Sermon for Candlemas – “The Light of Christ”, preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey on Sunday, 28 January 2024 by The Reverend Christopher Huitson (Hebrews Ch 2: v 14 – end; St. Luke Ch 2: v 22 – 40).
Les Misérables, whether you think of the musical or the film is, of course, based on the book by Victor Hugo. I can only vouch for the book which references the 2nd of February, the day we keep as Candlemas, as one which contains a bit of weather forecasting lore. I won’t risk letting you hear my French pronunciation but translated into English it goes: “Let it gleam or let it glimmer, the bear goes back into his cave” – meaning that even a glimpse of the sun on Feb 2nd portends another six weeks or so of wintry weather. *
So keep an eye out for the sun this coming Friday for a folk lore weather prediction. The myth is very widespread though often with a change of animal according to the country concerned. In USA it is called Groundhog Day and if the animal is able to see its shadow on Feb 2nd then 6 more wintry weeks are predicted. There is now even a live stream of the emerging groundhog and for the last 3 years at least the shadow has been visible indicating some sunshine and so cold snowy weather to come for 6 weeks. Will it see its shadow this year?
Today is the nearest Sunday before 2nd of February so we keep it as Candlemas. A cluster of significant days gather around Feb 2: It is 40 days after Christmas Day and you will know how important a number 40 is. The circumcision of the infant Jesus fell on the 8th day after his birth – that is to say 1st Jan since each day was reckoned to begin at dusk rather than midnight, and the purification of the BVM comes 33 days after that which takes us to Feb 2nd.. Christians would take candles to their local church so that they could be blessed and then used for the rest of the year – hence Candlemas. Lights and candles have been associated with the festival not least because of the words of Simeon about a light to lighten the gentiles. These words form part of Evensong and so are regularly said or sung in church. Christ’s light has come to us and we have been called out of darkness to the light which is Christ. Indeed, the theme of light and darkness permeates the whole bible from the creation of light in Genesis to the description of heaven in Revelation where no sunshine was needed because the light of heaven suffused it all.
One of the plagues which afflicted the Egyptians just before the Exodus was a darkness which lasted 3 days. But although the Egyptians were in darkness, the children of Israel had light to see by and in their escape through the red sea and into the Sinai desert they were illuminated by the pillar of fire. In remembrance of this, a light was kept burning in the portable shrine they erected whenever they paused in their wanderings in the desert. When they finally settled in Jerusalem and constructed a permanent Temple, so there too a light was kept burning perpetually as a symbol and sign of God and his saving power. Perhaps it was that light burning in the Temple which inspired Simeon to speak of Jesus, whose birth was heralded by the light of a star, as a light to lighten the gentiles.
The date of Candlemas relates to Christmas Day and so we are partly looking backwards. It is a festival, a time of rejoicing, a feast day. It reminds us of the greeting by Simeon and Anna. But it also reminds us of what was to come. The prophetic words of Simeon contain a warning. He says that the baby Jesus is destined for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel and would be a sign that is rejected. He tells Mary that a sword will pierce her soul too. So this festival is also looking forward to Good Friday. The language of sacrifice is used which is uncomfortable to us. An animal was killed and offered to God in place of a human being with the idea of sharing with God in a sacred meal. Such ideas were ritualised by the time of Jesus but a few decades later became impossible as the destruction of the Temple meant that there was no longer a sacred building where such rituals could take place. At the time of Jesus, a pair of pigeons was all that was necessary and these were offered on behalf of the baby Jesus and that record is contained in the account of the Presentation.
The destruction of the Temple in AD 70 brought to an end animal sacrifice but already in Christianity the sacrificial system had been made redundant. Instead, Christians saw that Christ had died as a substitute for them. They saw his death as a sacrifice – something brought about by the scheming of the Jewish and Roman leadership – but still an offering made to God. And just as in the old system the sacrifice of an animal preserved the life of a human being, so the death of Jesus brought the life of resurrection to those who followed Christ and were united with him. That unification was achieved and asserted by a sacred meal, the consumption of bread and wine representing the body and blood of Christ as closely as possible in the faith of the worshipper, so that the unity of Christ and his people might be made clear.
That continues to be at the heart of our Communion Services, so that the festival of Candlemas is a time of rejoicing. The baby Jesus was presented in the Jerusalem Temple so this was all part of the revelation of Jesus to the world. Epiphany shows Jesus to the Gentile world as represented by the Magi from the East while the visit of the Holy Family to Jerusalem and the Temple proclaims his birth to the Jewish world.
Candlemas is a kind of pivot day in the Christian calendar. It is as though we are saying: “one last look back to Christmas and then we turn towards Lent and Good Friday and the cross.” And just when it seemed as though the machinations of the religious leadership and the power of Rome had triumphed so that the light of Christ was going to be extinguished for ever, there was a completely unexpected event which changed everything. St Matthew tells us that at the crucifixion deep darkness covered the land for 3 hours. 3 days passed, again a significant length of time linking with prophetic words in Hosea and even the length of time that Jonah was in the whale as referred to by Jesus in St. Matthew 12:40 in response to the scribes and pharisees asking for a sign: “Just as Jonah was in the sea monster’s belly for 3 days and 3 nights, so the Son of Man will be 3 days and 3 nights in the bowels of the earth.” He continues “what is here is greater than Jonah”.
And then at Easter the heavenly light of the resurrection burst upon an unsuspecting world, given to those with eyes to see. To us that light has come. We have been called out of darkness to the light which is Christ, so that we can empathise with words by the prophet Isaiah: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has dawned”.
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*One day, in the course of that winter, the sun had come out for a while in the afternoon, but it was the second of February, that ancient Candlemas-day whose treacherous sun, the precursor of six weeks of cold, inspired Matthew Laensberg with the two lines, which have deservedly become classic: Let it gleam or let it glimmer / The bear goes back into his cave. (p. 730) Les Misérables by Victor Hugo