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Note that in the icon, the Righteous Symeon does not directly touch the Christ child, but rather has his hands covered with a cloth.

One of the readings for the Vigil of the Presentation is the opening passage of Isaiah, where the angel takes a burning coal in a pair of tongs, and touches it to the lips of Isaiah -- and yet he is not burned.

In his brief homily tonight, our priest pointed out that the fathers saw in this taking of the coal in the tongs a prefiguration of this event, where a human would take Christ into his arms and receive him in the temple.

He said that the fathers also saw this passage as a prefiguration of the communion that we receive in a spoon. Just as Isaiah's lips were not burned, and as Symeon's hands were not burned, so we too are not burned and consumed by the fire of the Holy Mysteries when we receive them worthily. The fire rather burns away the chaff of our sins, as the pre and post communion prayers say.

From Matins of the Vigil:

The elder, bowing low and divinely touching the feet
Of the Mother of God who knew not wedlock, said:
"O Pure one, thou dost bear Fire!
I fear to hold the infant God,
The Light unwaning,
Who reigneth with peace!"

"Isaiah was purified
By the burning ember brought by the seraph,"
The elder cried to the Mother of God,
"And thou dost illumine me,
Giving me Him
Whom thou dost bear in thine arms as with tongs,
The Light unwaning,
Who reigneth with peace."

(The 2nd and 3rd troparia of the Canon of the Feast, in Tone III)