The Encounter Moment

We’ve seen it played out countless times in our imaginations and on-screen: two people going about life as usual, but then, they catch each other’s glance. The world around them fades away as they stop and look at the other. An ordinary moment is made extraordinary by an encounter with the other, and the course of their lives changes. Of course, with Hollywood, this is usually a “love-at-first-sight” moment and the skeptics among us scoff that such things actually happen in “real life.” But before we snicker, flip the page or walk away, let’s consider the story of Simeon and Anna in the temple and whether there’s something to such a life-changing encounter moment.

By Fra Angelico - John Pope-Hennessy, Beato Angelico, Scala, Firenze 1981., Public Domain

Simeon and Anna, along with all of Israel, had been waiting, longing, for an encounter with the Messiah. God had brought humankind, and in particular the Jews, through a long, often difficult road of preparing them for the coming of the Messiah. Simeon had even been assured by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before seeing Israel’s savior. And then, the day came. He went to the temple as usual. He saw a young couple enter with a baby boy, a first-born son to be consecrated to God, like every other first-born baby boy. Yet this one was different. Simeon saw and he knew. In this encounter moment, his life was complete and he praised God saying, “Now you may let your servant go in peace, your word has been fulfilled.” Anna, too, came forward in that moment and began prophesying and telling everyone about this little baby boy. One encounter, one moment, changed everything for them.

But surely Simeon and Anna were different; does God really work like that today? Actually, Jesus often comes to us small and quiet, like he did when he was an infant at his presentation in the temple. Think of how many people were in the temple that day, yet Simeon and Anna were the two that were given knowledge of his true identity – that he was the Messiah everyone there was waiting for. If we want to recognize Jesus when he comes to us, like Simeon and Anna, like Mary and Joseph, we must be prepared to receive Him. We must watch with expectation.

On the feast of the Presentation of the Lord (celebrated in the Eastern Churches as “The Meeting”), we processed into the church with lighted candles, “eager to carry [them] in praise of [God’s] name.” We heard the reading from the Old Testament, the promise of the coming of “the Lord whom you seek”, who is like “the refiner’s fire, or like the fuller’s lye”. And we, the people of God respond with the responsorial psalm:

Oh gates, lift high your heads!
Reach up you ancient portals,
that the king of glory may come in!

The verses of the responsorial psalm, part of Psalm 24, was composed for solemn liturgical procession. The psalm describes the attitude of those who would approach the temple. It is a psalm declaring God as king, triumphant over all His enemies. Today, Jesus does not enter a temple made with human hands – we are his temple: he desires to be enthroned in each and every heart, to reveal his triumph over sin and death in each of our lives. We “lift high the gates” when we open wide our hearts and make room for him. The ancient doors of our humanity grow higher when we wait with our candles of faith and hope lighted, burning with the virtues and charity, and we long with expectation for our own encounter with Him, listening for His voice.

After hearing Him in the readings, and offering Him our response of receptivity, he comes. He comes and gives Himself wholly and completely in the Eucharist. He comes, hidden under the appearance of bread and wine, but he is here – body, soul, blood and divinity. To see, we must look with the eyes of faith. To receive, we must lift up our hearts to him in hope and thanksgiving. At this moment, the moment of communion with our God and King, the Church gives us the words of Simeon as our own: “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples.”

Were we prepared for our encounter moment with him? Perhaps at this moment of life, our cups overflows with goodness, beauty and riches? Let us give thanks to God who has given us these things. Perhaps life is a bit blurry, full of questions or we are uncertain about the future? Then we can stand with Mary in the temple as she hears Simeon foretell that “a sword will pierce her heart”, yet she cannot fully grasp the meaning of those words in that moment; she keeps them in her heart and ponders them as she walks through life by faith. Or perhaps at this moment in our life, we are in the darkness of a Garden of Gethsemane, or even nailed to the cross, experiencing deep pain, abandonment, helplessness. In each of these moments of life, HE COMES.

Let us celebrate the coming of our King and Savior! He has come, he will come again, and he continues to come at this moment, if only we will surrender to Him in trust and open wide to let Him enter. May the Church’s prayer after communion on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord be our own throughout this week:

By these holy gifts which we have received, O Lord,
bring your grace to perfection within us,
and, as you fulfilled Simeon’s expectation
that he would not see death
until he had been privileged to welcome the Christ,
so may we, going forth to meet the Lord,
obtain the gift of eternal life.
Through Christ our Lord.