Candlemas is my favourite of feasts: it's full of light and glory but also honest about suffering and mortality Eucharist. The warmth an intimacy of candlelight is also a sign of hope and solidarity.The flickering flames we hold enable us not only to see by candlelight but to see, and to be seen, by a more radiant light.
The texts were: Malachi 3:1-15; Hebrews 2:14-end; Luke 2:22-40
Today is a feast of light.
Candlemas is the climax of the season of Christmas and Epiphany.
We light candles on birthday cakes and in power cuts; when we pray and when we party; on our dinning tables and our altars.
In churches or our homes, candles conjure up warmth and intimacy, celebration and welcome.
When we break bread together, we do so by the light of candles: they invite us into the presence of love.
They allow us space: to reflect, to listen, to be.
They allow us to hesitate before before we find the words.
They speak wordlessly of friendship and of hope.
Many lit candles on Friday night: flames acknowledging our contribution to the EU and holding out a beacon of co-operation whatever the future holds.
One Irish journalist [Bobby McDonagh in the Irish Times] writes of the flickering flame shining beyond slogans and politics, saying: ‘One of the best things about a candle is that it is silent. In a world inundated by words and deafened by a cacophony of posturing, a candle has its own eloquence’.
Today the candles we light, give voice to the nearness of God with us; they blaze with a universal hope for the nations. The tiny flames we hold invite us to shine as lights in the world.
Candlemas is feast of light: a moment that shapes our hopes, our hearts and our world.
Today we celebrate the Christ-child who comes to be a light to lighten the Gentiles.
It’s a feast which also strikes a darker note: of opposition, pierced souls and broken hearts.
It’s a feast which reverberates with love.
With a love does not let us go: it refines us; it frees us; if comforts and empowers us.
We see that light today reflected in a tiny infant; held in a parent’s arms; seen in an old man’s eyes; spoken on a widow’s lips.
Rembrandt’s captures this light in darkness in his final painting: Simeon with the Infant Christ in the Temple.
It is an image that takes us to the very heart of Candlemas. Simeon is frail; his eyes closing; his lips parting in words of praise. It is a moment of encounter between an old man and a baby. A master of light, Rembrandt confronts us with mortality and infuses it with hope.
This is the story that Luke tells: of Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus in the Temple. There they meet Anna as well as Simeon: two people who have dedicated their lives to God, offering prayer in that holy place. In the Christ child, their expectations and hopes have been fulfilled.
Simeon declares: ‘my eyes have seen your salvation... a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel’.
Anna gives thanks for this revelation and proclaims it to all who sought redemption in Jerusalem.
God is drawing all people to himself. We are to rejoice with them as the joy, love and light of Christ is revealed in the world.
This is a feast of light.
It is a feast with universal implications: the hope of God’s chosen people, the people of Israel, is being fulfilled. All people are being drawn into one family, worshiping one God.
This astonishing moment, is proclaimed in a public space; it is fulfilled in the intimacy and trust of an elderly man receiving a child into his arms.
The ‘all-ness’ is contained within a human heart; and yet exceeds it.
The Lord comes to the temple - embodying a love which knows the secrets of our hearts.
This love knows our smallest fears and our most audacious hopes; this love heals our hidden wounds and the kindles our gifts.
To see and be seen by this light draws us out of ourselves; freeing us from selfishness and self-absorption.
Our hearts are turned outwards: we see this in Mary and Jospeh.
They come to the temple to present their first born to God: they do some with simplicity and devotion, giving out of love not wealth.
Yet the one they carry in their arms with faithful obedience, is the one who will purify and redeem the world.
God’s very self is presented in substance of our flesh in order that we may be presented pure hearts.
There is a darker side to Candlemas. It is a turning point in the Christian year as our thoughts are directed towards Christ’s Passion. Mary was the first to hear the good news; she nurtures the Christ-child; she ponders the sayings of shepherds and wise men in her heart.
When Simeon tells her that ‘a sword will pierce your own soul too’, Mary faces the anguish and pain of parenthood. She has to let go, she and Joseph have to let go, of their first born.
She witnesses disputes and moments of honour; she hears him extend bonds of kinship beyond the family; she witnesses his suffering and death. Mary knows the overflowing love of God with us; and she knows the cost.
Yes, Simeon’s words are a poignant indicator of what Jesus Christ will endure. But Mary also stands alongside Miriam and Deborah, Judith and Anna in speaking and going the will of God. She waits and prays for the Sprit to poured out all men and women, young and old.
Light shines in the darkness as Christmas meets Easter on Candlemas Day.
Candlemas is a place of meeting. The light of Jesus Christ radiates out to us. His humanity Christ connects with our frailty; love is made perfect in human weakness.
As he faced his own death, Rembrandt paints an image of consolation: even in the darkness Christ’s light reaches us. It transforms us and gives us hope amidst all that unsettles, perplexes or grieves us.
We are given permission to face those things honestly in the context of God’s love, which will ultimately banish all darkness. It gives us courage to wrestle with the complexity of life so that we may become more fully the people God calls us to be.
Today, as we break bread together, we will light candles.
Flickering flames which conjure up warmth and intimacy, celebration and welcome.
They speak wordlessly of friendship and of hope.
Candlelight reminds us of a more radiant light, which darkness does not over come.
A light of truth and justice, or compassion and faithfulness.
Our communities need us to bear this light: to allow others space to speak, to listen, to be.
May these candles remind us of the scope of God’s reconciling love; may they encourage us to share that extraordinary love in the ordinary.
© Julie Gittoes 2020
