Candlemas

2 February, 2025

Malachi 3.1–5; Luke 2.22–40

Rev Matt Bullimore

Sir Thomas Massey was a zealously anti-Catholic MP of the 19th century. One morning in the Commons he proposed that, as the English had long since rid their churches of the popish Mass, it was high time that their language followed suit: “Christ-mas” should thus duly be Protestantised to “Christ-tide”.

The Prime Minister, Disraeli, rose instantly to respond. The suggestion was so good, he acknowledged, that perhaps his Right Honourable friend might begin by setting the House an example: would Sir Thomas Massey henceforth be styling himself “Sir Tho-tide Tide-y”? With Parliament engulfed in uproarious laughter, Sir Thomas quietly withdrew the proposal.

Today it must be Candletide. The day when we remember Mary and Joseph bringing Jesus to the Temple to present him to the Lord.

Luke reminds us: Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord. The Law states that the firstborn males are holy and that, in some sense, they are owed to God. Which means they need to be redeemed back. A couple of pigeons seem to be worth a baby.

Now what on earth is all this about? Why does Luke tell us about it? And why does it make a jot of difference to us right now with the world in the state it’s in?

Let’s begin with the reason the first born are owed to God. It is because of the first Passover. You will remember that when the Hebrews are enslaved in Egypt. The final plague with which Moses threatens Pharoah for their release is the death of all the firstborn. Maybe the threat is enough for Pharoah to let God’s people go free.

Of course, Pharoah does not comply. The angel of death descends upon Egypt and all the first-born die. But not those of the Hebrews. Why? Because they have spread the blood of the Passover lambs on their doors and the angel of death flies on by.

We might presume that the lambs die instead of the first born. That in some sense they substitute for the lives of the firstborn. But that’s not how it was understood.

In fact, the logic of the Hebrews is not about death and it is not about substitution.

What the lamb offers is its life. Its blood contains its life. As if life is being spread on the doors. And that life repels the angel of death.

So the firstborn are spared by life and in thanksgiving the people dedicate their firstborn sons to the Lord.

God, however, seems to realise that you can’t just have all these firstborn sons being given away to the Temple. So he offers the people a family of Temple servants, the Levites, and gives the people a way to redeem their sons. They make their sacrifice and contribute something to the life of the Temple. Everyone has a collection plate.

Now, why all this matters for us is that it tells us something about what it means for Jesus to be the lamb of God.

And again what is most important is his life.

On the cross, the death-dealing of the world meets head on the life in Jesus. As Jesus shares our condition, he even shares our death in full solidarity with us. But he takes his life into the very jaws of death. And for a heart-stopping moment it looks like death has won. Until he rises again and shows that when death meets God’s life, then death is the loser.

Having dealt with death by confronting it with his divine life, Jesus then extends to us a share in his life, his peace, his joy, his love. He meets death head on so that we can live his risen life.

We see straight away that immediately after the presentation, Simeon says he can now depart in his peace because he has beheld the one who is light and glory. Simeon knows that Jesus’ death is still to come – that it will bring division and pain – but it will also bring the rising of many. Death still has effects but it is not the victor. In Simeon we see already that the bonds of death are being loosened and that life is being set free in the presence of Jesus..

Jesus is bought back from service owed to the Temple. The irony is that Jesus’ dedication to his Father will be all-encompassing. His life will be nothing but loving service of his Father and loving service of God’s people in God’s world. And he will live that life right to the point of death so that death can fall at his feet defeated.

We are not in a good place. I expect you feel this way too. I have not felt much hope for a while now. I feel like I could ask what makes us anxious and we’d all have answers and we’d be here all morning. Climate emergency. Authoritarian leaders. Destruction in Gaza. War in Europe. The cost of living. Crisis in leadership. A Church circling the drain nationally. And so on. Hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless.

I feel that there’s a lot about the world that seems quite deathly. And I wouldn’t mind a word of hope. And so I am grateful for Luke’s little irony. The mother and father buying back their son so he doesn’t have to be dedicated to God. And their son happens to be the Son of God whose whole self, whose whole life, is a dedication to the loving purposes of his Father.

I needed to remember again that it his dedication to his Father that means he will always confront death and deathliness with nothing short of eternal life: and that is the foundation of our hope.

Hope because when we share his meal, he offers us that life without reserve. He offers us one another as part of his very body; animated with his life. Here is hope because his life is still being given, and shared, and that it is never exhausted. And it will not be finally defeated by death.

And that hope is enough for us to go on another day, another week, trusting that his life is always stronger than all that confronts it. His life will make flee the angels of death.

Therefore today let us again dedicate ourselves to the Lord and take his life and make it our own. We confront the angels of death with hope restored and life abounding; we walk henceforth like candles in the dark.

Amen.