Sermon for the Feast of the Presentation – Episcopal Churches on Shetland

Well we have seen this coming… here we are in the Temple presenting Jesus again. Simeon and Anna who have been waiting for the fulfilment of God all their lives are here too and they recognise this fulfilment in Jesus.

The Epiphany of God, which we have seen in so many ways now. Draws to a conclusion.

Christmas officially ends today and the crib figures, those who have led us in Epiphany can be put away.

Yet in this ending we also really do see a beginning.

I am reminded of those famous lines in TS Eliot’s Four Quartets “Little Gidding”

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;”

The beginning we see is the journey back to Jerusalem. This time the Donkey really does appear! Yet this time the cross is also on the horizon. Yet another time for ending and yet another time for beginning again.

I have become convinced over recent weeks especially, that to look at the life of Jesus in any sense as a linear movement, or as a simple day one through to day end is never going to reveal what he clearly was to the people who followed him and became his disciples.

At each turn of the way the whole epiphany of God to us is revealed, the new wine, the crucified King, the glory of God seen in a humble stable, and today even even in Simeon’s words to Mary today,

“a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Last week was Holocaust Memorial Day, Auschwitz was liberated. For many this place showed the lowest that man could become, and yet even last week we were reminded of stories of redemption and love and forgiveness shining through the darkness. Here again we see that there is no darkness that light cannot penetrate.

Whether it be a dirty stable, a cross of execution, the darkness of the grave. God can reach in and out of all these places.

An end? or a beginning? Which way are we facing? And for what reason?

I am reading Richard Holloways book “Waiting for the last bus” at the moment. Its subtitle is ‘reflections on life and death’. This is a moving and challenging book in many ways as it encourages us to think both about our own life and our own death.

Holloways remarks that humans are reflective creatures and because of this they find it hard to live with the muddle and confusion of their nature. Perhaps something some of us at least can recognise!

Because of this he suggests we look for the rescue.. the explanation…. The rescuer…. That thing which will not only make sense of it all but redeem it all too. For Christians this is often naturally seen in Christ, but only in a Christ that stands at both ends of time at the same time and whose beginning is an ending and whose ending is seen as a beginning.

The Feast of the presentation reminds us of this circularity of Christ.

As you and I travel the journey of faith we know so often that sense of moving on yet also arriving and the times of saying farewell and hello.

Our life of faith is that exploration we enjoy with God at our side, or even with God holding us in his arms and that realisation that,

And as God holds us in his arms as Simeon did for Jesus on this feast day, we can glimpse the fulfilment of the Kingdom and the revelation of that light… a light that seeks to be revealed now…. Through us.

A reading from Oscar Romero.

God comes, and his ways are near to us.

God saves in history.

Each person’s life, each one’s history,

is the meeting place to which God comes.

How satisfying to know one need not go to the desert to meet him,

need not go to some particular spot in the world.

God is in your own heart.