Candlemas: sharing vulnerability
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Malachi 3:1-5, Psalm 24:1-6, Hebrews 2:14-end; Luke 2:22-40
As many of you will know, funerals are difficult at this moment. There are difficulties with saying goodbye, with receiving support; with being able to arrange the service; with no wake; with no physical contact on the day. There can be good funerals; that with solidarity and shared memories underline sorrow with joy and thanksgiving; but it’s difficult – at present. And, if I may share this with you, it is affecting to witness grief, to be able to do so little to comfort, to not even shake a hand, sometimes to find yourself alone, praying only with the dead.
There was a moment recently when I was climbing the stairs, returning home after a funeral, and our two year-old Oberon was coming down, dressed in soft grey and yellow striped pyjamas, smiling from ear to ear. Naturally, I hoisted him up and he clung to my neck. Emotions can be difficult to fix in words. I remember the dissonance between my heaviness and his lightness; and an overwhelming, impotent urge to protect him from this hostile world.
Over a year ago, I had a similar feeling when he was sat next to a friend’s slightly older child. This child is less temperate in nature and at one point screamed with no real reason very close to Oberon. Inevitably as he processed this new behaviour he got upset and started crying. And I thought – I just want to take you away from all this. But at the same time – this is the world though – rage and confusion screaming without reason at you. Better get used to it.
I can’t protect Oberon from the world. I can’t even protect the world from Oberon anymore.
Simeon, this grandfather of the church, comes into the temple, guided by the Spirit and he sees Jesus. And, we’re told, ‘Simeon took him in his arms.’ There’s something very human about this scene. It’s very physical He takes this baby, from its mother, in his arms. A natural reaction to beauty, vulnerability, innocence, to something precious, to the fragile hope that we receive in this world, and the beauty of innocence that stands out in this world. He takes up Jesus in his arms and blessing God he says: ‘in peace I now depart’. The vulnerability of the child is something he owns. Unusually, he is narrating his own death. But he also knows in this terrible moment of the death of the child: ‘a sign that will be opposed’ ‘and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’ Simeon knows the hostility of the world. In this dissonance of age and youth, in their equal exposure to the forces of life and death, he does the most human thing, He took him in his arms.
What we see in this picture is a shared vulnerability. Across age and generations. A picture not unknown today.
There’s also a symbolic shift going on. We’re moving quite literally from the Old Testament and the Law and sacrifice to the New Testament and Jesus. We’re crossing the Rubicon of the year 0AD. From the Temple of Jerusalem to the temple of this little body. But in all these figures we see that to be human is to be vulnerable; but faithfulness can bring the strength to endure and to care; and that God’s people share a solidarity in their suffering; that it’s not in vain; that Simeon will depart in peace; and that despite the difficult future that lies ahead for this little family, there will be light and glory and resurrection.
I’ve now been your vicar for exactly a year. Do send your feedback forms in to let us know how the last year has been for you. I notice there’s no cake to cut today. But what we do have now more than ever is a shared sense of vulnerability. There’s a strong desire to protect one another. There’s solidarity in the suffering we are going through, and in various ways the attempt to reach out. It’s worth remembering that there are people in our community who may not have touched another human being in the last year. There is something terribly inhuman about that. Remember Simeon: ‘he took up Jesus in his arms’. Christianity is a religion of sacraments, It’s a faith you can touch. This is something we are struggling with. We are still in the middle of the hurricane, and whether or not we master this virus with vaccine and treatment, there will be a long aftermath to deal with. Because we are all human, terribly human.
Our Gospel is about shared vulnerability, and of holding one another. But it’s also about vision. It’s a little appreciated fact that in the Old Testament God is more associated with darkness than light. So even while God is associated with fire – in the burning bush, the pillar of fire and the fire on the mountain; there is also the pillar of cloud, while the fire on the mountain creates the thick cloud, and all Moses’ dealings with God are in darkness, for as he is told: ‘there shall no man see my face and live’ (Ex. 33.20) The God of the Hebrew Bible is shock and awe. He is approached as one English medieval text puts it through the Cloud of Unknowing.
What we have in today’s Gospel could not be further from this. We have Simeon holding up ‘the light for revelation to the Gentiles and the Glory of the people of Israel.’ As proclaimed at evensong in every church and cathedral in this country for 500 years, and before that through the office of compline, the last of the monastic prayers before bed. And every funeral.
And this light is recognised by Simeon, the faithful servant, in a child’s face. And it’s no coincidence that Simeon moves from this proclamation of revelation, of glory, to one of suffering: his own death; the opposition this child will face, the grief his mother will suffer. Because God is revealed in Jesus Christ in suffering and in solidarity. And I return to this again because I know how hard it is to shift in our mind from seeing God as the superman, God as the fixer of everything, to God with us in suffering love.
The Gospel, though, is unequivocal. This light to the gentiles, this glory of Israel, is seen in a forty day old child, through the weakened eyes of the dying. God is revealed in love suffering alongside us. And we are most like God when we share and stand alongside those who are not doing well. God is with us when we – if only metaphorically at present – lift up a child with love. God is with us when we cling on to an old man – metaphorically – with little pudgy arms. And if you struggle to see how this is the light of the world, you have only to consider how the lifting up of a man, who chose the path of vulnerability and love, on to the cross, changed the world. A light to the gentiles, and the glory of Israel.
These are Gospel times. Vulnerability, the fragility of life, is on your radio and in your inbox. Sacrifice, suffering love, is visible alongside us. As we bless our candles today, after 40 days of Christmas and Epiphany celebrating the light in the darkness, we remember the faithful servants departed in peace; we pray for all those flickering lives, being born into a distressed world, andpersevering on hospital beds; we praise the light of the world, the love that suffers alongside us, that guides us to the one equal light of eternity. Amen.