Presentation of the Lord, Year A
Fr. Robert VerEecke, S.J.
It’s about time! Today’s feast is about time! It’s about Time in two senses:
Chronos and Chairos.
In the Gospel today we have examples of both. We hear of Chronos/time in
the 40 days that pass between the birth of the child Jesus and his
presentation in the temple. We hear of Chronos/time in the years that
describe Simeon and Anna with 7 years of marriage and 84 years of age.
And for Jesus it will take time for Him to “grow in wisdom, age and grace”.
There is much to be said for chronological time. Most of the time we live in
Chronos, the minute, by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week,
month by month, year by year by year by years of our lives. There always
seems to be some countdown to kick-off. We tick off the hours, the days, the
years from birth until the moment when we kick-off. (I had to have some
football illusion on Superbowl Sunday.) From tick-off to kick-off. Birth to
death.
Today however is not about Chronos, despite the illusions to the 40 days, the
84 years, the growing in wisdom, age and grace through time for Jesus. It’s
about Chairos. That’s breakthrough time, time that is especially pregnant
with meaning and with possibilities. Chairos time comes when we “see more
clearly”, when the light shines in a way that enables us to see into the “deep
down meaning of things”. Chairos time fills us, where Chronos time empties
us. There is never enough Chronos time. There is more than enough of
everything we desire in Chairos time.
Simeon and Anna have lived their lives in “Chronos” time: minutes, hours,
days, years ticking away. They have spent their lives waiting for a single
moment of recognition, revelation. They have been waiting for the moment
promised by the prophet Malachi. And finally with the child Jesus entering
the Temple, the time has come. It’s Chairos for them. Life time may be
running out for them but with the appearance of this child, time becomes
eternity.
“Now you may dismiss your servant in peace according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the
presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for
glory to your people Israel.”
For the past seven years, members of the parish have traveled to Kingston,
Jamaica on the third week of January to spend 8 days with our sisters and
brothers in St Anne’s parish. The trip follows a certain chronology. Arrival
on a Saturday, Liturgy on Sunday, Monday through Friday working on
projects. An excursion to the mountains on Friday afternoon, dance
workshop with young Jamaicans on Saturday. Liturgy and Departure. That’s
the chronology. That’s the easy part of describing the time we spend.
But anyone who has gone with us to West Kingston knows that it’s much
more about Chairos than Chronos. In the time we spend in West Kingston,
God’s Holy Spirit has to work “overtime” so that we can see what it’s like to
live with so little. God’s holy spirit shines the light on a people filled with
great spirit but who are running on empty when it comes to material things.
In the brief time we spend in West Kingston, the contrasts between haves
and have nots, between beauty and devastation, between faith and despair,
between harmony and chaos, become strikingly clear. We see the lives of
our brothers and sisters in the light of God’s love for them in Jesus Christ as
we come to know the vulnerability of a people who live day to day with
police presence, gangs and gunmen at their doors. The walls that surround St
Anne’s are riddled with bullet holes.
My personal Chairos moment, when all became clear (at least for a
moment), was when I was preparing to give a homily on the last day of our
trip. I couldn’t get a song out of my head. It goes like this: Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus, you can have all this world but give me Jesus (2X). I invited
the people to sing with me with some accompanying gestures. In my heart I
knew that was the message that we all needed to hear. It was the one that
Simeon and Anna heard in the Temple. “Give us Jesus because he is the
light. Give us Jesus because he is the one who makes things right. Give us
Jesus because he is the one who shatters the darkness of the night to bring us
to the light, day by day by day.”