First Evensong of Candlemas, Westminster Abbey:1 Sam 1.19b-end; Hebrews 4.11-end
“Since we have a great High
Priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold
firmly to the faith we profess.” Heb 4.14
I sometimes sit in my
church after the 6pm daily mass, when the lights are out and the doors are
locked, but the votive candles are still alight at all the shrines around the
church.
(Selwyn College Chapel, Cambridge, my old College)
There is quietness
and the strange beauty which flickering candlelight brings to a house of
prayer; the lingering smell of incense, the aroma of God; dark, cavernous
shadows and pools of golden light.
Life only holds its
interest because of the shadows, because it is bittersweet: from the pain of childbirth
to the joy that baby brings; from the pain of passing through death to the joy
of the mystery of heaven.
At a more mundane
level, as I sat in the pub with four old school friends after Christmas, they
all looked the worse for wear (and I don’t just mean the drink) – we were no
longer those bright eyed boys from the 1960s – with myself as an obvious
exception; but then, what stories we had to tell! The bitter-sweetness of
having had a life.
But of course we always
dream and long for sweetness without bitterness, knowing that even if it were
possible, it would be a dull existence.
Hannah and Samuel’s
story in the first lesson is bittersweet: she spends years longing for a child,
and then when she has one, she gives up young Samuel the toddler to live, grow
up and work in the Temple.
Our Lady Mary’s life
was certainly bittersweet. When we celebrate Candlemas here tomorrow evening we
will remember her as she, like Hannah, brings her child Jesus into God’s house.
So for Mary all the
confusion and shame of the conception of this child, the long uncomfortable
journey, the agony of labour, the indignity of the stable – all that is now past.
It’s 40 days after
Christmas and his birth, and now she brings her pride and joy, her baby boy, to
be presented in the Temple in Jerusalem: the first fruit of her womb to be
dedicated to God.
They must offer the
two pigeons as a sin offering and a redemption price, for the firstborn belongs
to the Lord and must be redeemed, bought back by the offering of the two
pigeons.
But why is this feast
of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple also called Candlemas?
Well this was
probably another example of that early Christian cross-cultural trick. Take a
pagan festival, to do with flames and torches, and chasing away the darkness of
winter, practised here long before Christianity came to these islands; and
baptize it; Christianize it!
So because Christ is
the Light to lighten the gentiles, in the words of Simeon, tomorrow on the
Feast we will bless all the candles we will use in the coming liturgical year
that remind us of Christ.
And like our pagan
ancestors, we process with our torches and candles, putting to flight the steel
grey skies of winter and hoping for signs of spring.
Of course our
American cousins are busy doing the cross-cultural trick in reverse, if I may
playfully put it that way.
So Candlemas, a
Christian feast, becomes the secular celebration of Groundhog Day, (you’ve all
seen the film!) based on an old Scottish couplet:
If
Candlemas Day is bright and clear,
there'll
be twa winters in the year.
A sunny Candlemas
means the severity of winter will continue – the groundhog will return to its long
winter sleep. But if it is dull and overcast tomorrow, then the worst of winter
is past.
Candlemas is also a
pivotal day in the Christian calendar. It is bittersweet, as we look back on
the joy of Christmas and Epiphany, as Simeon and Anna rejoice in the Temple;
and yet we look forward towards Lent and Passiontide: the agonies of our Lord’s
pierced Body; the anguish of our Lady’s pierced soul.
Candlemas reminds us
of Life as we Know It, dappled and
pied with pain. Who has not watched children grow into adults and not known the
bittersweetness of parenthood?
Who has not loved
deeply and not known the bittersweet wounds of affection?
The joyful comfort of
lovers, friends and family is always eventually plundered by death and grief.
And with all our
conviviality and social pleasures, who has not sat down sometime or lay awake
at night and felt so alone and lonely.
Now of course we are
people of hope who believe in new birth and resurrection, the return of spring,
so we should be optimistic about ourselves and about our world; while still knowing
that we are constantly nagged as we hear the news, by intimations of despair.
As Hazlitt put it:
Man is the only species who can laugh or cry because he is the only being who knows the difference between what is and what should be.
The difference
between what is and what should be: in our own life – in our world.
We can long for peace
and yet stand looking year after year at war and violence and dreadful acts of
terror.
We can reach for the
stars and in minutes be only too aware of our human mortality and of the
contingency of all things.
But, but the
Light shines in the darkness: that spark of hope that God implants within all
of us, to help us through the bitter parts of life.
We were hardly aware
of the light in the full blaze of day, in the sweetness of life; but in the
gloom we can see the beckoning light
of Christ. Or to use CS Lewis’s metaphor, ‘God whispers in our pleasures, but
shouts in our pain.’
As Christians we
believe that the Light is Christ. The bright radiance of candles around our
altars and churches draws us to him, the source of all light, our comfort and
joy.
At the altar we see
the bittersweet man of sorrows who has been through what we go through, as the
writer to the Hebrews reminds us in today’s second lesson: like us; tested like
us. Here at the altar he is crucified and yet exalted; the Lamb that was slain
who yet lives.
So we live this
strange but alluring bittersweet life in the light of glory, and in the
presence of Christ.
John Donne, Dean of
St Paul’s Cathedral in the early 17th century, lived his life to the
full, and knew pain and pleasure, shame and holy exultation. His vision of
heaven was of a state of being where these two sides of human life and human
nature would be miraculously transformed into the equanimity of Christ our
Lord; perfect composure, perfect balance and fulfilment.
So he prayed:
Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity; in the habitations of thy glory and dominion...
Whatever sweetness
life brings to you and our world; and whatever bitterness; let us hold on with
hope and faith.
