Candlemas 2021: Malachi 3:1-5 and Luke 2:22-40
In his novel, The Midnight Library Matt Haig explores the question ‘what is the best way to live?’ Through the lens of Nora, who finds herself at a point of utter despair, he asks ‘would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?’
Our lives are made up of so many choices - opportunities and relationships we say yes to; hard decisions and unmet expectations; imagined futures and the gift of each day.
Nora had struggled to accept her life as it was, but reaches the point when she can see that ‘same messy life as full of hope. Potential… will my life be miraculously free from pain, despair, grief, heartbreak, hardship, loneliness, depression? No. But do I want to live. Yes. Yes’.
Sometimes it’s easier to mourn the lives we’re not living. Perhaps that feels very real for us at the moment after 10 months of lockdown and restrictions. It’s been hard and disruptive; and we’ve adapted to different patterns of life.
We notice what we miss; and yet the universal emotions from love and laughter to fear and sorrow are with us in every road we travel.
The Presentation in the Temple - M. D. O'Brien
(CNS photo / courtesy of Michael D. O'Brien)
Today we’re drawn into a familiar family scene; a scene that reminds us perhaps of some of the things we miss. Today, Mary and Joseph bring their son to the temple for what the Government’s Covid-guidance calls ‘a life-cycle event’.
It is a rite of initiation. It is a family affair.
With thanksgiving for safe delivery, new parents bring their first born into community.
They fulfil what was expected under the law; they come, trusting in the covenant promises made through Abraham and Sarah.
This is a private moment in a public space.
This is a communal event in a holy place.
Trusting and responding and acting as their ancestors had done.
Trusting the promise of blessing; hoping for descendants as numerous as the stars. Believing that a light would dawn, drawing all nations into ways of love.
The Presentation of Christ - James B. Janknegt
In this moment, the hopes of infancy, the expectations of parenthood and the traditions of a community of faith are expressed.
Yet in this gathering there is also a moment of encounter and recognition.
The hopes and expectations of Mary and Joseph are met with the hopes and expectations of Simeon and Anna.
Their lives had been shaped by patterns of faithful prayer and worship; they had paid attention to God with all their being, and now they see.
A dazzling brightness.
Uncreated light shines through infant eyes
The light of the world comes into the Temple, in substance of our flesh
Light shines in the darkness.
Darkness does not overcome it.
The smallness of this flame is the spark of hope that Simeon and Anna have longed for.
In the face of this child they see the face of God.
The one they had sought and had waited for had come into the temple.
As Simeon cradles the child in his arms, he encounters the one who is God with us, come to save us.
As she steps into this space, Anna praises God. And she speaks.
Perhaps she takes up those powerful images of Malachi: images of heat and intensity, refining and purifying.
For this light changes us; burns away regrets and fears; brings hope in the mess.
In the words of a Candlemas hymn: glory dawns in every dark place, the light of Christ, the fullness of grace.
We’re invited into this light to say yes to life. This light is to shine in our lives.
Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669), Simeon in the Temple, 1669.
Oil on canvas, 98.5 × 79.5 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden.
Over the years spent in the temple, Simeon and Anna paid deep attention to the presence of God in their prayers; their hopes were shaped by scripture.
They were faithful to the law which shaped the expectations; their hearts were open to the Spirit of God and recognised the consolation they sought when it came.
They sought the consolation of an end to death, poverty, disease and despair.
In this child what they see and embrace and speak of is personal and poignant; consoling and challenging.
For Simeon, this moment of fulfilled desire and longing meant that he could face his own mortality in peace.
Yet he knew that this gift of hope was not his alone.
He looks into the eyes of this infant and beheld God with us: the light to lighten the Gentiles; the glory of the people of Israel.
He sees salvation.
He is able to depart in peace, trusting in that uncreated light.
Yet he knows the cost of the light shining in the infant eyes of the one who brings healing to people and nations.
This is the point where Christmas meets Easter.
At Candlemas, we turn from Christ’s nativity to Christ’s passion; we move from cradle to cross.
Here the reality of death is named and new life is promised.
Here there is amazement and joy and fulfilment.
For the light and love of Christ will be welcomed by many: those seeking justice and liberation; those seeking to live with love; those embracing the risk, the creativity, the hope of God’s kingdom.
Here fulfilment comes by way of sorrow and pain and grief.
For the light and love of Christ will be opposed by some: those clinging to power and position; those seeking to live by exploiting others; those rejecting the risk, the creativity, the hope of God’s Kingdom.
Today, we light candles at the end of the service, not the beginning. We do so because as this season of Christmas and Epiphany comes to an end, we are invited not only to dwell in the light of Christ, but to move into the world with that light shining in our hearts.
As our opening hymn put it, make us your own, your holy people, light fo the world to see. We aren’t to be bound by regrets; but embrace life. We aren’t immune from sorrow or loneliness, but we can give and receive kindness and joy.
We pray that we might shelter others; that we might be servants to one another, making your kingdom come.
May we who’ve seen uncreated light in infant eyes, sing with Simeon and Anna, Mary and Joseph: God is with us, come to save us: alleluia!
© Julie Gittoes 2021
