“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”
Luke 2:29-32 (ESV)
I just wanted to share something I heard in today's sermon at church related to the above words of Symeon, part of the Gospel reading of the Feast (Luke 2:22-40) and which we read daily at Vespers. The word here translated 'you are letting depart' is ἀπολύεις (from 'απο' - 'from' and 'λυω' - 'to bind'). At the end of every service, the priests reads the Ἀπόλυσις, often translated 'Dismissal'. We tend to think of the dismissal to mean "the service is over, you may now leave the church", but this is a misunderstanding, or at least very shortsighted. The dismissal, particularly after the Divine Liturgy, is related to the words of Symeon. In the Liturgy we, like Symeon, encounter the living God face to face, an awesome and life-altering experience. For Symeon, who had waited his whole life for this meeting with the Messiah, it signified his apolysis from this temporal life. For us, the apolysis indicates our freedom from the bondage of this world. It is not merely our dismissal from the church building, but a reminder that, having met with Christ in the divine service, we leave freed from the burdens with which we came, and that we return to the world being in it but not of it.
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