The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Can you think yourself back to a world without electricity? I find it really difficult to imagine not being able to flick a switch to light a room, or even a church. But that is how it was in Jesus’ time and for centuries after. As you saw just now, lots of candles look pretty but they don’t give much light. This is why people were much more aware of natural light and so aware of the seasons, of the times of sunrise and sunset and of the phases of the moon too, as they relied far more on sunlight and moonshine than we do.
So it should be no surprise then that there is a lot of talk about dark and light in the Bible, especially around Christmas.  Most striking for me is the reading we hear at Christmas itself, from the beginning of St John’s Gospel where we are told of Jesus before he was born, indeed at the beginning of time, shining as a light in the darkness and not being overwhelmed by it. The idea is taken up in many paintings; think of the army of angels dazzling the shepherds or of the scene in the stable where all the light is concentrated on the baby in the manger who sometimes glows like light bulb himself illuminating the murky stall. These themes continue into Epiphany when we think of the three wise men following a star to find the baby. And we reflect these ideas in our services- think of candle lit carol services; dark and often rather gloomy churches lit a new light coming into the world.
Our candle lit gospel today was in the same tradition. It’s no coincidence that all this talk of light should come at the darkest time of year; Christmas is just after the shortest day. Today, when we celebrate Candlemas, is just about the mid-point between the shortest day and the Spring equinox, when night and day are the same length. So in a way we are in the middle of winter, half way on the road to Spring, and half way to Easter. One of the traditions at Candlemas was, and is still, to bless all the candles which will be used in church in the coming year. Blessing candles and celebrating light are in part a way of encouraging us that Spring and Summer really are coming- whatever the weather is like outside.
So in one sense all this talk of dark and light is to be taken literally; but as you might expect, there is also a deeper, metaphorical meaning to it as well. When we talk about light and dark, and the associated ideas of seeing and blindness, we often really mean to talk about knowledge as opposed to ignorance. Think of the words enlightenment or clarification- literally they mean making lighter and clearer, but what they actually mean is understanding. The light that Jesus brings into the world, the light the ancient Simeon and Anna with their dim old eyes recognize is a sort of understanding.
But understanding what? I think the answer liesin the words of Simeon- words which the Junior Choir will recognize as the Nunc Dimittis which is sung at evensong, as the sun is setting or night has fallen. What old Simeon sees with his dim eyes is salvation; salvation which will be a light for foreigners and glory for the Jews. It was a pretty improbable thing to see in a tiny baby.
We hear a lot about Salvation in the Bible, and in Church, but we are seldom told exactly what it means. This is partly because it can mean many things; to the physically blind, it may be sight, to the deaf, hearing, to the hungry food- and when he grows up Jesus will bring just those things to those that need them. To many Jews of Jesus’ time it would have meant the Promised Land, their own country, freed from the oppression of the Romans. And many seem to have thought that was what Jesus meant by salvation. The decrepit old Simeon and Anna, however, could see and understand  that salvation and the saviour- the person who brings salvation, may not always be quite what we expect. They had the extraordinary insight to see that the baby in their hands would bring them salvation, the thing they had been longing for all their long lives without perhaps knowing precisely what it was that they were longing for.
This insight, this understanding, was itself salvation for them; they could now “depart in peace”, which means, I think, that they could die happy; they had witnessed what they had longed to see all there long lives. What they had seen was that God could be in a tiny baby, and so in all human beings, indeed in all his creatures. This realization means, of course, that we must each have something of God in us and in Jesus we see how that might be used to its full potential. As Simeon says, it gives us the power to see ourselves as we are and, which is most important, to tell others. It shows us that we can play a part in God’s creation; it gives us a purpose, a job; it tells us that who we are; why we are; what we can do; and why we matter. It gives us freedom to be what we are meant to be.
To remind us of this, and to remind us that Spring is coming, when creation in the form of new life, warmth and sunshine are coming, we are asking you to take your candle home, and we shall be giving out more at the end of the service because another tradition at Candlemas used to be that not only church candles should be blessed but also candles brought from home.  They are only little candles that we are giving out, but then Jesus was only little when Simeon and Anna recognized him. I hope the candles lit again in your homes may remind you who you are and the joy, love, light and life you can bring into the sometimes, and in some places, dark world about you. Amen