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Sermon for Candlemas: The Presentation of Christ in the Temple

Sunday 2nd February 2025


Malachi 3:1-5

Psalm 24

Hebrews 2:14-end

Luke 2 22-40


May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer


Today’s Gospel does something rather wonderful, in that in the middle of what to begin with seems like a straightforward telling of the story of Jesus’s Presentation in the Temple Luke suddenly takes us out of the everyday world and invites us to share with Simeon and Anna the experience of being led by the Holy Spirit to an encounter with God, an encounter which he suggests can be shared by everyone, everywhere. It’s an encounter, a way of seeing the spiritual in the everyday which is open to all of us as we, like Mary, Joseph, Anna and Simeon go through the everyday business of day-to-day life, especially when, as we see in Simeon and Anna, everyday life has prayer at its centre.


At the very start of his Gospel Luke promised to give us an orderly, truthful and factual account of Jesus’s life. And in today’s Gospel that’s exactly how he begins. Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem just as generations of devout Jewish parents have done before them, obeying the law regarding the purification of women after childbirth traditionally believed to have been given directly by God to Moses a thousand years previously. In telling us about Mary’s sacrifice of ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons’ Luke shows her obeying the law set down in Leviticus, where it says

'If she cannot afford a sheep, she shall take two turtle doves or two pigeons, one for a burnt-offering and one for a sin-offering...'


In making Mary’s poverty central to her identity as the mother of Jesus Luke makes it clear that the child who moments later Anna will associate with the redemption of Jerusalem isn’t wealthy or powerful in any worldly sense. In this he challenges the expectations of a world where now as then the wealthy and powerful sometimes treat the poor and dispossessed with contempt and hostility. Here, as God becomes known for the first time in human form, power and wealth are rendered meaningless in the face of this tiny baby and his parents. Simeon and Anna, both led by the Holy Spirit to look ahead to the future rather back into the past, see that the Christ child embodies a new future; a future in which the old order will be turned upside down and in which God’s loving presence will be offered to everyone. Mary and Joseph are following the old laws, but Anna and Simeon see in this tiny baby a new future, a future which as Simeon says, is not just for those who follow the old ways, but ‘a light for the revelation to the gentiles and glory for your people Israel.’ Simeon’s song of joy is a celebration of a divine love which is for everyone, whether Gentile or Jew, male or female. This is the greatest epiphany of all; Simeon sees that The Christ child brings with Him the chance of sharing in a new relationship with God, a relationship in which God’s love is for everyone, whatever their faith, or nationality or way of life, or social standing. Perhaps this is why when we sing the Nunc dimittis at evensong, or hear it at a funeral, it seems to transcend time and space and take us into another realm completely, one in which we, like Simeon, can feel ourselves in the presence of a God who wants us all to share in His Peace and who welcomes us into his presence without judging us. We’ll hear it at the end of this sermon, and be able to share with Simeon that glimpse of God’s peace in a turbulent world.


Simeon’s song talks of the baby in his arms as ‘a light for revelation’. Today that light which Simeon sees is partly why this Sunday is also known as Candlemas. Candles burning in church are powerful symbols of hope, especially when the world outside seems dark and menacing. For centuries, this was a day on which Christian communities would take the candles they were going to use in the coming months to their church to be blessed. Just imagine what candlelight meant to people in times before electricity-how precious and comforting that candlelight might be deep in the dark nights of late winter. And just as Simeon’s old age is enlightened by his encounter with the Christ child, so those candles became symbols of Jesus and the light He brings to all who need love, comfort and a sense of God at work in the everyday ups and downs of life.


Epiphany ends today with a man and a woman, Simeon and Anna, both having visions and those visions being expressed in language which is intensely poetic and beautiful. This is how Luke shows the knowledge and love of God breaking through into the everyday lives of all who are ready to receive him. In Luke’s Gospel Simeon’s song is the latest in a sequence of voices moved to poetry by a sense of God at work in the everyday world. ‘My soul magnifies the lord’ sang Mary at the Annunciation. Zachariah sings of God’s mercy ‘bringing light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death’, and now Simeon sings of light and salvation. Each time a character has a vision of God’s new presence in the world Luke helps us share that vision through the poetry of their song. It’s as if he wants to take us out of the world for a moment and to enable us to share their joy and wonder through language which is visionary and beautiful.


And so, Luke, who has hardly given us time to breathe since telling the story of Jesus’s birth, invites us to share two final moments of intense joy before we move into preparing for Lent, a time which will bring immense sorrow, a sword will pierce your own soul’, Simeon tells Mary, but also the ultimate triumphant joy of the resurrection. Simeon and Anna, deep in old age, enjoy the greatest of epiphanies; their own darkness is illuminated by the light of the messiah they’ve waited for so long.


Central to everything today is the influence of the Holy Spirit and the importance of prayer. Simeon and Anna experience the presence of God in the person of the Christ child not because they are in any way gifted or special, but because they are prayerful and because their prayerfulness enables them to be responsive to the Holy Spirit and its influence on shaping their thinking and decision-making. And this responsiveness can be something we share with them ; may our own prayers, and our own willingness to listen and sense the Holy Spirit at work in our own lives, direct and guide us, and in time lead us to epiphanies of our own.


Amen

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