Candlemas
Malachi 3:1-5 and Luke 2:22-40
If you've been a Christian and an Anglican churchgoer for some time - used to the Book of Common Prayer and the service of evensong, or even the Common Worship evening service, or Compline - the words of Simeon in our Gospel reading will probably have a comforting ring to you - kind of like a prayer before bedtime - "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray my Lord my soul to keep." "Lord, now lettest thou they servant depart in peace" - sounds like a letting go at the end of the day, having received comfort. And the words are still sometimes used at funerals - a final laying down to rest. That's sort of how they're used in the liturgy. But the overall context of Simeon's words in the gospel is not very comforting. There is an element of comfort and relief in them, but they also have a dark edge.
In the church year, the end of the Epiphany season - which actually happens this Thursday - February 2nd - the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple - also known as Candlemas after the Catholic practice of blessing candles used on the altar then - the end of the Epiphany season which we're marking today marks a turning from the joy and comfort of Christmas - the coming of our Saviour - turning towards Lent and what lies beyond at Good Friday and Easter - it marks a turning towards what salvation will cost. Hence the dark edge.
Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple for a celebration - a thanksgiving. It was their equivalent of what Baptism has become in our culture - a sort of thanksgiving for a child - but also a dedicating of the child to God.
Imagine coming to the baptism of your child - or perhaps your grandchild - and the vicar saying this child will cause the falling and rising of many - he will be a sign that is rejected - spoken against - he will reveal the darkest recesses of people's hearts - show up their sin and comfortable self-centredness for what it is - he will bring out the worst in people - not just the best. And a sword will pierce your own soul also.
That would feel pretty dark! Not quite what you expect for a family celebration! Though actually a baptism, properly understood, is something rather similar. We forget, when faced with the sweetness of a baby, that a baptism is a promise to follow Jesus - which involves dying - it involves dying to self. That was what the total immersion of the original baptism symbolised - burial - burial of your old life, so you could rise up and live a new life. A baptism is saying that this little baby - in the case of an infant - will have to learn to die to him or herself - to let go of all that is treasured if they want to follow Jesus. That's a pretty heavy thing to say over a baby, though most don't grasp the significance of it.
The words of the prophet Malachi hang over this scene of old Simeon and Anna blessing the child. Malachi prophesied that one day the Lord would come to his Temple, and though nobody knows it, that is what is happening in this story. The Lord in the shape of this tiny child - 40 days old - has come to his Temple - "but who can endure the day of his coming?" If you know Handel's Messiah those words will be familiar.
Simeon and Anna had waited their whole lives for the Messiah - awaiting the consolation of Israel - the fulfilment of God's promise to "Comfort, comfort my people." We all wait for that in some sense. We want the comfort of God - we want religion to bring us comfort - and it can and it will - but it is not - or ought not to be - an escapism from this world. God has sent a saviour to engage with this fractured world - not to take us out of it. If we want the comfort of Easter we must be prepared for Good Friday - for the sword that will pierce our own soul.
C.S. Lewis - after the death of his wife - wrote these words: "Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen glady. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolation of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand."
To say "Be a Christian and all will be good - God will save you from trouble and protect you" would be at best a half-truth - probably a downright untruth. That wouldn't be a religion that related to the real world. Sometimes I think being a Christian actually makes you suffer more. Not that we suffer more tragedies than anyone else - though some even think that may be the case - but that we feel things more deeply.
But Simeon's words are far from all dark. He is joyful to see this child. This is the salvation of Israel and the gentiles too - this is the Saviour of the world - this is love, joy, and peace - this is life to the full - but it involves the downs as well as the ups.
There's also one more important element of the gospel reading I'd like to think about. Simeon and Anna were good Jews - not all of Jesus' people rejected him by any stretch. Many were faithful to God in their Old Testament religion - but they had to recognize, if they were to receive their Messiah and the salvation God had promised, that God was going to do something new - something they wouldn't relate to so easily - something they wouldn't even see come to fruition - and be willing to rejoice in that. They had to let go and let God work begin his work in the next generation, before they had departed themselves. They had to see the future and rejoice in it, even though they wouldn't be a part of it.
We may have 'done religion' - worshipped God faithfully in a certain way - most of our lives - in a way that has perhaps gone on for generations - like Simeon and Anna had. But the next generation will do it differently. We need to see the seeds of how the next generation will worship and rejoice for them, and rejoice in the fact that God will relate to them differently to how he has related to us. To cling to our old ways in a death grip, and not support anything else, will deny the faith to the next generation. Will we, like Simeon and Anna, be able to rejoice that God is doing a new thing and let go. Or do we think that what we have always liked will see us out and we won't support anything else? That's the opposite to Simeon and Anna. They saw that God was doing something new and gave it their blessing.
The Nunc Dimittis in the Prayer Book may be comforting to us, but we may have to accept that the next generation will worship differently. Will we be prepared to let go of what we want and let God do what he wants? That is not very comfortable in the short term - but it is the way to true comfort - for us and for everyone. Not a comfortable escape from the changing world about us, but being comforted in all the difficulties of a changing, suffering world.
