February 2, 2025 – Candlemas: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
“Two turtledoves, and a ground hog who sees his shadow.” What, not right? Well, at any rate, Merry Christmas everyone! And you thought all that was over weeks ago when those crazy wild guys from the East showed up. Well, not so fast. If you have your tree still up (and believe it or not, I do – not just the artificial one, but my live tree is still doing well!) – then you are not late at all. Today marks the final day of Christmas – for real this time.
You might note that our gospel today is from Luke Chapter 2. This comes just one verse after the story about the shepherds visiting the baby Jesus. The missing verse is his circumcision on the 8th day. So, we are clearly still in the birth narrative as Jesus is all of 40 days old. He isn’t even out of onesies or eating solid food yet.
This is the Feast of the Presentation, a day on which candles are blessed for use at home and the church, so it is also called Candlemas. We don’t get to hear this story in church unless it falls on a Sunday, or a weekday service is offered. That is a shame, because it features so much in our daily lives for those of us who pray what is known in our church as the Daily Office. It also is part of our parish’s history, with two prominent stained glass windows associated with it – the center window of the Tiffany triptych in St. Mary’s chapel, and this one up there in the main tower. The chapel window shows the scene, and the tower windows have the words of Simeon, which we pray in the daily office in what is known in Latin as the Nunc Dimittis – which like all Latin titles is just another way of saying the first few words – in this case “You have dismissed…”
So, all that said – let’s get to this story, because it is offers something important for us in the context in which we live now.
Okay – we know the nativity story, but what happens right afterward, according to this gospel? Not wise folks from the East and a flight to Egypt to escape Herod – that is the Gospel of Matthew. Now, given that Matthew is written for the Jewish people by a Jewish author, and Luke is written for gentiles by a gentile author, you would think that the story of the wise guys would be in Luke and this story, along with the circumcision that precedes it, would be in Matthew, because these are stories about Mary and Joseph following Jewish law with respect to the birth of their first born son and the purification ritual for his mother. Weird, right?
Anyway, in Luke, after the shepherds depart, the next thing we hear is that Jesus is going to a bris, and unfortunately for him, he isn’t the one bringing a gift. Joseph and Mary have him circumcised and he is named. Then we get to this story today, where 40 days after his birth, they bring Jesus to the temple to be presented to God in accordance with the law for her purification and his redemption that we get in that fabulous book that everyone loves – Leviticus. All this to say that Jesus is raised in the knowledge and adherence to scripture and the law.
Now there are a couple of things to note in this story. First, according to Leviticus, you are supposed to offer up a lamb and a turtledove or pigeon. Only if you can’t afford that do you have the option of substituting for the lamb a second bird, which, as we find out, is what Mary and Joe offer up. So the author is telling us something about the Holy Family – that they are working class folks.
Now – picture this…the temple isn’t like the size of our churches today. This place is huge. Have you ever been to St. John the Divine or the Washington National Cathedral? In those places you need to leave breadcrumbs to find your way back from the bathroom, right? Well, the temple in Jerusalem is larger. There is likely a lot going on there too. Mary, Joe, and Jesus would be just a small speck in this huge façade. They were probably barely noticeable, these two – coming in with their birds and their little baby. Just one of many trying to do the right thing by the law, lost in the vastness of this temple.
They would have moved through the outer gates, past the court of the gentiles, and into likely now the court where Jewish women are allowed, outside of the inner court where only men could go. You’d think no one would really pay any attention to them, and yet two people did.
Simeon was, according to the text, a righteous and devout man who had been told by God that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. He is guided by the Holy Spirit to come to the temple that day. He sees the child Jesus, takes him in his arms, and says (using what we say in Evening Prayer and inscribed on those windows) “Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised; For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see: A Light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.” He then foretells to Mary the destiny that awaits this child, and that it will pierce her heart.
If that were not enough, Anna, a prophet, sees them. Now, how many of you ever heard of Anna, or for that matter, a woman prophet in the bible before? Yup – we need to be better about raising up this story. Anyway, she is very old, and is of the tribe of Asher, which just happens to be one of the original 12 whose area is Galilee. She sees the baby Jesus, and also proclaims the destiny that awaits him and what it will mean for the people of Israel.
Lordy, what a thing to have happen to this couple.
Remember all that has already happened – the annunciation to Mary, the reaction of John in the womb of Elizabeth and Mary’s song to God, the shepherds who tell Mary and Joe about the angels and what they said, and now this? I think the Holy Family invented the – post-Christmas, shut the door on the last guests, pour a glass of wine and put your feet up – crash. It’s a lot to deal with!
So, what does all this have to say to us?
