St Edburg's Church - Bicester

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Candlemas

We celebrate this weekend the feast of the Presentation.  This marks the occasion when Joesph and Mary presented the infant Jesus to God in the Temple in Jerusalem.  This was a Jewish custom at 40 days old, and as you can see, we celebrate it 40 days after Christmas.

 

In the Christian calendar it marks a turning point.  It is on the one hand a last looking back towards Christmas, and the Christmas crib is finally packed away again for the year.  It is at the same time a looking forward to Holy Week and Easter, as Mary is told by Simeon “a sword will pierce your soul also”  -  bitter-sweet acknowledgement of promise and hope, tinged with foreboding, before the triumph of Easter.

 

The words of Simeon in Luke 2, which we call the Nunc Dimittis, are celebrating salvation in its fullest sense, arising both from the birth of Jesus and his future death and resurrection.  And they make plain that this Good News is for both Jews and Gentiles.  So from the very beginning of the Christian era, the message was always about inclusivity.  Gentiles and Jews were not meant to be hostile to one another.

 

This week has seen Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27th  We are told that has been less widely observed lately, since Israeli actions in Gaza in the wake of the October 7th atrocity. Sadly, the history of persecution of Jewish people goes back over much of Christian history.  There is no excuse for it. The Holocaust was a cruel, calculated genocide suffered by 6 million Jews during WW2.

 

The Feast of the Presentation is also known as Candlemas, and candles are blessed and lighted to celebrate the light of Christ.  May that light shine upon us all, a “light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to the people Israel.”

 

Michael Kingston