Receiving Jesus: A Candlemas Homily

 

Readings: Malachi 3.1-5; Psalm 24; Hebrews 2.14-end; Luke 2.22-40

 

‘Simeon took the child in his arms and praised God’

 

+

 

It is a very precious thing to be able to cradle a baby in one’s arms.

 

That is true when it’s your own child, but also true when someone else presents and entrusts their baby into your arms.

 

The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Lord, and Joseph, her husband and Jesus’ guardian, presented Jesus in the Temple into the arms of Simeon.

 

We don’t know if Simeon had cradled children before as a father or grandfather, but, as a priest in the Temple, he will have received many children into his arms as their parents presented their firstborn sons, according to the Law of Moses, forty days after their birth accompanied by the offering of two pigeons or turtledoves.

 

By placing Jesus into the arms of the priest, Mary and Joseph were entrusting Jesus to his heavenly Father.

 

The priestly task is to receive sacrificial gifts, to offer them to God, such that they are transformed and then offered back to the people. We see this in the Eucharist, bread and wine is received and then offered to the Father, at the priest’s hands, and transformed by the Holy Spirit such that it becomes the body and blood of Christ, which we receive back into our lives.

 

But the child cradled in the priest Simeon’s arms was himself the Great High Priest, the embodiment of the Temple: the one transformed was not the offering, Jesus, but the receiver, Simeon, as in the Eucharist. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever; we are the ones transformed in receiving him.

 

Receiving Jesus in his arms opened Simeon’s eyes and his heart. As he received Jesus his life was fulfilled and he was now ready to embrace his mortality. Simeon could now die in peace: he had seen the Lord’s Messiah with his own eyes; a bright and burning light.

 

The same is true of Anna, the prophetess, who literally lived in the Temple looking with her eyes; opening her heart night and day to receive the Lord.

 

Oh how the church will be renewed when, like Simeon and Anna, we all – young and old - look longingly to see the fulfilment of God’s promises and then see his light to enlighten the nations; when we stretch out our hands to receive Jesus and cradle him in our hearts.

 

Mary cradled her child in her arms on many occasions, no doubt. Like most mothers, she will have cradled her Son in her arms to tell him stories; Mary surely telling the stories of Israel, of God’s saving love for his people. She will have cradled him in her arms to sing lullabies, quite probably the psalms which he came to know so well.

 

But when receiving the child into his arms Simeon also speaks disturbing words to Mary: ‘and a sword will pierce your own soul too’ (Luke 2.35b).

 

Traditionally Mary has Seven Sorrows, the first of which are Simeon’s words that a sword will pierce her heart. That’s why a title of Mary is Mother of Sorrows (Mater Dolorosa). That sword pierces her heart as she stands at the foot of the Cross (Stabat Mater). That sword pierces her heart as she cradles her Son, not now the bouncing baby but the Crucified. We call that scene of Mary cradling the dead body of her Son, the Pietà.

 

The child held in Simeon’s arms was his life and salvation and also a sign that he could die content. The prospect of death now held no fear for Simeon. Having seen and cradled Jesus Christ he could now embrace his own death, for Christ is life, he is salvation.

 

We have cradled candles in our hands today. That candle is a token to represent ‘the light to enlighten the nations and for glory for God’s people Israel’ (Luke 2.32).

 

‘The Lord is my light and my salvation’ says the Psalm, ‘whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the light of my life of whom then shall I be afraid?’ (Psalm 27.1-2).

 

‘Perfect love casts out fear’ says the First Letter of John. In the light, life and love of Jesus Christ we have nothing left to fear: not in life; not in death.

 

May we embrace Jesus Christ, cradle his message and meaning in our arms, in our hearts, in our minds, for, in so doing, we are embracing our present salvation and our future hope of the life of the world to come.