
Living in times that are challenging, uncertain, even frightening it can be hard to keep hold of hope. It feels much easier to give in to despair and to allow darkness to have the upper hand. There is so much to worry and concern us that it can even feel like hope is at best naïve and at worst pointless. Today’s feast, the Presentation of the Lord is the last feast that touches on Christmastide. It promises us that even in the darkest times there is light, and that however dark it gets the light will not be overwhelmed.
The prophetess Anna encapsulates this hope. She was a woman who based her whole life on hope. Widowed after seven years and living constant threat that comes of being in a country occupied by a foreign power she knew suffering and challenge. She’s sustained by a deep and lasting faith that the Lord will fulfil the promises made to her people. She spent her life in the Temple, praying, waiting, and hoping. Like Simeon, she recognises that the child presented by Mary and Joseph is no ordinary child, he is the long-awaited Messiah:
“She came by just at that moment and began to praise God; and she spoke of the child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem.”
She knew what it meant to keep on hoping even when hope seemed lost in the long shadows of hopelessness. It is out of these shadowy and sometimes painful experiences that she is able to recognise the presence of Christ, the promise light of the world in the most unlikely of circumstances.
As we celebrate the feast of the Presentation what helps you to keep the light of hope alive in your life?