Candlemas

 

Luke 2.22-40, 1 Corinthians 13, Ezekiel 43.27-44.4

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple

The official feast day for Candlemas is 2^nd February, obviously this is the Sunday nearest. The Church of England rules for the Christian year state that it is a principal feast day like Ash Wednesday or Ascension day for example, yet it is one with which we are often less familiar. We may also know it as ‘The Presentation of Christ in the Temple’.

Some of you probably know that Jewish law considered a woman unclean for 40 days after she had given birth to a boy and for even longer after the birth of a girl. During this time the mother would have been excluded from the temple. At the end of this they were brought to the temple to be purified as required under the law set out in the book of Leviticus and they also brought the child to present him to God and give thanks, after which the woman would be permitted to join in worship once again. As we strive to make this church and the wider church place that is welcoming to everyone it’s challenging to consider how the temple at the time of Jesus excluded so many through its various rules and how we must guard against this.

Traditions related to Candlemas grew based around light, perhaps the light of Christ revealed in the temple mixed with pagan recognition that we are moving away from the season of darkness towards spring equinox, you can’t have failed to notice how it is already light earlier in the mornings together with some stunning sunrises this week.

The date was adopted as the day when a church would bless all its candles for the year, obviously important when there was no electricity, hence the name Candlemas.

Both Ezekiel and Luke tell us how temple rituals and Jewish law are followed. What we heard today from Ezekiel was just a part of a tour that he is taken on which is a property lovers dream. Go back to chapter 40 and you will find a man ‘whose appearance ‘shone like bronze’, fulfilling a vision for Ezekiel in great detail of what the perfect temple will be like.

No precast steel and cladding systems in sight. Precise measurements, perfectly balances pilasters, windows with shutters, double doors with cherubim and palm trees carved on them, rules for where the priests would go to make offerings.

Our reading from Ezekiel resonates with our gospel reading.  God comes to the temple and fills it with his glory and we hear that Ezekiel ‘falls upon his face’. What else could he do? How would we react when all we hoped to be true, built our very existence around, longed, worked and prayed for was made real before our very eyes?

In Luke’s gospel as Christ is presented in the temple there is a strange mix of the ordinary and extraordinary. It’s quite likely that this routine ritual was being observed by several couples with their babies at the same time, as we sometimes do with christenings. Every parent feels that their child is special but one is clearly more special than the others who are somewhat upstaged by what happens next!

The extraordinary is made real by Simeon and Anna. Luke gives them credibility and respect, a sort of character reference describing Simeon as ‘righteous’ and ‘devout’ and stating that ‘the Holy Spirit rested upon him’. We hear how Anna worshipped in the temple ‘with fasting and prayer night and day’. They are each of a good age and there is a sense that they are the people who could be relied upon to recognise the ‘Lord’s Messiah’ if anyone could. They had been waiting, watching, longing and preparing patiently over the years.

Yet would this have been what Simeon was expecting? Probably not, but we can imagine that his mind is open to God in all forms and possibly there is some recalibration and prayerful reflection before Luke tells us what happened next.

Like many things in life, it’s only as we learn and experience more and more, that we come to realise how much we don’t know.

So Simeon, a total stranger, takes Jesus from Mary’s arms and begins to proclaim loudly about him. ‘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’.

Anyone who has ever held a little baby knows what a lovely feeling it can be but also how you have a sense of care, a responsibility to support the baby’s neck and hold it safely, especially if its not yours.

It can be a real life insight into the character of God. Things like this help explain really hard to understand things like getting our head around the vulnerability, the humility of form. Perhaps we should reflect on this next time we hold a baby, we have no fear of them and find them approachable unlike some lofty authoritative figure. It follows that it is possible that Mary could have trusted us with her baby as well.

Like Ezekiel Simeon and Anna realise that God has filled the temple, Simeon’s reaction is to praise God, light and hope have been born into the darkness, he’s effectively saying that nothing greater could happen in his life, to the extent that he was now ready to accept death peacefully as a fulfilled and joyful man. Anna starts sharing the good news with those seeking the Messiah.

As well as being amazed Jesus parents must have been disturbed and frightened to hear that many will oppose their son and that struggle and pain were in the future.

Of course the words of Simeon have been incorporated into our ritual worship, heard regularly here at Evensong as the Nunc Dimittis, from the Latin, ‘now you dismiss’.

There’s encouragement here for us to keep a patient faith alive, even when it feels that we can’t see the light, to maintain eyes open to seeing God’s love in human bodies often passed by and sometimes apparently invisible to many.

Ezekiel, Anna and Simeon have not stumbled across God by chance it’s clear that their faithful longing to see God glorified is all that matters to them. Paul’s letter challenges the Corinthians to consider whether that’s the case for them.

Did I hear a voice protesting ‘what he didn’t write this for couples to have read at their wedding ceremony?’

I am sure we have all heard the reading time and again at weddings, it’s even suggested as an appropriate wedding reading by the Church of England on the website so it must be OK.

Certainly if the couple in a marriage can share love which is patient and kind, which rejoices in the truth, which is not irritable or resentful, then they are off to a great start.

It might also help to consider that eventually many accept that you can also find love in your partner in the most mundane of tasks or even when they are irritable and annoying.  Though it may be worth reminding the other that ‘love does not insist on its own way’ sparingly.

The words tell us that love isn’t only for romantic times but why it matters, what it can look like and why God’s love is everlasting and indestructible.

Few wedding days will allow time to reflect on the fuller meaning of Paul’s words. Perhaps it isn’t the time to accept that because of love Mary’s soul was pierced by a sword, because of love Jesus died on a cross and because of love it’s inevitable that each of our hearts will be broken. Yet still we find there is nothing greater.

Paul is telling the church in Corinth that it is God who doesn’t insist on his own way, that it is Jesus who bears all things on our behalf and it’s time for the church to remember this, come together and reflect this love amongst themselves.

Last week we heard St Paul ( and Adie) speak about the diverse members that make up the body of Christ, reminding us that there’s in excess of 40,000 Christian denominations and it follows that God’s love is for all even to the extent that it connects us to those we have loved that have died. Simeon understood this when he said that God salvation was for all, not just the Jews.

You may not agree with me but it feels that St Paul’s words on love are in fact better suited to a funeral than a wedding.

Paul points us to a time when we will see what perfect love looks like, not the blemished and partially obscured version we know in our earthly relationships. The love in which God knows us will be known to us when we see him face to face.

The challenge of Candlemas, then, is a challenge to find the presence of God in our midst, to look for his love at work among us at home, at work, at school maybe even in our church.

Amen

Kevin Bright

28 January 2022