Growing Light (Candlemas)

Growing Light

(Candlemas—the Feast of the Presentation)
2 February 2017 

5 p.m. Sung Mass with Candle-lit Procession

& Blessings of Candles, Wicks, and Lamp Oils

Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

Malachi 3:1-4; Psalm 84; Hebrews 2:14-28; Luke 2:22-40

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

T.S. Eliot’s poem “Little Gidding” in The Four Quartets begins with these words: 

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror ...

In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time's covenant. ...

Eliot is describing here unseasonable bits of warm weather in the middle of the winter, something that we have been seeing here in Ashland occasionally in the last weeks.  A “January thaw” or “a sunny groundhog’s day” are the opposite of “Indian summer.”  In the autumn, a brief bit of unseasonably warm weather recalls the heat of summer.   But warmth and sunshine now draws our minds to the spring that is coming.  Eliot compares this to a person’s spiritual awakening to the mystery of grace at a dark time in life.  Both untimely seasons, whether climatological or spiritual, are seen here as “sempiternal,” partaking both of time and timelessness, of now and eternity, of “time’s covenant” and “God’s.” 

I find myself hungry for light at this time of year.  A bright and warm day brightens and warms me.  This hunger for light and warmth, and desire for Spring, is what lies behind the popular superstition about groundhogs on February 2:  if it is warm and sunny enough for them to see their shadow, the winter will come back with a vengeance.  But if it is cold and dark, an early spring will arrive.  In the words of the old rhyme,

If Candlemas be fair and bright

Winter will have another fight.
If Candlemas brings cloud and rain,
Winter then won't come again.

Today, February 2, is 40 days from December 25.   In strict Jewish Law, a woman goes into semi-seclusion for 40 days after giving birth to a son.  It is thus today that we celebrate the coming of Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus to offer sacrifice at the Temple at Jerusalem.   There, the elderly Simeon and the prophet Anna welcome them and express joy at Jesus’ coming.  They have been “awaiting the Consolation of Israel,” the moment God would act to set all things right.  They recognize in this baby the great light, the fire of the Day of the Lord that would burn away all that was wrong with the world.  Simeon bursts out into a song of gratitude: “Thank God, now I can die in peace!”  It is the Nunc Dimittis that we regularly say or sing during our evening prayers:

Lord God, you now have set your servant free, 

to go in peace according to your word.

Mine eyes have seen the Savior, Christ the Lord 

prepared by you for all the world to see; 

a light for nations lost in darkest night, 

the glory of your people, and their light. 

This image of light in the Gospel reading was once reflected in the Hebrew Scriptures reading for this festival, the prophet Zephaniah’s grim description of how hard it will be for the complacent to escape the Coming Day of the Lord: 

“At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps to punish the complacent,
   who linger like the dregs of wine in a cup,
thinking, ‘The LORD can do nothing,
   either good or bad.’” (Zephaniah 1:12)

Because of the line, "I will search Jerusalem with lamps," the day was marked with a candle-lit procession, the blessing of the candles to be used in Church in the coming year, and was called Candlemas.  Included in the candles to be blessed was the year’s Pascal Candle, to be lit at the Great Vigil of Easter and then used in all baptisms and funerals.  

Regardless of fickle local weather patterns, here in the Northern Hemisphere, the days have already clearly started to get longer.  As Allan Miles has explained to me, the waning and growth of light and the length of day does not occur in an arithmetic straight line, but rather a calculus-described wave pattern.  Now, about one third of the way between December 21, the winter solstice with its longest night, and June 21, the spring solstice with its longest day, is when the arc takes off and light really begins to grow.  Soon it will be Lent, a season named for the fact that the days lengthen now.

Buds on the trees and shrubs are starting to swell, harbinger of spring even if weather turns cold again.  

There is a terrible irony is this.  This is also a season when we see a lot of deaths of our elderly parishioners.  Every year, there seems to be a spate of deaths among our elders starting just before Candlemas’ “Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace” and lasting through the Easter season.  They seem to get through the holidays and the New Year, only to have their bodies give out in the early to late spring.   This demographic quirk should remind us that even as spring and the renewal of the natural life about us gets closer, we ourselves as individuals are closer to our own deaths than ever before.  That’s just the nature of our lives.  We all die, and any passage of time brings us all inevitably closer to our common end.

Just as the astronomical days grow longer, we will be reminded soon on Ash Wednesday in stark terms that our anatomical days grow shorter. Just as the buds begin to swell and the first hints of green plants appear, our brows will be smudged with ashes, the remnants of dead plants from last year.  We will be told the truth that we would like to forget, “Remember you are but dust, and unto dust you shall return.”   Remember that there is darkness about, even in midst of the return of the natural light. 

Sisters and brothers, Trinity family, with the very ancient ritual of light we have celebrated today, where we try to chase away the dark and cold of winter, we are reminded of the Light of Christ, and joy of coming Easter.  We are told to prepare for the lengthening days around us even as our own allotted time here shortens by seeking the One True Light. 

May we be like Anna and Simeon, who persevered in hope, and recognized God when God acted.  They did not despair and give up on the light.  They did not focus on the blindness and darkness around them, but saw God’s love and action in this newborn baby.  They did not hope for a day of vengeance, of wrath, of burning, or of settling of scores through military might, but rather recognized God’s consolation and welcome, through the simple and everyday presence of this particular baby, brought to God’s Temple by this particular Mother.   They saw in this Child’s birth the fulfillment of their hopes for a setting of things aright.  May we also so await God’s consolation, and rejoice in the dawning of God’s Light.  

In the name of Christ,  Amen.