If you are new to France, you will very soon learn how we celebrate here the presentation of Jesus in the Temple : we eat pancakes, crepes. In fact, most French people do not know the 2nd of February is the feast of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, but they remember they have to eat crepes. Where does the tradition come from? In the middle ages, Pilgrims used to celebrate the presentation of Jesus by walking in processions with candles (“chandelles” in French, “la chandeleur”). As for the crepes, it is said that it was first Pope Gelasius the first who gave some to comfort pilgrims coming to Rome for the event. Well, tradition is not very clear!

In fact, the event in itself is not clear. What is this event about? We often think it is the circumcision of Jesus, but the beginning of the text we did not read today mentions Jesus was already circumcised. The event refers to the presentation of Jesus but also to the “Purification of Mary”, what does it mean?

These ambiguities can make us feel a little uncomfortable, and in fact this text leaves a sweet and bitter taste in our mind when we hear it. It should be a happy event, as is a baptism to us. Moreover in this case, prophecies about the child confirm his incredible destiny. But in the text, it is also question of purification and sacrifice. Holding the child, Simeon praises, but taking Mary apart he speaks a prophecy which is more difficult to hear. “This child will be a sign of rejection” “Your heart will be broken”. And what about Simeon himself? He realizes that the fulfillment of the promise is also the announcing of his own death! Marvel and fear walk hand in hand.

Well, this text is not a family scene, it is about condemnation and salvation, sin and purification, life, death and a mother’s broken heart... It is how Jesus is presented to us. As we say in our liturgy: “This is his story”. It is not about eating pancakes. Sometimes, the message of the Gospel just can seem overwhelming to us, as it surely was for Mary that day, and it is all about the difficulty of being a witness to our faith.

So why should I be a witness?

We often talk about the difficulty of being a witness for Jesus as an issue of technique. Well, we find that in the Bible also. Wasn’t Moses afraid of not being able to talk? We wonder what to say, how to express our faith, and who has never wished to have a booklet on “how to make quick conversions (and not miss them)”? Well, I think questions of technique are important but the problem is deeper. The technical problem comes because in presenting Jesus to others we feel we are talking about the unspeakable, we are trying to make understood the incomprehensible. And we feel paralysed, overwhelmed by the message, a message which makes us open our heart if we want to express it, because it is also about our life, our intimacy with God. The temptation can be great to have a ready made discourse to escape these difficulties. But is this being a witness?

This is the reason why the way I would like to lead our reflection today is in wondering in what spirit we enter into the job of presenting Jesus to others? We are going to see three different ways to do the job, and their advantages & disadvantages:

• We can enter into the job of being a witness in the desire to share the word of the Lord for the salvation of the world, the salvation Simeon proclaims, the redemption Anna is talking about.
• We can also consider that we have to talk about Jesus because salvation is not only a grace to receive once for all, but a way to live better as the first reading of Malachi reminded us.
• We can also want to be a witness for a different reason, in a completely free way: just because it is our joy, our honour and most of all the joy and the honour of God and then we accept the price we have to pay.
• But then, don't we run the risk of forgetting our own desires and needs, can we deny that we expect something from God?

First of all, I would like to be a little theoretical - to explain briefly what event the Gospel is talking about: “The presentation of Jesus”, also called “The purification of the Virgin Mary”. The Law of Moses required that each firstborn be presented in the Temple, because each first born belonged to God : children, but also animals and even plants (remember the Harvest celebration...), so the parents had to offer a sacrifice to God that would allow them to keep their child. “The purification of the Virgin Mary” refers to the fact that each time a woman had a child, she had to go to the Temple 40 days later to get back the ritual purity she was supposed to have lost in her delivery. Only after this rite was she able to attend the worship services again. All this is the historical background!

What we can first understand from this event is that the son of God and his mother are not above the Law. Jesus' life starts with obedience, he shares our way of doing things...So it is a duty to present Jesus, and I think it was clear to Mary from the beginning that she would not keep Jesus for herself. The event does not only concern Jesus, it concerns herself. She has to show her son. We can imagine that she had contradictory feelings : as a mother she is very proud and wants everybody to see her baby, in another way she surely would have liked to keep this gift of God as the secret of her life, and she was probably frightened when she heard the prophecies about him, and about herself. In the same way, sometimes we want to talk to those around us about Jesus because we are so happy to know him, at other times, we would like to keep him for ourselves, because we cannot present him without exposing ourselves, and we are so afraid of rejection! It is indeed disturbing.

So we face a contradiction, don't we? We have to present Jesus to others but we often feel we cannot, and that is why we would like to have a recipe for doing it! But it is not like making pancakes. We have to be clear with ourselves, clear about our motivations and expectations.

Is my motivation to be a good soldier of the word?

We have to proclaim the word of the Lord, and that has been done from the beginning of Christianity, it is the knowledge of the Scriptures which enables Simeon to be a witness to Jesus. For this, we have to take time for reading the scriptures, knowing our traditions, but also knowing the world around us. In fact good communication cannot be only proclamation.

How will I find the words to talk about Jesus, if I do not use the words people use today? Jesus first came as a baby, he learned, he worked : do we still learn? Not only the Scriptures, which is important, but also from what happens in our world. We often feel annoyed that young people do not know anything about Christianity, but what do we know of their world?

Jesus lived with us first, to understand us and he uses examples from our everyday life to make us understand the word of God. He started by watching and listening. I think that in this Jesus really learned from his mother. Did you see her in the Temple? Did you compare her attitude with that of James and John's mother? Is Mary explaining to Simeon what the angel told her? Elizabeth's intuitions? Her husband's dreams? No, she is attentive. Presenting Jesus to others, she is learning who he is. Do we think we have to learn from others, and not only from theologians, preachers and other specialists? We know that presenting Jesus to others is our duty, but it is also important to remember that it is our duty for our own purification, to purifying our understanding. It is Jesus' job to save and to judge, not ours, our job is to offer Jesus.

