First preached as sermon at Croydon Minster on the feast of The Presentation of Christ in the Temple
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A community
- spanning the generations - with the eyes of all fixed upon Jesus Christ.
That is a
pretty reasonable working definition of what a church is called to be: a
community, those who break bread together - spanning the generations - with the
eyes of all fixed upon Jesus Christ, God Incarnate.
It is
something of the scene described in this morning’s gospel reading. A woman and
a man - Anna and Simeon - both advanced in years; both expectant and full of
hope praying in the Temple: a woman and man, Mary and Joseph, two young parents
expectant and full of hope bringing their child to the Temple as required by
the Law of Moses.
Anna and
Simeon are in the Temple, the place of encounter with God, looking for the
coming Lord.
They could
have said, as the psalm puts it, ‘we wait for thy loving-kindness, O Lord: in
the midst of thy Temple’ (Psalm 48.8).
In the arms
of his Mother, Jesus Christ is brought into their midst: the Hope of the
Nations, the Light to Enlighten All People, God’s Own Salvation.
The words
of the prophet Malachi are fulfilled for Anna and Simeon, ‘the Lord whom you
seek will suddenly come to his temple’ (Malachi
3.1).
So we have
the elders, Anna and Simeon, and the young parents, Mary, Jesus’ mother and
Joseph, her husband and Jesus’ guardian.
This is the
image from the icon of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple that you have
on the prayer cards distributed this morning.
From left
to right:
Joseph
stands holding the two young pigeons for the sacrificial offering in the Temple
and gazing over at Jesus.
Next to him
is Anna, pointing at Mary, whose role was always to be the Mother of God, in
Greek Theotokos, also translated,
Godbearer. And Anna looks at Mary’s Son and holds in her hand an unfurled
scroll with words of prophecy and expectation about Christ.
Then there
is Mary herself, who has handed over her child - from the vestibule to the
sanctuary - and like Anna, she has a gesture of pointing towards Jesus.
Then the
heart of the icon: all eyes are directed at Jesus, who gives the appearance of
tugging Simeon’s beard (just like when I have baptised babies and had my nose
pinched, lapel microphone torn off and eye poked: yes, all that has happened).
And Simeon
bears in his hands his Saviour and ours. It is almost as if he is receiving
Holy Communion, and indeed he is, and look at the warmth of his loving gaze, and
the reverence of his receiving of Jesus.
This is an
inter-generational scene if ever there was one. The church is one of the few
places that young and old come together, not graded by precedence but on an
equal footing, because we are all here as children of the Most High, children
of God.
Receiving
Jesus is at the heart of Candlemas and the Christian life. And it has a practical
outworking that we’ve been pondering in this church over since the Feast of the
Epiphany.
How we
receive children in church is a measure of our delight, valuing and welcome of
the youngest into our midst, even if they figuratively pinch our noses, poke
our eyes, or, more likely, bellow and wail.
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| Modern re-working of the traditional icon of the Presentation, seen in a church in Ghent |
Last Sunday
leaders and helpers from our groups for children and young people at this
church met to consider how best our children and young people might be served
here, and how they remind us all of the call to be welcoming and hospitable to
everyone.
That is
what our Candlemas prayer card is for, that we might pray for the whole church
family so that we may all, young and old, grow in wisdom.
So
Candlemas tells us to welcome the young, appreciate those nurturing the young,
and also value the precious wisdom that can come with years.
On one
level that just gives us a sociological insight into the church; that is, if we
fail to see that what is being presented in Christ is the mystery of his
incarnation and the fullness of the Gospel. That’s what Simeon and Anna, Mary
and Joseph see in the Temple when Christ is presented there.
The
presentation of Christ in the Temple moves us on from any sociological
observations and takes us deep into the realities of life and mortality, love
and loss, hopes and pain.
Avoidance
of the cost and pain of life and Christian discipleship does no one, least of
all our children, any favours. The gospel is cheapened when we airbrush out the
radicalism of its power, and try and blunt its dramatic message and full
implications. That would be to proclaim Easter with the Cross. It’s what the
twentieth century German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls ‘cheap grace’:
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow
on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring
repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace
without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. (Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship)
Grace is
free, but should never be cheapened; that’s Bonhoeffer’s point. Cheap grace
does not equip us to handle the predicament of being human, loving and losing,
cherishing and weeping:
Anna knows
God’s free gift of grace, having lived a life in loneliness as a widow for many
years, worshipping and fasting, yet until this moment never having her hopes
truly fulfilled.
Simeon, a
righteous man, knows God’s liberating grace as he sees his mortality in a new
and liberating way: he can now die, knowing he has seen the Lord’s Messiah.
Mary learns
of the costly grace that will come with the redeeming death of her son on the
cross, as a sword pierces her own soul.
This is
profoundly realistic about life. Christians do not live in cocoons. If we walk
the way of the cross we can’t.
That is
what the Candlemas Procession tells us: knowing Christ as Emmanuel, God with us,
through his incarnation - and bearing candles signifying that light - we turn –
young and old - from the Crib to the Cross, from the birth to the death of
Jesus. Mortality is never far from our doors. Yet marked with the sign of the
cross, recipients of the blood of Christ, our hope is well placed in the Light
to enlighten the nations, Jesus Christ, our hope and our salvation.
Simeon
glimpsed this truth and will have recognised its coming in every fibre of his
being, for, as he knew from the psalms:
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