Candlemas 2009

Tonight we celebrate a feast with a number of different names. Its is affectionately known as Candlemas, but that’s not its official name. In most churches, including the Episcopal Church, it is officially known as the Presentation of Jesus Christ in the Temple. Up until the liturgical renewal movement in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, it was generally known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary – and in some churches it is still called by that name.

These names are drawn from events heard in tonight’s Gospel account. As pious Jews, Mary and Joseph were fulfilling two rituals proscribed in the Law.

The first ritual involved the first male child born in the family. According to the Books of Exodus and Numbers, the first male was given back to the Lord and presented in the Temple. Sometimes, very rarely, the child would actually be given to the temple and raised there, such as in the case of the prophet Samuel. More often, however the child would be redeemed with a money offering.

The second ritual is rooted in ritual and purity laws from the Book of Leviticus and involved the mother. Having giving birth, the mother was regarded as ritually unclean. After forty days – eighty if the child was a girl – the mother was directed to offer a sacrifice for her purification: A lamb if she was able to, or two turtle doves if she was poor.

I’m not sure why the Purification of Mary, rather than the Presentation of Jesus, was highlighted for so long, since it focuses less attention on Jesus and more on the fulfillment of a purity ritual. In any event, the name change to the Presentation reflects the reality that the feast is really all about Jesus. A fact which I think, perhaps ironically, is made even more evident when examining the ritual of purification narrated by Saint Luke.


I mentioned the offering that Mary was to give: a lamb or two turtle doves. Being poor, she and Joseph offered two turtle doves. But the reality is that they also brought with them a lamb – Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. It is Jesus who will, years later, himself be offered as a sacrifice. One offered not for the purity of his mother in the Jewish Temple, but for the sins of the whole world on the cross.

With that in mind, I think its fair to say that our celebration tonight points directly toward Holy Week and Easter: the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lamb of God.

I believe that the point of the Gospel tonight is that Simeon and Anna see and recognize God. Filled with the Spirit, both the righteous old man and the pious old prophetess look at a child and see only the Lamb of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the World. They saw exactly what John the Baptist saw thirty years later at the Jordan when he suddenly pointed to Jesus and exclaimed: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
The prophetess Anne, in what may have been her last prophetic word, spoke to everyone she saw about this baby boy. Saint Luke doesn’t write that she said he had his mother’s eyes or that he might someday be a carpenter. He writes that she told everyone who had been waiting and looking for the redemption of Jerusalem that she had found it in the baby Jesus.

Likewise, the words of Simeon are not a lullaby for a baby boy; they are words of recognition about the Son of God who will open the gate of heaven to all people, Jew and Gentile, by dying on the cross and rising from the grave.

“Mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou has prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for the glory of thy people Israel.”


The candle light procession that we started with tonight is as much a celebration of Jesus Christ who is the Light of the world as it is a celebration that we can see that Light. It develops because Christians are dramatically illustration the fact that they have been enlightened and, like Simeon and Anna, can see Jesus for who he really is.

I love Candlemas because I love watching the candle light slowly spread from person to person because it reminds me of how Anna and Simeon, who had waited so long to see Jesus, were finally able to. And when their eyes saw, their voices spread the good news of Jesus to the people they encountered.

I also love Candlemas because I know that when Candlemas arrives, I Lent is right around the corner and Easter is not that far away. I do love Candlemas, but I really love Holy Week and Easter because that is when we get to concentrate on and celebrate God’s love conquering sin, death and everything in between.

Sometimes it takes a whole lifetime to know that the sacrifice and resurrection of Lamb of God has opened the heavenly sanctuary to all people… even me. Sometimes you’ve known that Good News as long as you can remember. But when you do know, passing on that knowledge is as easy and natural as lighting the candle of the person next to you. You have the light and its very obvious that your neighbor needs that light too… so you pass it on.

As we move into Lent at the end of this month, and we officially begin the journey toward Holy Week, many Christians will settle on a Lenten Devotion. I would like to suggest one this year. Pick a friend or a family member who has not yet seen the light of Christ and see if you can light a spark. Maybe the flame that you have tried to pass on won’t be visible for many years, but I believe when any one of us speaks about what we know to be true, someone is listening and at some point the story that has been told will be told in a new voice to a new person who hasn’t yet heard it.