Presenting Jesus is not only about having discussions, it is about giving something of ourselves. We have to be careful because it is easy to confuse “presenting” Jesus with defending an idea, or even selling a product! We cannot hide behind a discourse. The idea is not to deliver our hearts, to talk about very private feelings or experiences but presenting Jesus it is to make Jesus present, so we have to be present. How can people feel loved and chosen by God if we do not love them, if we are arrogant and have no sharing with them?

So our the motivation for our witness can also be to give directions, to be a guide towards true life

Jesus went to people who knew they needed to be healed. Pharisees, priests and specialists of the Law did not really feel they needed healing, or at least they thought they could heal themselves with their own medicines: ceremonies, sacrifices and so on. Don’t we feel the same way today? People still think they can save themselves by themselves, by human means.

We can wonder if it is worth talking about the Saviour to people who do not feel first they have to be saved? Does the text we read today not remind us that Jesus comes to people who are waiting for him : Simeon, Anna?

If you want to present Jesus to others, it is difficult to do so if there is no seeking, no desire. Perhaps it means that before bringing the Gospel to people, we must help them to have a different view of life, on their expectations and hopes. Most people do not have any expectations any more, That does not mean that the need is not in their heart, they have stopped seeking because they think there is nothing to find and they think they have to adapt themselves to life as it is. We cannot make people believe in Jesus but we can bring them to wonder about their lives. God may ask us to be in our world like a window in a dark room : letting his light enter. Wasn't that exactly what Jesus did? Let's first open ourselves to God, instead of waiting for others to do so. But it is not a passive attitude, God does not want us to be dreamers. We can provoke enthusiasm for Jesus by telling people “Jesus is the key to success, he will change your life”... but what, if we do not commit ourselves? Will we be there in times of trial? What, if we proclaim the Savior and do nothing concretely to save? What we have to remember is to let God's action show in our actions, knowing everything depends on him. Be neither a dreamer, nor an activist.

We can consider that we have to be a witness only for the glory of God, because it is his pleasure to be loved and known.

For all these reasons, it is better to feel that our mission is to “present” Jesus to others rather than “making Jesus known or loved” because we know we can only propose faith but in the end we have to wait for the Spirit to act. That doesn’t mean being passive and shy but we can never presume what will happen. So let's act as if we had no hope for the results, only for the glory of God, because it is our pleasure to present him, as a lover is happy to present his beloved! We must remember that it is for free that God comes to us. Acting freely for God is perhaps the best testimony of his free love. Most grandparents are sorry their grandchildren get no religious education, but sometimes the free time they spend with them can help them better to understand Jesus than any catechism. Sometimes we do not need to have great discussions but just exchange a few sentences. A good example is like a little seed growing deep inside that one day bursts out. Jesus wants us to evangelize through little things. We should also remember that no one person alone can lead another to know Jesus: look how many people Joseph and Mary met since Jesus was born.

It is not always easy. The Gospel we read today reminds us how the message of Jesus can be costly: if we share Jesus' life, we also share his suffering, his rejection, as Simeon warns Mary. We may face opposition, just because we are Christians, as the drama in Egypt reminded us recently. Jesus did not suffer once for all, he is always suffering, and it is his way to be with us also. His true friends do not only enjoy his company for the good times, they suffer with him, and help him to carry his cross, as God decided in his mercy we could. Jesus does not save us with condescension, he save us using us, even if we can do nothing without him. Mary could do nothing at the foot of the cross, but she was there, she was the first to share Jesus' pain and we are invited to do the same.

We have means to help us. Do we pray for those who nobody ever prays for? Do you pray for each person you meet each day?... Lent is coming, are we still able, as was Anna, to fast to say to God “You are the first in my life”. We often say it is better to do good than to fast, but will we be strong enough to act if we do not have a real prayer life, with concrete efforts to be in a good condition to pray? We first have to work on our own interior life, as does Anna.

We cannot deny that being a witness is costly so we can wonder what we are really expecting from it.

So in what kind of spirit should we be a witness for Jesus? Mary presents Jesus, her baby, and we are invited to present Jesus as a baby: a joy for everybody, someone coming to live with us, someone to get to know...There is no recipe for a relationship! As holding a baby, we have to care with tenderness but also to hold him tightly, we have, to persevere, and to be able to give a testimony when we think it is time. There is a different time for each person to meet Jesus, God knows when people are ready or not, each one is different but also called to a different relationship with Jesus.

It is indeed difficult to know what to do and when to do it. But I find there is a very beautiful word in the Gospel which can inspire us. It is said that Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel. Do we act, talk, present Jesus to others in order to bring consolation?

When you try to comfort someone, you have to be kind to him, to listen to him, but you have also to be wise, and having regards to his freedom, you have to be sincere and to tell him what you think is true and what you think is good, because he needs you to be present and he needs to realize you are not trying to get rid of him with a few words. Then, we have our reward because what is more comforting than to realize you can still comfort someone else? The hope we share is also ours.

Perhaps we will again find meaning in the tradition of la chandeleur in remembering that Pope Gelasius the 1st offered crepes to the pilgrims in order to comfort them! I said that this event of the presentation can leave in our mind a sweet and bitter feeling, is not consolation a sweet and bitter feeling, isn't it the taste of all Christian life? Is it the taste of our life? A witness for Jesus does not come with all the responses and solutions in his suitcase, but he brings consolation, as did his master, and then he also brings consolation to his master, who suffered so much to save everyone.