Today is the feast of Candlemas, or “The Presentation of Christ”. Whenever this festival comes around I regret the Reformation! Why?
Before the Reformation, minor church festivals were much more fun. Everyone was involved. Candlemas was a great celebration for the whole community. The last day of the Festival of the Epiphany, in darkest, cold February, Christ was celebrated as the Light of the World.
There would be a great candle-lit procession through the streets, to the church, with people carrying bundles of unlit candles. These were to be blest and given to the local church, so there would be light for the whole year in the church.
Often the story of Simeon’s meeting with the Christ child would be enacted, with the oldest man in the village playing Simeon and the newest baby, Jesus.
When I was a parish priest in Stanmore, we reproduced this. We had a very new baby in the congregation. We processed around the church, everyone with a candle, and then George who was in his 80s and had been a life-long Christian, sat in a chair (he didn’t feel stable enough to hold the baby standing) and took the tiny child into his arms. Looking into the baby’s face George spoke Simeon’s words.
“Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”
It was one of the most moving moments I have ever witnessed in a church because George was an old, old man, nearing death, and he was gazing into the face of a very young child. Time kaleidoscoped. This was George and Simeon, the baby Jesus and any child who has its life ahead of it. Suddenly, the story came alive in a very vivid way and what we were witnessing became holy, sacred.
Of course, we can enjoy the procession, the candles, the story and the sense of occasion and still miss the deep, deep point. So, let us try to dig deeper.
Allow me to read you a poem by one of my favourite poets, Denise Levertov. It is called “Candlemas.”
With certitude Simeon opened ancient arms to infant light. Decades before the cross, the tomb and the new life, he knew new life. What depth of faith he drew on, turning illumined towards deep night.
When we look at Simeon what do we see? Above all we see a man of faith and devotion; a man of patience and longing.
We tend to look at this climatic moment in Luke 2 and forget the many years of waiting that preceded this great meeting with the infant Messiah. Consider the most important thing Luke tells us about Simeon: “it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” When had this knowledge been revealed to Simeon? In his teens, twenties, thirties? Imagine carrying that promise around with you all your adult life, watching the years pass. Waiting and waiting. How would it affect you?
Now the moment has finally come and we peer with Simeon down upon the Christ Child. Holding the baby, Simeon has a moment of intense glory and revelation. With the deepest joy, Simeon recognises that he holds the salvation of all the world in his very hands.
“A light to lighten the gentiles and the glory of your people, Israel.” Denise Levertov’s beautiful meditation ends: “What depth/ of faith he drew on,/ turning illumined/ towards deep night.” What is the “deep night” Simeon turns to? Both his own death but much more so, he comprehends what will happen to this baby when he grows into a man. Simeon foresees the darkness, the suffering, the death as well as the glory, and he tells Mary.
“Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also).”
Levertov commends Simeon in the way Simeon has always been commended, as a man of great faith. Faith that can turn “towards deep night.” But she also points out something we might miss, so delicately does she put it – the profound thing Simeon himself experienced. Levertov suggests Simeon was “illumined” in that moment of meeting the Christ child because there “he knew – this old, old man - new life.” Yes, new life is here a new way of seeing. It’s breaking in all around him, as he looks with eyes of understanding on this child; not just the Jewish Messiah but the Saviour of the whole world. We need to pray for the eyes of Simeon so that we may see it, too.
Simeon’s life of patient devotion gave him eyes to see. Simeon saw beyond the poverty and the ordinariness of the little family who came to present their firstborn, to the hidden glory of the Son of the heavenly Father and to the promise for all mankind. For Simeon in that moment of illumination, everything was changed. But for everyone else in the temple that day the world went on as if nothing had happened. Why do we assume that it should not be like that? It is faithful devotion, patient prayer, that prepares us throughout our lives for that moment when, in God’s good time, when God is ready, we ourselves may be illumined and see heaven in the very ordinary. It is patient prayer and faithfulness that also enables us to face “the deep night” whatever that might mean for us, when it comes.