Well, let’s go back to our righteous guy Simeon and his Benedictus – or blessing. He says “…my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” After the angels told the shepherds that Jesus would be “good news for all the people,” Simeon tells us that he will be a light – for the salvation of all. Christ, as we sang in the opening hymn, is the world’s true light.
And in this time of deep darkness for our nation and the world, this truly is good news. This has been a most difficult week, hasn’t it? There was the mid-air collision of a helicopter and a plane that resulted in the death of 67 people, some of them very young. Then on Friday night, a “medical transport jet with a child patient, her mother, and four others aboard crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood shortly after takeoff…, exploding in a fireball that engulfed several homes.” The level of grief is overwhelming.
And because we are filled with grief, we may have missed one other story amid the barrage of horror that seems to pervade our national political news cycle these days, and it is this: By yet another Executive Order – all refugee entry into the US was stopped.
This resulted in 1,600 men, women, and children, who had gone through years of waiting, then years of processing – including biometric scans, background checks, you name it – people who had fled horrors in their homeland that people in our country could not even imagine in their worst nightmares – all of them denied the flights that had already been set up for them to find refuge here.
This not only led to the heartbreak of those refugee families –but it also led to the loss of jobs for scores of employees in the Episcopal Church who worked for Episcopal Migration Ministries or EMM. EMM was one of many federally funded agencies who provided resettlement services to incoming refugees so that they would have housing, employment, and a community to welcome them.
Folks, it isn’t like we were doing more than our fair share and needed to scale back. The truth is, we take in only .4% of the world’s refugees – far less than most countries. Worse though is that most of those behind this also want the US to be a so-called Christian country? They believe in the heresy of Christian Nationalism.
Now, I know that the famed theologian Karl Barth implored preachers to “…hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other,” but I wish he had implored politicians who claim to be followers of Jesus to not only hold a bible in their hand, but actually open it up and read it. Because there they might hear about God’s commandments to welcome the stranger, and especially about the holy family’s flight to Egypt to escape the tyranny of Herod and the slaughter of the innocents. Thank goodness Egypt didn’t say – “Yeah, no. You aren’t welcome here.”
Yet despite all the darkness of the world today, our grieving and sorrowful hearts can take comfort in the knowledge of Jesus’ birth as we close out Christmas today. Because God didn’t enter into a world that was a utopia of goodness and light. You don’t need a candle in the daylight, but in the darkness. Jesus was born into a time of harsh economic disparity and oppression. It was a dark time, such as we are experiencing now.
His birth, that we finish celebrating today, was proclaimed by his mother to be God’s promise that the powerful will be thrown down and the lowly lifted up –the hungry will be fed and the rich will be sent away empty. The angels told the shepherds that his birth would be good news for all people, not just some. Simeon and Anna say that his light will bring salvation for all the world – all people everywhere.
And that, my friends, is good news for us today, even amidst the uncertainty and chaos in which we find ourselves. Because the incarnation isn’t something that happened once a long time ago. It is happening still. Christ was, and is, and is to come.
This story is happening now, and we are Anna and Simeon, despairing yes – but also a people of hope. Hope that rests in the knowledge of God at work in the world.
Hope that is the flame that will overcome all darkness.
And like Anna and Simeon, we will encounter Christ in our midst.
We may not physically hold a little baby in our arms and see the light of Christ, but we don’t need to. We receive his light in baptism, we are nourished by it in here in the Eucharist, and we encounter him in those most affected by all this darkness we hear about every day – the poor, the lonely, the addicted, the imprisoned, the immigrant & refugee, the grieving, the homeless, the marginalized and the oppressed.
We encounter God at work in all of creation too – in the sound of laughter, a bird’s song, the rising of the sun, the beauty of the stars. These gifts of God are not for a certain people – you don’t need a ticket to see or hear them – they are available to all the people in all the world.
So, in the days ahead, when things seem most dark, come here to this house of worship like Anna and Simeon, for in this place we are able to turn off for a moment the chaos, the noise, the cruelty, and the coldness, and be reminded of God’s presence in our lives.
Look around too – and see signs of God’s grace for all people.
And when you return home, light the candle you received today and remember who you are and whose you are –children of God, claimed as Christ’s own – and loved unconditionally just as you are. Perhaps then you will see yourself in this story we heard today.
For we are a people like Anna – filled with hope in our heart as we behold the handiwork of God all around us.
We are a people like Simeon – following the Holy Spirit in the knowledge of the promise of God.
We are the body of Christ the light of the world – a light shining through our own brokenness – to bring hope, healing, and love – a light that defeats all darkness, even perhaps our own.
Amen.
For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
February 2, 2025
Feast of the Presentation
1st Reading – Malachi 3:1-4
2nd Reading – Hebrews 2:14-18
Gospel – Luke 2:22-40
