandt

February 2nd 2026

One of my liturgical losses is that of the period between the Epiphany and the Presentation, Candlemas! The Anglicans keep these Sundays as Epiphanytide or Sundays after Epiphany which keeps our deep and ancient tradition of Christmas lasting until the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple - which in some way helped keep a light burning in our minds and prayers during the let down period of January. But be that as it may the feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple could be resurrected as a feast to be celebrated more at home, not only of light but as one where we remember in a better way the youngest and the oldest amongst us.

The gospel account found in Luke combines both the purification of Mary after childbirth but also the redemption ceremony of the first-born. It is also presented as a tableau in which the bitter sweetness of life churns together with the joy of seeing salvation in Christ. Though the child Jesus is being presented as the firstborn, to be dedicated in the Temple, he is ransomed by the offering and death of pigeons or turtle doves, a slightly sombre note, even the innocent birds are tinged with sacrifice, but that too is a reminder of the ever present balance between life and death .

Then we have the juxtaposition of two main characters who are nearing their mortal end, Simeon, the righteous and devout man to whom is revealed the true nature of the child Jesus as the Christ of the Lord, and Anna that servant of God who after the death of her husband early on in her married life has lived out the rest of her eighty four years in dedication and prayer in the Temple. Both are at their ends, but both are given the revelation that in Christ death will not be the ending and in fact Simeon prays the canticle we know by his name, he can depart in peace, not to nothingness but into salvation.

Yet in the midst of this, holding the trusting child, Simeon also prophesies that Jesus will be a sign of contradiction and that sorrow that will pierce the heart of Mary in order to reveal what is hidden.

So we have a tableau of light and dark, revelation and sorrow, of beginning and ending-yet here where young and old come together a greater light emerges, that also in our ending is a new beginning!

Happy feast!

Poem

My Song of Simeon

Down the months of days
Across the different years,
I search for You,
The One I call Lord
The One I know so vaguely
The One I cannot clearly see

Down the minutes of my life
All those restless moments
Of joys and sorrows mixed together
You were always there
Walking with me and others
but I did not fully understand.

In those still times of my heart-prayer,
in those dark nights awakened
restlessly searching,
asking You questions
that never seem to be answered,
I saw the Morning Star.

Always in the souls dry arid days
another voice is ever gently calling;
'Onwards little one
the shepherd knows the sheep
the calm will come,
I will always light your journey!'.

Then at that sheepfold
At that gate with every one gathered
There I shall then truly see
The face of You, the One I call Lord
Shining in each of us there
And I shall be glad
Rejoicing, for I then will be home.

RPPG Presentation of the Lord

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