When the Egyptian king Ptolemy Philadelphus, founder of the glorious
library of Alexandria, wished to have the Old Testament books in the
Bible translated from Hebrew into Greek, the Jewish Sanhedrin (High
Council) chose 72 righteous men from among the Hebrews, six from each
tribe of Israel, who knew both languages well. Among these 72 men was a
certain elder named Simeon.
While translating the Book of Isaiah, he stopped at a prophecy well-known to him: “Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son…”
(Isaiah 7:14). Simeon had doubts about the word “Virgin,” and after
pondering for a while, decided to replace it with the words “young
woman,” as being more understandable and believable. But suddenly an
angel appeared before him and, staying his hand, said: “Believe in what
is written. You shall see with your own eyes the fulfillment of this
incomprehensible prophecy.” This took place about 270 years before the
birth of Christ.
And so years, decades and centuries passed. Simeon patiently waited
for the fulfillment of God’s word, announced to him by the angel, and
daily visited the temple of Jerusalem. And thus, when the Most-Holy
Virgin Mary, in accordance with the law of Moses, brought the Infant
Christ to the temple on the 40th day after His birth, Simeon was
divinely inspired to recognize Them, together with the prophetess Anna
who lived at the temple. Piously he bowed down to the Infant and His
Mother, and taking the Infant God up in his arms, he turned to Him with
the following moving prayer: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart
in peace…” (Luke 2:29-32).
We read this prayer at the end of each vespers, at the
end of the day, which symbolizes the end of life, since sleep is the
foreshadow of death.
Thus the holy prophet Isaiah’s words came to pass, and
the righteous Simeon’s expectation was fulfilled: in the temple he met
Christ born of a Virgin, and for this reason the holiday is called the
Meeting of our Lord.
For many years afterwards the event of Christ’s presentation at the
temple of Jerusalem was commemorated, but after a while the memory of
this event apparently began to fade. And then in 542 A.D. there was a
terrible plague in the Byzantine Empire, so that many thousands died
every day, and the bodies of the dead lay for a long time without being
buried, while in the city of Antioch another natural disaster was added –
a severe earthquake. Many buildings were destroyed, burying in their
ruins those who had survived the plague. At that time a certain pious
person received a revelation from above that people should begin
celebrating the day of the Meeting of the Lord, as well as other feasts
of the Lord and the Theotokos. Thus, on the eve of the 40th day after
the Nativity of Christ, i.e. the day of the Meeting of our Lord, when
the all-night vigil was served, followed by a procession with the cross,
– the plague and the earthquake immediately stopped. The joyful
inhabitants gave glory, praise and thanks to the Lord God and His
Most-Holy Mother.
The meeting with the Infant Christ had great meaning for
the elder Simeon. But what meaning does it have for us and for our
salvation?
To understand the deep significance of this holiday we
must turn to the service for this day, because the Holy Church has
expressed its understanding of Gospel events most fully in its services.
“In the Law – in the shadow and in the Scriptures – do we, the
faithful, behold the symbol: every male child opening the womb is
consecrated to God…” (9th ode of the canon). In the Old Testament law,
which only served to foreshadow the coming law, each first-born male
from each family of the chosen people was dedicated to God. This law
was established at the time when the Lord smote with death all the
first-born of Egypt, sparing the first-born of the ancient Jews, who
henceforth began to be considered as God’s property, and whom their mothers were obligated to give over into full service to God, i.e. consecrate to God,
in other words – make them their priests and intercessors before God.
However, since many families found it difficult to give up their
first-born for service to God, Moses, not without God’s approval,
modified this law to some extent, replacing the first-born from each
family with a universal first-born from the entire people – with
the tribe of Levy, which became totally dedicated to God and became the
priesthood of the ancient Jews. In order to authenticate this exchange,
each mother had to bring her first-born to the temple on the 40th day
after his birth, offer a sacrifice to God, and redeem her infant in
order to obtain the right to get him back, while transferring his
obligations to the priests.
Such is the origin and the meaning of Old Testament
priesthood. However, all these institutions, though established with
God’s approval, were only human prerogatives and thus lacked grace,
because they only served to foreshadow the future. The service of the
priesthood openly prophesied to the people the forthcoming High Priest
and the forthcoming salvific Sacrifice. All Old Testament “gifts and
sacrifices… were imposed on them until the time of reformation… but Christ the High Priest, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:9-12).
Faced with the Infant Christ, the entire Old Testament
priesthood could be considered as having fulfilled its temporary
foreshadowing service and could say to Christ together with the elder
Simeon: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart…,” and not only in
terms of wishing quick deliverance from earthly life, but also quick
deliverance from its priestly service which was inactive (i.e. lacking
grace) in the face of the eternal High Priest and the redeeming
Sacrifice.
The content of the holiday service reveals to us the
chief meaning of the coming of the Son of God to earth, which lay not in
a glorious establishment of a universal earthly kingdom of the Messiah,
as the leaders of the Jewish people wished it, but in His service as a High Priest to the world and in His priestly sacrifice of atonement.
The elder Simeon speaks of this to the Most-Holy Virgin Mary, as he
prophetically views Her future station at the Cross and likens it to a
sword piercing Her heart. And the elder himself, already seeing in the
Divine Infant the beginning of the redeeming sacrifice for which He had
been born, expresses his desire to descend as quickly as possible into
hell, in order to proclaim to the prisoners languishing there the great
joy of the first rays of the Paschal Sun (7th ode of the canon). Amen.
Protopriest Igor Hrebinka
