Joyous Feast Day!

It is truly meet, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to You, holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who, sharing Your eternal splendor, was this day presented in Your temple in the substance of our human flesh and revealed by the Spirit as the glory of Israel and the light of all people. Therefore, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising You and saying: Holy, holy, holy...

Today is the Feast of St. Mary’s Purification and our Lord’s Presentation in the Temple. We gathered for the Divine Service. School children and teachers and staff and sundry parents and grandparents.

Sadly, with social distancing, no blessing and distribution of the candles, but still a most joyous liturgy, at which Pastor presided and I was blessed serve as deacon. 

As Pastor preached I thought again of the truth that “Mary had a little Lamb whose fleece was white as snow.” From my seat, the image of the holy family with Sts. Mary and Joseph holding our Lord is in my view the whole sermon! The real offering that day wasn’t just the birds they brought along as the offering of the poor, as pastor reminded us, but above all the Child, the Lamb of God Himself. When you are poor in spirit and have only Him you still have the kingdom of heaven itself; and as He was presented this day in the temple in our flesh, so at the resurrection He will present us to His Father in THE temple of heaven itself, spotless and perfect, cleansed by His blood.

We had the joy of singing: “In His temple now behold Him” which proclaims that very truth; and at the very end of the liturgy we joined together in Luther’s incomparable “In peace and joy I now depart” singing with St. Simeon TWICE (also the Nunc Dimittis, of course, after the Distribution of the Holy Eucharist). 

I am so thankful that two of my grandchildren are educated in a place where this rich worship life forms them in the faith, with overflowing joy, engaging the senses in sight and smell and sound.