SERMON 144 - SUNDAY 2 FEBRUARY 2020

Sermon delivered at All Saints’ Church, Whiteparish  – Sunday 2 February 2020 – Candlemas

Luke 2:22-40

“Master, you are now dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for 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 the glory of your people Israel”

I think everyone here is very familiar with this passage – it has been sung over the centuries in its King James Version under its Latin heading “Nunc Dimittis” meaning “now you are dismissed” and this morning, later in our service, the choir will sing a version set to the music of Charles Wood.

We call this Sunday “Candlemas” and earlier this week I was asked to explain why the presentation of Jesus in the Temple had been given this name.  I think I explained it last year, thanks to Alec Knight, when I took this service, but it is worth repeating again here this morning, the early church leaders recognised and spoke of Jesus’s presentation as being the presentation of the light of the world – as we have just read “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of the people Israel” and services, especially in the Orthodox Church, still use a great many candles in their services at this time – hence Candlemas.  

Last year I concentrated on those two elderly dwellers in the Temple – Simeon and Anna and their importance in this story, and you will have an opportunity to hear more about Simeon this afternoon if you attend Alderbury Village Hall for the musical of that title, but this morning I want to talk more about bringing the light of of Jesus into the world and concentrate more on the future rather than the past.

On Friday night something massively significant occurred – and we woke up yesterday morning no longer part of that European Family in which we have been an important part for some 47 years if my maths is right. For some this is a new light shining, for others darkness has descended upon us.  Whichever side you might be   on, we face years of change and challenge as we adjust to our new place in the world.

But there is a greater light amongst any darkness and that is the light of Jesus who, as God incarnate, came upon this earth some 2,000 years ago and died on the cross for us.  God, we are told in the bible came for heal the sick and to bind the wounds of many. 

I often reflect on how it must have been for Mary, the mother of Jesus to present her little bundle of joy in the Temple as was the custom.  A small helpless baby swaddled up close to his mother’s breast.  Possibly his little hands were opening and closing, clenching and unclenching as I have seen so often in my little grandchildren; a precious bundle of love. And then I think of those same hands, 33 years later being stretched out by brutish foreign soldiers for massive nails to be driven through the palms as that same little child is prepared for the cruellest of executions;  his crime – being the light of the world.  That story will be told again in April when we remember and celebrate the events in Jerusalem during that Passion Week.

For now, though, let us dwell on Simeon’s praise.  Let us remember that God so loved the world that he came down and was made flesh amongst us.  That he became wholly human as well as wholly divine. He cried like any child and gazed into his mother’s eyes like any child does in its mother’s arms.  He came for all of us, not just the Jews, but for the non-Jews as well; all of humankind – whatever our race, colour or political persuasion.  We are all children of the same God.  We were all innocent babes at one time and we are all created in God’s image.

Last year I quoted James Finley and I think it appropriate to do so again :

“When God eases us out of God’s heart into the earthly plane, God searches for the place that is most like paradise, and it’s the mother’s gaze. In the mother’s gaze, she transparently sacramentalises God’s infinite gaze of love, looking into the eyes of the infant. And when the infant looks into her eyes it is looking into God’s eyes, incarnate as her loving eyes.”

Simeon was able to prophesy the future for Mary. A sword will pierce your very soul too. Sadness and despair would descend upon Mary some 33 years later but; also, so would joy and gladness at the resurrection.

That is the promise for us all.  Whatever our lives might be like now, how ever we might feel about ourselves or our situation by trusting in God’s light, the living Christ and the Holy Spirit we can get through all the darkness and shine his light in the world.

We are told that the Holy Spirit rested on Simeon. The Holy Spirit leads us today, as then, into the future with hope, because the future is God's and God will always give us hope. The challenge for each of us is to put our trust in God in the same complete way that Simeon and Anna did when they glimpsed the divine face of that small baby in the Temple.  Simeon knew that this small child would be tested and eventually die a cruel death – but he also knew that he had seen a great light and that he could now die himself a peaceful fulfilled death.  

As we light our candles later on in this service, let us remember that as Christians, followers of Jesus Christ and blessed with the Holy Spirit we carry that light within us all the time – sometimes it is only a little pilot light flickering away almost undetected, but at other times it whooshes up and fires us to do great things in his name.  If you come here this morning and don’t yet feel that you have Christ’s light within you, still leave your candle here at the front and pray that the Holy Spirit will enter your life and turn on that inner flame.

We must, like Simeon, have the faith to recognise God at work in this world; have the faith to trust that God has a plan for his world; we must, like Anna, be able to look to the dawning of a new age however dark the dawn may be for some today.  Look again into the face of the person or persons sitting next to – you are looking into the face of God’s created image – a glimpse of God himself who loves you and say to that person “God loves you today and always”.

Let us pray:

O Lord Jesus Christ, as a child you were presented in the Temple and received with joy by Simeon and Anna as Redeemer of Israel and a Light to all Nations: we ask that we, like them, may be guided by the Holy Spirit to acknowledge and love you until the end of our lives.

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/010220