CANDLEMAS 3.2.08: St. Mary’s 8.00 am: St. Mary’s 9.30am: Revd. Julia Boothby


Today we celebrate the feast of Candlemas, also known as the presentation of Christ. According to Jewish law a woman who had given birth had to be purified by a priest after forty days. She was expected to offer a lamb, or if she were poor then two pigeons or turtle dove and that is what we see Mary and Joseph doing here. Into this scene of traditional Jewish life comes the unexpected. Enter Anna, an old prophetess and Simeon, a very old and devout man who both begin to speak about this child being the one who will bring salvation, not only to Gods chosen people Israel, but to the whole world.
Those wonderful words of Simeon that we sing at every service of Evensong…

“ ..My eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared…a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel...”

And it is that theme of Christ as Saviour and light of the world that led the RC church to decree that it was on this day that beeswax candles that will be used both in homes and in churches are traditionally blessed, and in some churches there are candle processions….hence Candlemas

There are lots of other traditions surrounding this day. According to some it is the day for taking down all your Christmas decorations, in America it is Groundhog Day, and in France it is a day for eating lots of crepes but only after 8pm. If the cook can toss the crepe whilst holding a coin in the other hand the family is assured of wellbeing in the coming year…something to try on Tuesday when you are making your pancakes perhaps! Apparently if today is a fine day then we here in Britain can expect severe winter weather later!!!

Well whatever you may or may not believe about these traditions it is a wonderful moment in the life of Christ, and one that has been captured by artists down the centuries in stained glass, in wood etching and in oil. For me there is one painting that helps to bring alive that moment for me and that is the one painted by Rembrandt towards the end of his life. He painted this scene several times but towards the end of his life in 1669 he painted the unfinished “Simeon and the Child Jesus in the Temple.”

Link to Picture

It is a characteristic Rembrandt with its dark background and with the aged characters of Simeon and Anna emerging from it. Rembrandt was a genius at painting age and in his old age that skill seems to become even more marked. It is a painting of great beauty and stillness but it is also a very profound painting and there is one aspect of it that really made me pause for thought. Simeon has taken the baby Jesus in his arms. Anna is standing at his shoulder looking down at the child and Simeon appears to be about to speak those words of the Nunc Dimittis

“Lord, now lettest thy servant depart in peace: according to thy word
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation: which thou hast prepared before the face of all people.
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel.”

For mine eyes have seen….and yet, in the painting Simeon is not looking at the child. He appears, in fact to be partly blind to my way of thinking, perhaps reflecting the artists own growing blindness. He seems to be lost in looking at something that we cannot see, looking to God, looking to the future, seeing what was in store for this child who he is holding and his hands, under the Christ child in his arms are open in supplication as if in prayer.

Here is a man who has been promised by God that he will not die before he has seen the Messiah. We read that he was a righteous and devout man, full of the Holy Spirit and guided by the Spirit he comes into the temple to see the baby Jesus being presented. And the spirit confirms to him that this is indeed the Messiah.

We cannot know if Simeon was surprised that the Messiah he had waited for so long was a babe but as Simeon took the child in his arms he saw by faith all that God had planned, not just that he was the Saviour of Israel, but of the whole world. He saw by faith what the future would hold, that this babe in his arms would not only bring salvation but judgement as he saw the hearts of all laid bare before him. There would be opposition and those chilling words to Mary
“And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Simeon was a man who had lived by faith. He had believed that God would fulfil his promise to him that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah and now he has. He has seen by faith the future that lies ahead and now he is ready to die….let they servant depart in peace…

It is a wonderful moment, a moment when faith and prophecy are brought together in an old man. And I think that there are two things that I would like to draw out of his for us to think about.

The first is this…we are never too old or too young to be used by God. In the temple that day were three generations around the child…the babe, his parents, Anna and Simeon who could have been his grandparents. Each had a unique role to fulfil in God’s plan; each came to do God’s will. Christ came to bring God’s message of hope and saving love to the world. He came in obedience, even to death on a cross. Mary and Joseph were called to be Christ parents, to love and nurture and care for him and give him an earthly home and family. Simeon and Anna were called to be prophets, to see the future and to speak of it, to wait faithfully for God to bring the promised Messiah to them.

They all fulfilled what God called them to. They were young, old and even older….whatever age we are God has a plan for us too. As I was thinking about this I was reminded of Victor who I am sure that many of you will remember was a regular worshipper here until his death last year. Towards the end of his life he had to go and live in a nursing home and to begin with he hated it. But after a while he began to see that God had called him to be there. He began to try and help those around him but talking to them, trying to find points of contact, he began a hymn singing group and a poetry reading club, both of which are still going strong today. Despite his increasing frailty and the fact that he was 90 years old, Victor knew that God had something for him to do and he did it. As his coffin was carried out of Church so I said those words of Simeon…Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace…because they seemed to me so fitting for him. Whatever age we are, no matter how little we may think we have to offer, God has something for us to do. He will equip and enable us if we will just, as Simeon and Anna did, offer ourselves to him.

But the second point that I want us to think about is this. Simeon saw with faith. His physical eyesight may or may not have been failing him but it did not matter because what he saw he saw in his spirit by faith. It was not the appearance or what Jesus looked like that led Simeon to know that here was the Messiah, He knew because the Holy Spirit took him to the temple and confirmed to him that this was the child. How easy it is to forget that we are called to walk by faith and not by sight. Faith is

“Being sure of that which we do not see”

God calls us to have our eyes of faith opened by him. To see others, not by our sight which might lead us to criticise or dislike, but by faith to see them as children of God loved by Him.  God calls us to look at the world with eyes of faith. Not to be afraid of earthly disasters and sorrows but to see God at work in history, bringing about the fulfilment of his kingdom.  God calls us to look at our own lives, our own problems and situations with eyes of faith, to see as he does and to know that our times and lives are held in our hands.

May we all seek to have our eyes of faith opened by God, through worship, through prayer, through reading God’s word and now as we gather at his table. May we listen for his call on our lives and be obedient to it and as we do so, so we will draw closer to Christ, the light of the world.