Feast of the Presentation of the Lord – February 2, 2025

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Malachi 3:1-4; Psalm 24:7-10; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40

The Presentation of the Lord

Today, we celebrate the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, a feast which only only falls on Sunday every 5-10 years. So if the whole candle thing seemed totally random to you, that’s understandable! In fact, since 1970 it has only landed on Sunday eight times (only the fifth time since I’ve been alive). So, whereas we are used to the procession on Palm Sunday with palms (because it happens every year), the candles is a little novel to us. The candles are also why today is sometimes known as “Candlemas”—the candles being the symbol of Jesus, the Light of the World. And people have traditionally brought their candles to be blessed (that’s what my mom would always do; she would have her candles for the next Advent ready to go!) Today, then, is also the traditional the end of the Christmas season—so if you still have your Christmas tree up, you’re not lazy, you’re a good Catholic celebrating all forty days of the Christmas season!

One of my earliest memories—probably my earliest memory as a child—is connected to this Gospel reading we have today. When we were young, our dad—he would pray with us every night. He would sit outside of all of our rooms in the hallway, and he would pray Night Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours, the prayers that all priests and religious promise to pray. But every night, Night Prayer includes this beautiful canticle from Simeon that we heard today: “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people: a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.” To this day, those words are burned into my brain—every night I remember my dad praying them. My earliest memory as a child.

And they are at the heart of this celebration today! This celebration sums up, wraps up the great Mystery of the Incarnation we started celebrating at Christmas: God becoming man, truly taking on our humanity, entering into the human condition (what did the letter to the Hebrews say? Jesus shared in our “flesh and blood,” “became like [us] in every way,” “suffered”)—Jesus arrives for the great work of salvation.

But notice: just by seeing Jesus, Simeon declares, “My own eyes have seen the salvation…a light!” Jesus hasn’t “saved” anyone yet! He was still just a baby. What does Simeon mean?

The Rescue

To answer that—one of the most powerful images I have ever come across for this—Back in 2018 there was that very famous event of that of that rescue of the boys from that cave in Thailand—very famous, hit all the news sites, everyone was watching it! So famous, that National Geographic even made a documentary about it. And to this day, it’s hands down the best documentary I’ve ever seen. (If you’re about to tune out for my homily now, then just listen to one thing: go watch the documentary called “The Rescue” from National Geographic. Ok.). This documentary tells this incredible story. There are these twelve boys and their coach. And after after soccer practice one day, they decide, “Hey, let’s go to the caves. Let’s go explore them.”

And before you start judging these boys—like, “Oh man, you guys are doing this dangerous thing! It’s it’s your own fault you got into this!” no—these are very well-known caves. People go—it’s like a national park—people go to these things and explore the caves. Everyone does it. Don’t blame them, blame the weather. In Thailand, the monsoon season that year decided to show up a few months early. So while the boys are there back in the cave, all of a sudden the rains come, floods come, and this cave system starts to fill up. (The boys are about two and a half miles deep at this point.) Luckily they’re able to find a place in the caves that’s higher than the water level so they’re just kind of like up on a shelf in these caves, two and a half miles deep. 

The one thing that they’re very aware of, though—they have the self-awareness, they have the (you know) self honesty just to say, “We are stuck. There’s nothing that we can do. There’s literally nothing we can do we could try to swim out. Not going to happen.” So they know: they are stuck, hoping against hope that someone’s going to come and help him out.

It doesn’t take too long—eventually people on the outside figure out what’s going on, figure out that these boys are missing, trapped in the caves, okay. So they try to send in the Thai Navy Seals— of course! Send in the good old boys. They can’t get it done, though. One of them actually dies trying to get back to the boys. They need a cave diver that actually knows what they’re doing. And so they call exactly who you’d expect them to call: an I.T. specialist and a retired firefighter, both from Ol’ Blighty, both from Great Britain. And these guys just do this as a hobby. (I don’t know if you know this: cave diving doesn’t really bring home the bacon, not very lucrative. So it’s just people’s hobby.) But these two guys, an I.T. specialist and a retired firefighter in Great Britain, are revered as two of the best cave divers in the entire world. And  overnight they become the two most important people in the entire world.

