How’s Your Timing? / Luke 2:22–40 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday February 2nd 2025 / Presentation of Our Lord / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sun Feb 2nd 2025: Presentation of Our Lord / Luke 2:22–40 “How’s Your Timing?”

And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 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. And he came in 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, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

         “Lord, now You are letting your servant depart in peace,

                 according to Your word;

         for my eyes have seen Your salvation

                 that You have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

         a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

                 and for glory to Your people Israel.”  

         And His father and His mother marveled at what was said about Him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. And the Child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon Him.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends, except for Christmas Day, for more than 200 years the firing of the ‘Noon Gun’ in Halifax marks each day; this has been a local tradition since 1857. Currently, the present noon gun is a reproduction 12-pounder, smooth-bore muzzle-loading gun used during the reign of King George III.[1] The daily boom of that canon is a constant reminder that the port city of Halifax Nova Scotia, founded in 1749 by Col. Edward Cornwallis,[2] is a naval city stepped in military history. In a way it functions as a kind of clock marking time for the people who live there. Back in the 1990’s while attending school in Halifax I remember being in a professor’s office for a meeting around 11am when a massive clap of thunder, which they hardly every had there, came crashing into our conversation, and thinking the thunder was the noon gun my professor stopped midsentence and said, ‘is it lunch already?’

To a boy born on the prairies Halifax is an odd place, you could be sitting in that same office glancing over your professor’s shoulder and unexpectedly see a submarine breach the surface of the harbour’s still grey waters, a sight you’d never see looking out over a field of wheat or canola in Alberta or Saskatchewan. Now to me it was an unexpected surprise to see a submarine surface, but it was no unexpected surprise to the captain of the submarine. He knew exactly where and when he would call the order to surface, he knew exactly where and when he would arrive with his crew even if I did not. Looking out over the water you would never know when it might happen, and I only witnessed it a handful of times, but the possibility was there, I just didn’t have the captain’s schedule provided to me in advance.  

For all its size the Halifax harbour isn’t really that big, and while I wasn’t there to witness it, nearly 80 years earlier at 9:04am there had been a massive explosion on December 6th 1917 when the inbound French ship, the SS Mont-Blanc[3] which was carrying 2.9 kilotons of explosives intended for use in WWI, collided with an outbound Norwegian ship[4] headed for New York to load supplies for Belgium. The explosion killed around 2,000 people and injured thousands more, devastating entire neighbourhoods. This was an unexpected catastrophe that brought death and destruction. And while the captains of those two ships where keeping their schedules, they had not scheduled to collided that year, that month, that day, that hour, that very minute. Mistaking a thunder clap for the noon gun is one thing, having an explosion of that magnitude but minutes after 9am would not have been mistaken as the noon gun. It was an unexpected and heartbreaking tragedy.  

Daily we are faced with tragedies personal, local, national, international. Things that can come unexpectedly, things we may have worried about that suddenly come to be. We all sadly understand what a catastrophe is, an event that breaks in an evil direction bringing pain and suffering, loss and grief, which can even bring forth death. A catastrophe always seems to come at the wrong time, when we least need it. But what about when the something seems, from our point of view, to come at the wrong time, which is to say something that doesn’t come on our schedule, which actually brings something good and not something evil? What is the opposite of a catastrophe? Is there even a word for it?   

Practically every day for decades and decades Saint Simeon and the prophetess, Saint Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher would get up, prepare for their day, and like clockwork find them-selves in the temple in Jerusalem. These two had kept this schedule for the longest time and as they did, day in and day out, they would see families arrive with first born sons to be consecrated to the Lord in fulfilment of what was written in Exodus 13.[5] Simeon and Anna and these families with these boys would day by day pass like ships in the night in and out of “the harbour” of the temple, they would all be following their appointed schedules. And while this righteous and devout Saint Simeon was on the lookout for “the consolation of Israel,” and while the Holy Spirit was upon him and had revealed to him that he would not see death before he’d seen the Lord’s Christ,[6] Simeon would not have know that that year, that month, that day, that hour, would be the very moment that his “ship” would collide with the “ship” of the Holy Family. Saint Simeon and the prophetess, Saint Anna running into the Christ Child Jesus that day was not a catastrophe. And while they were all operating on their own schedules, Anna and Simeon had not scheduled that meeting in the same way that God had scheduled it. God the Father, God the Holy Spirit knew exactly where and when God the Son would arrive at the temple.

It may at first have seemed like a chance meeting, but Simeon quickly saw who this Child was, and taking Jesus up in his arms Simeon blessed God and saying the very words we now sing after having received Jesus in Holy Communion,

        “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace,

               according to Your word;

        for my eyes have seen Your salvation

               that You have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

        a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

               and for glory to Your people Israel.”

Simeon could die in peace knowing that the promised Christ had arrived. Now you might be thinking, didn’t we cover this back in the season of Christmas? Yes we did. But that wasn’t a celebration and remembrance of the actual day in the calendar year when it occurred. Today is literally 40 days after Christmas. We celebrate the presentation of our Lord today because today is exactly 40 days from the celebration of the day of Jesus’ birth; had December 25th been on a Thursday and not a Wednesday this year then this feast day would have fallen on a Monday and not a Sunday, so here we are. (As an aside, for those of you who plan ahead, not counting today there are 46 Sundays left before Christmas 2025)

Now I’d asked the question: ‘What is the opposite of a catastrophe? Is there even a word for it?’ What we see with Saint Simeon and the prophetess, Saint Anna running into the Christ Child Jesus that day in the temple is a good example of something which is the opposite of a catastrophe. Some might use the word serendipity[7] as the opposite of catastrophe, but serendipity is normally understood as an unplanned fortunate discovery. There was nothing unplanned about Jesus’ conception, incarnation and birth and there was nothing unplanned about His arrival that day at the temple. Like I said it was exactly 40 after His birth that He was presented to the Lord, just as was prescribed thousands of years earlier in the Book of Exodus, just as it was planned from before the foundations of the world, before life was even breathed into Adam in the Garden of Eden. So with that in mind, ‘what word would suit what we celebrate today?’ 

