Candlemas from Whitby

Gospel
Luke 2.22-40

When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons”.

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”

The child’s father and mother marvelled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

Sermon from Martin Warner, new Bishop of Whitby

DO NOT be taken in by the tinsel and pretty lights: Christmas has been more serious than that. The question we are left with is: what really happened?
One of the achievements of recent liturgical reform is that it compels us to stay with this question for some weeks. Today’s readings offer us an intriguing answer: that our Christmas has also been our Easter, the latter foreshadowed in the former.

We could begin to investigate this answer with a retrospective nod towards the feast of the Circumcision of Christ, an ancient part of Christian liturgical tradition retained in the Book of Common Prayer. It is also the first of three stories by which Luke unfolds the mystery of the incarnation as the anticipation of Easter.

The circumcision of Jesus was highly significant for early Christian writers. It was the first time that his blood was shed, and the first time that he was given his divinely appointed name. The blood and the divine name both indicated the priestly character of the eight-day-old child and the sacrifice he would offer on the cross.

There is something viscerally important about the awareness of physically bearing a name. It finds contemporary expression as a fashion statement when David Beckham, among others, has an ornate tattoo of the names of his children. Something fundamental is being stated about identity in bearing a name in that way.

The same is true in the Old Testament when the giving of a name is mentioned as a statement of a covenant with God: Abraham and Israel are two examples. But another explicit reference to bearing a name is associated with priestly ministry. In the Temple, the Levitical priest ministers the blood of the atonement sacrifice with the name Holy to the Lord engraved on the turban he wears (Exodus 28.9, Leviticus 16.4).

These considerations are preparatory to today’s main story of the Lord who comes to his temple. But for Luke they are significant precisely because they locate us in the context of sacrifice.

The Temple is where Ezekiel also locates us today. This Old Testament reading is not the traditional one for the Presentation in the Temple, from Malachi. It is a more complex and suggestive lection that directs our attention specifically to the context of sacrifice. It applies the prophecy of Ezekiel to the offering by Jesus of himself on the cross as the acceptable sacrifice that brings about the cleansing presence of the glory of the Lord.

Complex symbolism abounds here. First, there is the figure eight. The child Jesus is circumcised and named on the eighth day, inaugurating a new era of fulfilment and revelation in God’s covenant with the people chosen and prepared for this moment. For the Early Church, the eighth day is also the day of resurrection, the day that represents the eternal sabbath, when the new creation is brought into existence.

The reference to the gate that is shut is also symbolic. Early Christian writers saw this as a reference to the virginity of Mary. The defence of the virgin birth mattered supremely because it was the foundation of the assertion that Jesus of Nazareth was fully human and fully God. This reference from Ezekiel is being used to assert that Jesus is the prince of peace and Son of God who has entered our world by the sealed gate of Mary’s womb.

When we look at the application of this prophecy to Luke’s second story, the presentation in the temple, its implications are shattering and bloody.

The Lord comes to the Temple not simply in the neat bundle of a tiny babe. That coming, as the circumcision has already warned us, merely foreshadows the moment of blood-curdling death. Then the Temple curtain will be torn apart. The virgin mother will bear the pain of the death of her child. Jesus, the priest-victim, will thereby enter the sanctuary of heaven, to plead the sacrifice that once for all abolishes death and fatally wounds the power of evil.

Yet there is also glory. The procession of Jesus, our great high priest, into the sanctuary of heaven liberates us, even in this life, from captivity to death. He restores in us the dignity of our vocation to be children of light and the temples of God’s glory.

There is one final instalment to Luke’s trio of stories that unfold the Easter Christmas. After the circumcision and the presentation of the child, we read of the visit of the 12-year-old Jesus to Jerusalem and the Temple. Here he becomes lost from sight because he must be about his father’s business. It is a glimpse of ascension glory, but still too early to be understood.

If today is your Candlemas, do not be sentimental about the candlelight. Some words from a visionary bishop of the past century remind us that the procession to our destiny is a costly one: “We are here as a Church to represent Christ crucified before the world. Because that is so, it may be the will of God that our Church should have its heart broken, and if that were to happen, it wouldn’t mean that we were heading for the world’s misery, but quite likely pointing the way to the deepest joy.”