Can you believe it’s been forty days since Christmas already? For most people, February 2nd passes with barely a blip on the radar. But the calendar marks today with a festival which draws epiphany season to a close. In keeping with the Gospel narrative, the church remembers the presentation of Christ in the temple a.k.a. the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary a.a.k.a. Candlemas*

The events narrated in Luke 2:22-38 bring the celebration of the incarnation full circle. Once more we are back in Jesus’ infancy. Simeon and Anna return us to the Advent theme of waiting for the coming of Christ. Simeon’s song celebrates the light of Christ extending to the Gentiles and the glory of Christ, the saviour of Israel. All the themes we have been considering these last two months crystallise in the moment of encounter in the temple.

I first discovered and fell in love with Simeon’s song, commonly referred to by its Latin name, the Nunc Dimittis, when I was at university. Hearing this recording of Geoffrey Burgon’s setting of it, with its soaring trumpet line, opened my imagination to the grandeur and mystery of this moment in Simeon’s life.**

We don’t know exactly how the Spirit helped Simeon discern that Jesus, an infant under six weeks old, was the Christ. It must have been a moment of overpowering emotion for him. Who knows quite how long he had been waiting, how long he had known that he would not see death until he has seen the Christ. But here he is. Somehow, amidst all the thousands of pilgrims Simeon must have seen in the temple over the years, somehow he knew this was the one.

A lifetime of desires, which seem almost to embody the desires of the whole nation, have met the the object of their longing. Simeon was waiting for ‘the consolation of Israel’. For Simeon, to live had been to mourn in the hope of one day being comforted. Now the saviour is nestled in his arms. He has all he has ever longed for.

And yet Simeon knows that this is also the sign that his time has come. It’s not explicitly stated in Luke, but the context strongly suggests Simeon is already elderly. He would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Having seen him, it will, he seems to assume, not be long now. For Simeon, to live had been to mourn. Now, to be comforted was also to die.

Simeon says that having seen Christ, he can now see death in peace. The culmination of this first round of fast and feast is the joyful acknowledgment that we can die in peace. This is comfort indeed. Since getting ordained last summer, I have seen rather more death in the last six months than I did in the whole of my life up to that point. Just since Advent began, I have conducted four funerals, attended a fifth and stood at the bedside of someone who has subsequently died. It is no small thing to be able to say that you can face death in peace. But that is the conclusion we should draw from Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. The saviour has come and will come again. He is the Lord, come to save his people from their sins. His glory, multifaceted, beyond our wildest dreams or powers to perceive, has been manifested. We, even we Gentiles, have been invited to taste and see, and if we are Christians we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. These are truths in the light of which we may live and die happily.

The body of Simeon’s song is drawn from the servant songs of Isaiah – yet another reference to a Biblical figure who seems to be everywhere in Epiphany season. The Servant is the one appointed by God to be a light to the nations (Is 42:6, 49:6) and make Israel shine with God’s glory (Is 46:13, 49:3).

It is through these allusions, and especially the prophecy he delivers to Mary, that Simeon’s song links into the theme of purification. Mary has come to the temple, as per the stipulations of Leviticus 12, to be purified from the ritual impurity caused by her blood being shed in childbirth.*** She has made the prescribed sacrifice, two turtle doves or young pigeons, which allows her once more to enter God’s presence. But, as Calvin puts it in his commentary on this scene, the infant she bore is ‘the fountain of purity’. His sacrifice will ensure, for Mary as for us, a permanent right of access to the holy place of God’s presence.

If this link is implicit in Simeon’s allusions to the servant songs, it is brought much closer to the surface in his prophecy that Jesus would be a sign that was opposed and, more personally for Mary, that a sword would pierce her own soul also. This is a new note in Luke’s Gospel – the necessity of Christ’s sufferings have not previously been made so clear. Mary must begin to grasp that her baby’s path to the throne of David will lead both of them through deep anguish.

Which leads us to the theme of presentation. Alongside purification, Mary and Joseph have brought their firstborn to be redeemed, as per the law in Exodus 13. Yet the emphasis Luke lays on the event is that of consecration. He doesn’t mention Jesus being redeemed, but rather the Lord’s claim on all the firstborn sons of Israel. Likewise what Mary and Joseph do in the temple is ‘present him to the Lord’. Jesus is the firstborn son who will not be redeemed by the Passover lamb, because his calling is to be the Lamb of God for others. So he can only be handed over, ‘offered’ to the Lord. Like Hannah, the mother of Samuel, on whose song Mary clearly models her own, Mary will have to learn to give her child back to the Lord.

With this introduction of Christ’s death into the picture, Candlemas draws Epiphany to a close and points us towards Lent, Holy Week and Easter, where in the bitterness of death and the joy of new life, Christ’s glory is most fully revealed.

For readers interested in our own family traditions, we made gołąbki, a traditional dish from my wife’s Polish heritage, because its name means ‘little pigeons’. Any festival that has a Mary related angle elicits a rose flavoured dessert – this time, Turkish delight.

*For reasons I’ve never quite got to the bottom of, it was a medieval custom to have candles blessed on Feb 2nd.

** Other settings of the Nunc Dimittis are available. In writing this I have discovered that Geoffrey Burgon wrote this setting for the BBC adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, so I now feel less cultured than when I started. More sophisticated friends can recommend other settings to me.

*** Sometimes we struggle to understand the concept of ritual uncleanness. It isn’t the same as sinfulness, in that several things which cause uncleanness are simply bodily functions, and a few, such as burying the dead, are even pious duties. What they generally have in common is allusions to mankind’s state of mortality – in this case, because blood has been shed. Uncleanness indicates in a wider sense humanity’s alienation from God, and the fact that it is no simple matter for fallen mortals to enter the miniature Eden of the temple to have fellowship with God. As such, uncleanness says less about the individual who is unclean and more about the human condition as such. In the New Covenant, the repeated washings to remove uncleanness correspond to Baptism, the one off nature of which testifies to the permanent and complete cleansing that comes through union with Christ.