So Thailand flew them out. Within just a few minutes of hitting the ground, they’re at the caves, they’re making preliminary dives trying to figurer out the caves. And within a couple of days, they work their way back into the cave where the boys are. They find the boys. Again these guys are very good at what they do. They weave their way, two and a half miles back, underwater through all these caves. And they find the boys. You can watch the actual video of them coming up from the water and seeing these boys for the first time, their headlamps shining brightly.

The rescue operation of getting the boys out of the cave is a whole other story, but spoiler alert, they get the boys out, they’re saved.

The reason I love this story—here we go—the reason it is the best documentary I have every seen, is because it is the most real, the most visceral and powerful image of Jesus’ Incarnation I have ever come across. This documentary is the story of Salvation and the Mystery of the Incarnation—and salvation and redemption—all wrapped into one. And what I mean is this. 

Those boys are us, humanity: trapped, stuck, in a condition for which they do not have a solution, no remedy. All they can do is wait, hope, hope against hope, that something will happen, that someone will do something. In the pitch black darkness, they just wait. That’s us: our human condition, the condition of Original Sin—we can’t fix it. Like I talk about a lot, we medicate it, we try to feel better, make our “cave” a little more comfortable. But we cannot fix it.

The divers, they are Jesus Christ, God becoming man: Again, the only way—the only way!—that these boys are going to be rescued is if someone shows up to rescue them, save them. They don’t need advice about how to do it themselves—they can’t do it themselves! They need someone to come and rescue them; it’s the only way. These divers must enter into the situation, enter into the same condition, go back into the caves. That’s Jesus: Jesus enters into the condition, enters into the darkness. He doesn’t just “let down a rope,” or “teach us how to be good people,” no. He enters into the condition (one that involves death, remember the Thai Navy  Seal that died). He enters our human condition, flesh and blood, suffering—and through it, not in spite of it but through it saves us.

So then imagine, put yourself in the position of those boys. There in the caves, for ten days. Ten days without food. Ten days without light. Just pitch black for days. (Imagine what that would do to a person!) But then also, imagine: imagine sitting there, when all of a sudden you see a light, a small light underwater. Little by little it gets closer. And all of a sudden, a man arrives, light on top of his head. What would your reaction be? “We’re saved!” Now, to be sure, you’re still in the cave, no one was saved at that moment. But notice: the reaction was, “We are saved!”

Our Caves and Need for Light

So back to the question: What does Simeon mean? “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace…my own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared…a light to reveal you to the nations.” Simeon is one who is in touch with the human condition, he knows the darkness in which we find ourselves, our helplessness to fix it. But Simeon also recognizes: “Here is the one that has come to save us, to rescue us—here is salvation. Here is the light that has come into our darkness.” The very arrival of the Light changes everything. He enters into the darkness, and Hope is restored.

Starting next week—we will begin our Spring series called “Renewing…” Jesus comes to save us, he brings “salvation.” And like I mentioned last week, that word “salvation” is connected to the understanding of healing. During “Renewing…”, one aspect of it is going to be recognizing all of our “caves,” the places where we are “trapped,” our wounds, the places we cannot fix it ourselves. Sure, maybe we’ve learned to live with it. But we’re still trapped. But when we begin to recognize those places, that’s when we will also begin longing for the Light to come. And thanks be to God, this is why the Light comes: to give hope, to give life, to give healing—to save. Like I said, my encouragement is to be open to this, and to engage it: follow along with the homilies; get a holy hour; and participate in one of the opportunities for a deeper dive.

Those places and parts of our life hidden in darkness, the parts of us that are “trapped,” the brokenness we experience, the sins we struggle with, the darkness of it all—a light has arrived, the Light has arrived. Jesus wants to enter into those parts of your life, to bring Light, to bring hope, to bring salvation—to bring healing and renew you.