The Holy and Just Simeon who received God and Anna, Prophetess.
Post-feast of the Encounter. Saint with Six Stichera.
Hebrews 9:11-14; Luke 2:25-38.
Read Hebrews 9:11-14
There is a church I know of which makes little sense to me. It is massive yet it was built nowhere near the people it was intended to serve. Nevertheless, it is magnificent and truly a sight to behold.
I once asked someone I thought could shed some light on the logic for this church. The response I got was that, rather sarcastically, the person who commissioned it did so in order to make up for his life of cheating and shady business practices.
I have no idea whether this was the actual intention of the builder, however we will often hear, or perhaps think ourselves, that we can make right our wrongs by doing some good thing for God. We hear the thought that we can get right with God without submitting our lives to Christ and the Cross.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews wanted to take on this very thought head on. He wanted to take on the thought that we can make ourselves right with God by our own actions and works. In this passage, he is speaking more directly about the ordinances of the Law, but the same can be said of any good thing that we can do today. We can’t build a beautiful-enough church or feed enough of the poor to cleanse our conscience. The only thing that will cleanse our conscience is repentance, conversion, and submission to Christ and the Cross. That will sanctify and purify us and make us right with God again.