"The Fall and Rise of Many"

(Luke 2:22-40) (The Meeting of Our Lord)

People sometimes ask which translation of the Bible is the one they should use. I always tell them to check and see how the version they’re looking at translates Isaiah 7:14 – the prophecy about the birth of our Lord that is quoted in Matthew 1:23. If the passage in Isaiah makes reference to a “virgin,” the translation is probably OK; but if it says, “a young woman shall conceive,” put it down and find another one. A little bit of background: The word used in the Hebrew text is “almah”; which means, “a young woman capable of bearing a child, who is either a maiden or newly-married.” The word used in the Greek text is “parthenos”; which means, “virgin.” The two words are essentially the same; but there is a bit more ambiguity to the Hebrew, if what you are looking for is a way around the prophecy.

St. Matthew took his quote from the prophet Isaiah from the version found in the Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the Old Testament that was translated over one hundred and fifty years before the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Septuagint” means “seventy”; and it refers to the number of experts whose labors produced the Greek text.

One of these expert translators was the Righteous Simeon; who, when he came to the passage in Isaiah referring to the virgin who would conceive and bear a son, was troubled, and was going to replace the word, “virgin,” in the text with the phrase, “young woman,” when an angel of the Lord appeared to him to tell him that the prophecy was true, and should be left unchanged. To confirm this, the angel said, by the will of God, Simeon would not die until he had seen the prophecy fulfilled.

Thus it was that, when the infant child was brought to the Temple with His mother, the Theotokos, to fulfill the law, the righteous Simeon recognized Him, and gave thanks that his wait was completed. He also made a prophecy: “This Child is set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel.”

The fathers tell us that this prophecy of the righteous Simeon speaks of the downfall of those who do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our Savior; while those who do believe will rise from the dead, partaking of His resurrection. They also tell us that we can understand this prophecy as meaning that, for those who are in Christ, He will bring about the fall of evil things in our souls, and the rising up of good things in their place. Fornication and lust shall fall; chastity shall rise to take their place. Greed and envy will fall; generosity shall rise to take their place. Doubt and unbelief will fall; faith will rise to take their place. Pride and anger shall fall; humility and meekness shall rise to take their place.

Do you see what this means for us? No matter what sins or passions particularly bedevil and beset us, these are not greater than He Who is in us. If we will meet Him, He will raise us up, both from death, and from the sins and passions in us that lead us down into death. The truth is, He is already within us (who have been baptized) for us to meet Him; and if we will endeavor to bring our lives closer to His own by following and practicing the disciplines of the Orthodox faith: prayer, fasting, giving alms, and struggling, He will meet us and join us in working towards our salvation.

Brothers and sisters! The righteous Simeon rejoiced to see the Holy One of Israel, and held Him in his arms. Let us know that, by His grace, we hold Him within ourselves; and let us also rejoice to know that, if we will believe, He will raise us up, delivering us from our sins, and from death itself, granting us to always be with Him in His kingdom, in life without death.