The 20th Century Oxford University professor J.R.R. Tolkien[8] had a word for it, and that word is Eucatastrophe. He described a Eucatastrophe as a sudden turn of events in a story that ensures the protagonist does not meet a terrible, impending, and plausible doom. This is more than just a happy ending; it represents a fundamental reversal of a tragic ending.

Tolkien wrote that, “The Birth of Christ is the Eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection [of Jesus from the dead following His Good Friday crucifixion and death] is the Eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story,” Tolkien says, “begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.” There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true,” Tolkien says, “and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.”[9]

While Sin, Death, the Devil and the World didn’t see it coming, or at least didn’t believe it would truly come—until they saw Jesus in the flesh—they likewise couldn’t see it coming that this same God made flesh would in the end be risen from the dead on Easter morning, and even if they knew it could happen they didn’t seem to believe that it would happen. Perhaps this is the way they feel about the promise of Jesus’ Second Coming on the Last Day. For Sin, Sin, Death, the Devil and the fallen World Jesus is a catastrophe for us Jesus’ incarnation, death and resurrection is a series of blessed Eucatastrophies. For the Christian there is nothing wrong or tragic about the timing of Jesus’ arrival. And on The Last Day there will be nothing tragic or wrong about the timing of Jesus’ second coming.

In the Word of God we see how this was planned for us in advance, how this reversal of tragedy was not a matter of happenstance or accident but was part of the plan of our salvation. In Galatians Saint Paul writes, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”[10] And in his letter to the Christians of Roman Saint Paul writes, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”[11] And in his letter to the Christians in Ephesus Saint Paul writes, “[God] chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love [the Lord] predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In [this Christ Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.”[12] 

As the Virgin Mary and Joseph her husband brought the Son of God in their arms that day to the temple, 40 days after His blessed birth, they could not have imagined that they would receive the following blessing from old Saint Simeon when he said to Mary Jesus’ mother, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” These words would come to pass in spades during Holy Week some 33 years later, and especially upon the cross of Jesus’ crucifixion with the Virgin Mary standing at the foot of that cross. But what looked like a catastrophe in the moment was truly the opposite, Christ dead upon the cross was a blessed Eucatastrophe. Saint Paul describes what was happening there with these words, explaining how “now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ”[13] ... and how the Lord had ordained this so that Christ Jesus “might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”[14] How it was that, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”[15] By the grace of God, Simeon and Anna that day in the temple recognized that this baby Jesus was being consecrated to do for them and for you and for me this very thing.

As we look for good in the midst of tragedy we may quote Saint Paul’s words in Romans 8 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”[16] If you want to see that accomplished perfectly, look no further than the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ Jesus. In Him you see all things working together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.

On Christmas Eve we sung the words, “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is giv’n!”[17] and once a year on Christmas day when the noon gun falls silent the Christian folks of Halifax can be found celebrating the birth of the Christ Child, 40 days after Christmas we celebrate with them today the presentation of our Lord Jesus in the temple for His consecration to God the Father. And by the grace of God we know and believe that Jesus was consecrated for the purpose of adverting and reversing the ultimate tragedy that sin brought into the world, for the purpose of saving and reconciling us unto His Father in heaven. Dear ones our timing, your timing, my timing may be terrible, but His timing is perfect.

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] King George III (b. 1738 – d. 1820) King of Great Britain and Ireland (1760–1820) and elector (1760–1814) and then king (1814–20) of Hanover.
[2] Col. Edward Cornwallis (b. 1713 – d. 1776) founder of Halifax, Nova Scotia; Governor of Nova Scotia from 1749–1752 and the Governor of Gibraltar from 1762–1776.
[3] SS Mont-Blanc: Cargo steamship built in Middlesbrough, England, in 1899 for a French shipping company
[4] SS Imo: Merchant steamship built in 1889 to carry livestock and passengers, converted in 1912 into a whaling factory ship. In 1917 the Belgian Relief Commission chartered Imo to take humanitarian supplies to German-occupied Belgium.
[5] Exodus 13:1-16
[6] Luke 2:25–26
[7] The term 'serendipity' was coined in 1754 by Horace Walpole (b. 1717 - d. 1797), 4th Earl of Orford English writer, art historian.
[8] J.R.R. Tolkien (b. 1892 – d. 1973) English writer and philologist; Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford (1925 - 1945), Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, (1945 until his retirement in 1959).
[9] On Fairy Stories, 1947 essay by J. R. R. Tolkien, Page 35.
[10] Galatians 4:4–5
[11] Romans 5:6
[12] Ephesians 1:4–10
[13] Ephesians 2:13
[14] Ephesians 2:16
[15] 2 Corinthians 5:19
[16] Romans 8:28
[17] O Little Town of Bethlehem, Lutheran Service Book, Concordia Publishing House 2006, 361 stanza 3.