The Church Festival we are celebrating today is commonly called “Candlemas”.  It is called that because, in the Gospel appointed for the Festival, Simeon declares the infant Jesus to be light, . . . and for hundreds of years many, many practical-minded Parish Churches have used that reference as cause to bless the year’s supply of candles to be used at the Parish Altar.  . . . The formal name for this Festival, of course, is the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But it has been a title long scowled at by English Puritans, first for its cultic flavor and subsequently for its perceived repression of women, . . . so that recently the Day has come to be called the Presentation of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple.

    But, in fact, the Day is both.  It is both the Purification of Our Lady and the Redemption of Jesus.  And Saint Luke is very careful to tell us about the event . . . not to extol the repressive treatment of women and infants; . . . Saint Luke is very careful to tell us about the Purification of Our Lady and the Redemption of Jesus … so that we might know that in keeping to the Word of Holy Scripture; . . . in having awe and reverence for the Commandments of God, . . . we encounter Light and peace and salvation.

    And so, Saint Luke tells us that on this Day here come Mary and Joseph, with the infant Jesus, trudging up the hill from Bethlehem to walk the three miles to Jerusalem in order to comply with two requirements of the Commandments of God given to Moses.  First, as I have suggested, there is the matter of Mary’s purification.  The Book of Leviticus 12:2-8 states that 40 days after birth, when the bleeding associated with childbirth has had adequate time to stop and the tears to heal, a woman shall come to the sanctuary to make an offering of thanksgiving for the birth . . . and a sin-offering for her purification.  Now, the sin to which Leviticus refers is not in conceiving the child, as some people want to say; . . . sex between husband and wife is not sin; . . . it is obedience to God(!); . . . it is obedience to the First Commandment:  “Be fruitful and multiply”.  The sin to which Leviticus refers is the sin of Eve.  We read in Genesis 3:16:

To the woman [God] said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children”

and having suffered this travail and pain of childbirth, which is the just consequence of the like and eternal sorrow that Eve’s disobedience inflicted upon God, . . . Mary now comes to the place where God’s glory dwells . . . and brings an offering of consolation to Him.  Mary comes to tell God that having endured the pain of childbirth . . . she now understands the pain God endures as the consequence of Eve’s sin; . . . and so, Mary comes to offer God restitution and repentance on Eve’s behalf.  And I guess in some measure Mary also comes to offer God forgiveness; . . . to offer God forgiveness for losing His temper and permitting the pain of childbirth.  In other words, the Purification is intended as a relational act of reconciliation; … it is an act of reconciliation between a particular woman (in this case, Mary) and the God Who is her Father . . . and Who loves her.

    The second law with which Mary and Joseph are complying, while they’re at it, is the ceremony of redemption of their first-born son, as explained in Exodus 13:15, where it is written

When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of cattle.  Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb; but all the first-born of my sons I redeem.

Joseph and Mary have come to the Temple to enact a kind of little Passover established by the Law of Moses as a reminder to every Jewish family of God’s deathless love and mercy; . . . a perpetual reminder of the identity of the people of Israel:  that they are the people of a sacred Covenant; . . . a sacred Covenant which communicates God’s tender and life-saving regard.

    So, you see, both of these laws -- Purification and Presentation; both of these laws arise out of a relationship of mercy and love established by the First of the fundamental Ten Commandments of God:  “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.  You shall have no other gods but me.”

    And so, Mary and Joseph, having complied with the impersonal civil decree of the Emperor Augustus which brought them to a stable at Bethlehem, . . . Mary and Joseph now go to the Temple at Jerusalem in order to comply with their part of the intimate and very personal sacred decrees of God.  . . . But these dutiful and happy proceedings -- the presentation and redemption of Jesus and the sacrifice of a pair of doves for Mary’s purification -- these things are suddenly delayed and eclipsed by the Lord God Himself!  For, here comes the aged Simeon, compelled by the Holy Spirit of God; . . . here comes this aged gentleman to intercept the Holy Family as they enter the Temple precincts, . . . and gazing at the infant Jesus, Simeon “sees” God’s promised salvation.  And tenderly taking the Baby into his arms, Simeon declares with relief and profound gratitude that, as foretold by the prophet Malachi, the Lord God Almighty has, indeed, suddenly entered His Temple and has set His salvation in motion:  The Lord God Almighty has set in motion rescue from and consolation for all that has gone before; The Lord God Almighty has established a new relationship and a permanent holiness; . . . a new relationship which will shine forth like light in darkness and reveal the One, True God even to those who do not know Him; . . . a permanent holiness which will reform and imprint upon the the children of Israel their God’s indelible and unforgettable glory.

    But then Simeon says to Mary, whose purification is the occasion for this visit to Jerusalem; . . . Simeon says to Mary that Jesus is destined for the true purification of everyone.  Jesus will be the cause of the falling and rising of many.  In the fullness of time, when the Infant Who is God’s salvation comes to manhood, His words and His judgments will be as the prophet Malachi has said:  they will be like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap.  The words and judgments of Jesus are to burn and melt us and bring us to our knees -- they are to humble us.  But the words and judgments of Jesus, truly heard and believed, . . . the humbling words and judgments of Jesus also instruct us; . . . they bleach out the confusing stains of disordered affections . . . and make us worthy of God.  The love and tenderness and humor of the Incarnate Lord are destined, Simeon says, . . . are destined to purify and redeem us.

    But all of us must be . . . first . . . humbled by this child; all of us must be wounded and then helped to our feet by Jesus, . . . even Mary.  For, Simeon says to the Mother of God, “a sword will pierce through your own soul also.”  None of us, not even Mary, are exempt from having our human willfulness cut away.  All of us, even Mary, must be pierced by the sword of Christ’s wounding Word and allow it to sever from us what is unworthy of heaven and the cause of our undoing.  . . . But none of it can happen unless we keep to the Word of Holy Scripture; . . . unless we have awe and reverence and trust (and not contempt) for the Commandments of God.

    And so, to equip us to receive the Gospel . . . to equip us not to be blinded by the “light for revelation” but to be illumined by It; . . . to equip us to receive the Gospel . . . Saint Luke the Evangelist tells us about what happened to Joseph and Mary and Jesus on this Day . . . so that we might bless the Lord God Almighty for it.