The Meeting of the Lord

Now You dismiss Your servant, O Master, according to Your word, in peace (Lk 2:29,30)

When the time came for the incarnate Word of God, through whom all things were made, to appear upon the earth, then, by the Providence of God, certain chosen ones from among men had been prepared to meet His wondrous, all-saving appearing and to proclaim it to the world—first, the Bethlehem shepherds of the speechless flocks, who were informed of it by the Angels of heaven, who had borne loud witness to the Divinity and the humanity of the newborn Christ; and then the venerable elder Simeon, filled with the Holy Spirit, to whom God had given the promise that he would not die until he had seen Christ the Lord. It is this meeting by Simeon that the holy Orthodox Church celebrates every year, and she repeats his welcoming song to the Savior of the world every day at the evening service. You all know it—it begins with the words: Now You dismiss Your servant, O Master, according to Your word, in peace, for my eyes have seen Your salvation.

The righteous elder blessed the divine Infant and His Mother, and said to Her: This Child is set for the falling and for the rising of many in Israel, and as a sign that will be spoken against; and a sword will pass through Your own soul as well, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be brought to light[1]. Such is the event that the holy Church commemorates and celebrates every year for our edification and salvation.

What does the feast of the Meeting of the Lord teach us? – First of all, this truth: that God is faithful in all His words and promises. He promised already to Adam and Eve, our forebears who fell in paradise together with all their posterity, that He would send to the earth a Savior for them and for all mankind, namely the blessed Seed of the Woman, who would crush the head of the murderous serpent; and this was fulfilled, is fulfilled daily, and will be fulfilled until the very end of the world, so long as there are born and live on the earth people faithful to and believing in God and in His Christ, for through them He, Christ, tramples underfoot and crushes the head of the serpent. Such were the patriarchs, forefathers, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, ascetics and righteous ones, and all the saints; such there are even now among the true-believing, who conquer the ancient serpent, who leads the whole world astray[2].

Second, the feast of the Meeting teaches us that the Lord Himself comes to meet only those who work righteousness, or who hunger and thirst after righteousness – like the Elder Simeon; for He came to earth in order to fulfill all the righteousness[3] of God, and to teach us to do righteousness, and to deliver us from all unrighteousness, from all lawlessness, and to grant us repentance with its saving fruits.

The Lord gave Himself over and rested in the arms of the righteous Simeon, but He would not have given Himself over into the arms of a sinful man, nor been carried in them: for what communion has righteousness with lawlessness, light with darkness – Christ with Belial[4]? So even now Christ cannot dwell in a heart and body that are guilty of sin and the passions; and if we wish to have Christ in our hearts, we must repent and come to hate sin, loving righteousness and virtue.

Besides the meeting by Simeon, there were several other solemn meetings of Christ God during His life on earth. Thus He was met by the magi, wise men from the East, with their gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh; and John the Forerunner met Him and proclaimed Him with a loud voice at the river Jordan, baptizing the sinless Master of creation, who sanctified the waters for us by His baptism; Him the Jewish people met solemnly at His entrance into Jerusalem with palms and branches of trees, singing: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord[5]. We also meet Him every day during the Liturgy, when at its end the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ appear at the open royal doors, and the choir sings: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; God is the Lord, and He has revealed Himself to us.

Besides this, every day, among believing Christians who live devoutly, there take place inner secret meetings, that is, encounters with the Lord in their souls during prayer, secret or public, and in earnest repentance, when Christ comes in secret to the repentant soul and consoles it, embraces it like a father, is reconciled to it, and dwells within it, especially in sincere Communion of the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ. But there is also a pitiful, grievous separation of man from Christ, when the Christian soul falls into voluntary or involuntary sins, for example, into foul, faithless, wicked, and blasphemous thoughts, or into pride, self-love, and disbelief of the Gospel truth, when in unbelief it rejects God and falls away from Him altogether and blasphemes Him, as happened with the blasphemer Count Tolstoy and the numerous followers of his, of Tolstoy himself. On them the prophecy of Simeon the God-receiver, who uttered to the Most Holy Virgin those memorable words, was fulfilled: See, this One is destined for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel. – This was said both of the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees of that time and of today’s falsely learned men who style themselves Christians. Christ became for Tolstoy a stumbling block.

Furthermore, every time there happens our pitiful, senseless separation from God, when we fall into various sins – fornication, adultery, malice, envy, intemperance, drunkenness, disobedience, self-will, riotous conduct, reviling and foul language; covetousness and love of money, and various other sins; – and if a man dies unrepentant in his sins, – he is separated forever from Christ and joined to the devil, to whom he likened himself during his life and finally became fully like, – and he inherits one and the same lot with him – eternal torment.

The last Meeting of the Lord will be at His second and dread coming, when He will come in His own dread glory and in the dread glory of the heavenly Father, with all the angelic powers and every eye will see Him, and those who pierced Him, and all the tribes of the earth will lament before Him[6].

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: The Lord Himself, at the shout, at the voice of the Archangel and the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are left alive will, together with them, be caught up on the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord[7].

Let us, then, meet the Lord here on earth while we live, in repentance and virtue, with souls clean and undefiled, abiding in mutual love and the doing of every righteousness, so that we may also meet His second coming in joy and dwell forever in His kingdom. Amen.