PRESENTATION of the LORD 2019

Rembrandt - The Presentation

• Malachi 3:1-4  • 
• Psalm 84  • 
• Hebrews 2:14-18  • 
• Luke 2:22-40

Feb 2nd commemorates the presentation of Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem, a traditional observance of faithful Jews on the birth of a first son. The ritual has special resonance in this case, of course. Mary and Joseph return to God that which uniquely came from God. Though they do not yet know it, the child they are presenting is the Christ. Accordingly, this Jewish observance prefigures the Eucharist in which, week by week, there is also the opportunity (and obligation) to re-present to God a gift God has already given.

 
Commonly called Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation has several meanings. The readings are the same each year, and identify Jesus with ‘the Lord whom you seek’ whose unexpected appearance ‘in the temple’ is predicted by the prophet Malachi. The appointed Psalm, appropriately, extols the beauty and wonder of God’s ‘dwelling place’ and the joy of being there. The association with candles comes from the fact that a central part of the Biblical episode recorded in the Gospel for the day is the aged Simeon's 'Nunc Dimittis' with its description of the baby Jesus as 'a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of God's people Israel'. 

Candlemas falls forty days after the Nativity, and has long been regarded as the very last feast of the Christmas season. This is not just because it records a Jewish birth rite, but because Simeon's words summarize so memorably the truth of the Incarnation. Part of the traditional ceremony for Candlemas includes blessing candles for use throughout the year in both church and home. They are blessed with this prayer.

Icon of the Presentation -- Andrei Rublev

God our Father,

Source of all light,

this day you revealed to Simeon the light of your revelation to the nations.

Bless these candles (+) and make them holy.

May we who carry them praise your glory,

 walk in the path of goodness and come to the light that shines forever. 

Grant this through Christ our Lord.

AMEN

 

EPIPHANY III 2019

• Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 •
• Psalm 19 •
• 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a •



'Ezra Reads the Law to the People' Gustave Dore (1832-83)

• Luke 4:14-2

This week’s Old Testament lesson offers us a glimpse of what must have been a profoundly moving occasion. After decades of exile in Babylon, the Israelites have returned to the Promised Land. Under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, Jerusalem has been rebuilt, the ancient gates are functioning again, and the people gather in celebration at the Water Gate, itself a symbol of new life. Ezra reads aloud the books of the Law of Moses. It takes a whole morning, but these are the Laws that have made the Israelites the people they are, and to which they now re-dedicate themselves.

Jesus unrolls the Scriptures James J Tissot (1886)

 

 

So moved are they, the people weep. But Nehemiah bids them be joyful. The beautiful  words of Psalm 19 (prescribed for this Sunday) echo his sentiments. “The law of the LORD is perfect and revives the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure and gives wisdom to the innocent; the statutes of the LORD are just and rejoice the heart”.

 

Both passages serve to underline the immense cultural and religious significance the Scriptures held for the Jews. We need a sense of this if we are to appreciate just how extraordinary the episode recounted in the Gospel is. Jesus reads the Scriptures in his local synagogue, to people who have known him all his life. Suddenly he announces, referring to himself it seems, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." It is little wonder that the people are stunned into silence, and then -- as next week’s continuation of the same passage shows – moved to anger and violence. The modern reader’s task over these two weeks is to read imaginatively, so that it becomes possible both to sympathize with them for their profound religious loyalty, and yet to understand how they went wrong in their rejection of Jesus.

EPIPHANY II 2019

• Isaiah 62:1-5  • 
• Psalm 36:5-10  • 
• 1 Corinthians 12:1-11  • 



Wedding at Cana -(1496, detail)

• John 2:1-11

Traditionally, three events in the life of Christ have been taken to be interconnected elements in his 'Epiphany' or 'Manifestation'  -- the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem, the Baptism of Jesus by John, and the Wedding at Cana. In this year of the 3-year lectionary cycle (Year C) they are recounted consecutively. Accordingly, following the Feast of Epiphany itself, and the Baptism of the Lord, the Gospel for the second Sunday after the Epiphany is John's account of the wedding at Cana. He identifies it as the first sign that Jesus did, and ends his account of what happened by making it the 'sign' that confirmed the disciples in their belief that Jesus was indeed the Messiah long awaited by the Jews.

On the surface it is a rather puzzling episode, and one that appears only in the fourth Gospel. As is characteristic of that Gospel, it is replete with allusions and symbolic references. In fact, it would be hard to find another eleven Bible verses that are as densely symbolic as these. Understanding them, and thus the episode itself, requires us to hear resonances beyond John's Gospel, not only with the other three Gospels, but with the books of the Old Testament that provide an indispensable backdrop. One critically important allusion is the concept of marriage itself, because this is used in several other places -- including this week's Old Testament lesson -- with the aim of capturing something deep and important about the intimate relationship of God to Israel; God is the bridegroom and Israel the bride.

Wedding at Cana - He Qi

In this ordinary village wedding at Cana, however, appearances are deceptive. Jesus is not the bridegroom, just a guest. But he becomes the central figure at the wedding, because it is his action that wholly transforms the occasion. This transformation is symbolically depicted. The celebration is not at an end, yet the wine runs out. The only drinkable thing left is the water, partially used , that the host has provided for guests so that they can ritually 'purify' themselves before the celebration begins. It is this water that Jesus transforms. And not only does it become the best wine, it flows in what John's readers would have recognized to be vast quantities.

The disciples came to recognize Jesus as Messiah, not because he salvaged a faltering wedding celebration, but because they could read this 'sign' -- the changing of water into wine -- for what it said about him. Early readers of John could interpret this curious episode more easily than we modern readers can. But the truth that the evangelist means to convey remains the same.

BAPTISM OF THE LORD: Epiphany 2019

Baptism of Christ -- El Greco

• Isaiah 43:1-7  • 
• Psalm 29  • 
• Acts 8:14-17  • 
• Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

The first Sunday after the Feast of the Epiphany is now widely observed as The Baptism of the Lord. It commemorates one of the relatively few events that  are recorded in all four Gospels. The Gospel for this year is Luke, the shortest of the four accounts – ‘when Jesus had also been baptized’ is all it says about the event itself – and it combines two seemingly very different ideas, a ferocious warning about ‘unquenchable fire’ with the appearance of a dove, traditionally the symbol of peace. 

T S Eliot powerfully connects the two images, and the ideas they represent, in his justly celebrated set of poems, the Four Quartets.

   

The dove descending breaks the air 
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare

Baptism Jean-Michel Basquiat

The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
 Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
 To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
 We only live, only suspire

Consumed by either fire or fire.


Eliot here gives expression to the choice with which Christianity confronts us. We can live by our own lights and struggle with the existential problems that confront human beings, that ‘human power cannot remove’. Or paradoxically, we can fulfill our humanity by letting the love of God in Christ consume us. In line with an ancient practice, baptisms are commonly celebrated on this Sunday. This is not just a matter of happily fitting the Gospel of the day. If Jesus is the perfect unity of humanity and holiness, our own lives become holy to the degree that they are lived in him. Baptism is the sacrament by which we are initiated into that life.

Jean-Michel Basquiat began as an obscure graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s and evolved into an acclaimed painter by the 1980s. He died of a drug overdose at the age of 27.