Candlemass

In many ways the presentation of Christ is the culmination of the prophetic message regarding and the confirmation that the child born to Mary is indeed the Christ.

Simeon’s words echo in mind “For my eyes have seen your salvation.” We heard in our Malachi reading a part of this prophecy. And Simeon was the confirmation that the prophecy had been fulfilled, that the Messiah had come.

Simeon and Anna’s reaction in the temple are early indicators that Jesus is the one sent by God to bring about the reconciliation of the world. This is the culmination of all that we heard in the Christmas story and now the story concludes the Jewish rite of purification.

Anna, this seemingly quiet and reserved lady, who spend her entire left in the temple almost bursts with praise when encountering the infant Christ wrapped up in His birth mother’s arms. Not only did she burst out with praise but in her excitement and enthusiasm she starts to tell everyone she encounters about this boy who would one day save the world.

But what does all this mean, who, what, even is the Messiah or in the Greek Christ? We all know that Christ is not Jesus’s surname, his mum wasn’t Mrs Christ. Christ means, anointed. As a title it occurs five hundred and fourteen times in the New Testament. Jesus, The Christ, was anointed or to use another word consecrated to do the work he did. He was anointed to be a Prophet, Priest, King of his people. References to the Christ go back to Isiah, and Daniel.

The Hebrew word Messiah, links back to Genesis, and Deuteronomy.

The presentation of Jesus at the temple is God telling the world that things are about to change. A new age is dawning, a covenant is coming, that a blood much purer than anything they could ever sacrifice from the animals is about to cover their sins, turn them from scarlet to brilliant white. That the fulfilment of the law has come, and salvation is now found through Him by His grace.

Now we could plunge ourselves deep into the study of the atonement this morning, we could plough the depths of theological thought and speculation as to what exactly Jesus did on the cross to bring about this new covenant. But for all the want in the world, for the thousands of books, the millions of pages, the billions of words spoken, it still remains a mystery. We could spend time in the realm of apologetics, trying to prove Jesus is the Christ. Well Simeon and Anna did that for us, so this morning instead let’s talk about the relationship we can have with Christ because of His actions on earth.

Hebrews says that He came in blood and flesh to share in our human experience, so that in death he could destroy the one who had the power of death, the devil. He came to set people free who were held spiritually captive. He became like us so that he could serve as High Priest, a merciful and faithful high priest, so that he could make the atonement for Sins as did the High Priest of their day, only the sacrifice was Himself, the one and everlasting sacrifice.

This isn’t some distant God, God didn’t just set the world spinning and then sat back and put his feet up, disinterested in the nitty gritty of our human experience. No, He’s the hands on, interested, concerned kind of God. He knows what it is to truly walk as one of us, going through trials and temptations of His own.

I really like the theologian Walter Wink, and his understanding of the atonement. Wink saw the atonement as a means of Jesus being able to walk alongside us. As the one who has stands before, through and at the end of our lives he is in a unique position to guide.

Wink calls the demonic powers the Domination system as they quite literally dominated the world. He also highlights in his writing that this system of demonic influence is intent on keeping its grasp on power.

The cross has shone a light on demonic power’s inability to reduce Jesus to something that they could overcome. It was never going to be possible for them to shift Jesus off of the path which God had placed him. They tried to kill Him but in doing so they condemned themselves.

Wink makes this perceptive observation that even though great violence was done to Jesus, He never, not once, resulted in being violent back. This sacrifice, this atonement, was freely given, was not resisted, Jesus went willingly to the cross for me and for you.

By going to the cross, by enduring the very weight of sin itself Wink writes, “Jesus never fights the darkness nor flees under the cover of it, but goes with it, goes into it… He enters the darkness, freely, voluntarily. The darkness is not dispelled or illuminated. It remains vast, untamed, void… it becomes the darkness of God.” In this understanding we the Christian can now “enter any darkness and trust God to wrest from it meaning, coherence and resurrection.”

It’s often hard to wrest any kind of meaning out of dark times. I found out a few years ago that a friend I went to school with tragically lost her life in a car accident that took place on the street my parents live. She was 27, had a good job, a loving family, and a boyfriend, she had hopes and plans for the future. She was a carer, did good for a living. A young life, filled with potential and hope, a life spent serving comes which came to a tragic end.  

I think on her every now and then, and if I’m being truly honest, I still struggle with it. So much of our lives are filled with senseless pain and suffering.

Nothing that’s written in the scriptures says that once you’re a Christian life will miraculously become easy. Nothing.

Nothing in the scriptures says that once we come to believe every mystery will at once be answered. Nope, nothing.

But what is does say, what it does promise, what is sure and true is this. That in everything we encounter, from the mundane to the practically winding, breath-taking experiences of life. Jesus walks with us. He has stood before, during and at the end of all that we encounter, he was already walked the path before us we only need rely on Him and He will lead us through.

That’s why it’s so important to nurture your relationship with him. It’s not a Sunday morning thing, or a when we feel like it thing, it’s an each and every minute of the day kind of thing. We don’t necessarily reach out to strangers when we’re in distress, when life throws a curve ball, we turn to family, close friends, people we know we can trust and depend on. We get to that stage because we have a relationship with them, we’ve gotten to know them and how they operate, we know they will be caring and have our best interests at heart.

That’s how we must be with Jesus, especially when things seem bleak with no rational explanation. By building that relationship with him in our daily lives it becomes our second nature to reach out to Him first when disaster strikes.

Now I got to this point in writing my sermon and I realized something that made me stop and chuckle. One of those God moments where you’re like oh right yeah Duh!

In Genesis in the very beginning God breathed life into Adam’s lunges. So, as I said a minute ago when life winds you it makes sense doesn’t it, that we draw on the living God to breathe in us anew and fill us.

Sticking with that metaphor we can find all sorts of things to fill our lunges when we get life knocks the wind out of us. Television is one of my go to’s there are couple of shows that I know I can get lost in. It’s about occupying our minds, keeping them too busy to deal with what is happening around us. But it needn’t be that way, we can travel the road set before us in the confidence that Jesus who was revealed to be the Christ is in the lead. We should be filling our lunges with Him as we steadily reinflate, as our systems steadily come back online.

The presentation of Christ at the temple is about showing the world, that Jesus is truly the Messiah. We could of gone in a whole number of directions this morning. But I felt, maybe selfishly, that to reflect upon this part of Jesus’s nature was important. We could have talked about what it means for Jesus to be the savior, to have tried our hand at apologetics. And that would have been entirely appropriate, but I can almost guarantee in thousands of Churches across this land following the lectionary that’s been the same sermon for the past 500 years. It’s also important I think to ponder what salvation means. Christ came so that he could bare our sin and reconcile us with the Father. Christmas is done, we now steadily journey towards to the Cross, and nothing matters more than the Cross.

In this passage we see so much, but what we see most evidently is the identity of Jesus. The biggest reason people drop out of Church is that they have no idea who Jesus truly is, they do not know this truth of His identity. Church really was just the thing mum and dad dragged them too. We’ve got to go deeper.

We must be like Anna, the moment we see someone looking for the path to redemption we need to tell them of Jesus. But how, deer friends, can we tell them of Jesus if we first don’t truly know him ourselves.

Amen.