Flood liturgy

A power-point liturgy with reflections prepared by Ray Anglesea to remember and support communities flooded during this year’s winter storms.

Howden le Wear Methodist Chapel.

16^th February 2014

During a week of strong gales, heavy rain and floods when one Environment Agency figure described water levels as “verging on the biblical,” it might seem appropriate this morning to defer from our lectionary reading to look at a story in the bible dominated by severe weather conditions – Noah and his Ark.

Those of you who are The Times readers may have seen Peter Brookes cartoon (8^th February2014) of a man from the Environment Agency dressed in waterproof clothing and carrying a hammer and nails standing in front of the ark in the pouring rain. He tells the giraffes and elephants waiting to go on board, "OK ... we're ready to launch!" despite the fact that the ark is just a wooden frame with no hull or deck.

“Granny, were you in the ark with Noah?” asked the little boy, assuming his grandmother to be of a very great age. “No, I was not!” she replied indignantly. “So how come you didn’t drown then?” retorted her grandson.

Call to worship. The Lord on high is mightier, than the noise of many waters, than the mighty waves of the sea (Psalm 93 v4). Be still and know that I am God’ (Psalm 46.10).

Prayer: O Lord God, most merciful, most secret, most present, most constant, yet challenging all things, never new and never old, we come this morning to sing our praises, to hear your word and o tlisten to your voice. We come to pray for our nation and for all people recently affected by recent severe weather conditions.

Hymn: MP 200 Great is thy faithfulness

Prayers of Thanksgiving

God of all blessings, source of all life, giver of all grace: We thank you for the gift of life: for the breath that sustains life, for the food of this earth that nurtures life, for the love of family and friends without which there would be no life.

We thank you for the mystery of creation: for the beauty that the eye can see, for the joy that the ear may hear, for the unknown that we cannot behold filling the universe with wonder, for the expanse of space that draws us beyond the definitions of our selves.

We thank you for setting us in communities: for families who nurture our becoming, for friends who love us by choice, for companions at work, who share our burdens and daily tasks, for strangers who welcome us into their midst, for people from other lands who call us to grow in understanding, for children who lighten our moments with delight, for the unborn, who offer us hope for the future.

We thank you for the emergency services, military, environment agency personnel, community supporters, neighbours and friends who are helping to relieve the misery for those communities affected by recent flooding. We thank you for their generosity of time and care, their good humour and concern and for all that they are trying to do.

We thank you for this day: for life and one more day to love, for opportunity and one more day to work for justice and peace, for neighbors and one more person to love and by whom be loved, for your grace and one more experience of your presence in this service of Holy Communion, for your promise: to be with us, to be our God, and to give salvation.

For these, and all blessings, we give you thanks, eternal, loving God, through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Psalm 46:

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
³ though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.^[c]

⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
⁵ God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
⁶ Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

⁷ The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

⁸ Come and see what the Lord has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
⁹ He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields^[d] with fire.
¹⁰ He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”

¹¹ The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Reading: Genesis 6-9 (3 readers from the congregation)

It really is a ridiculous sight! A giant boat, standing hundreds of miles from the sea. People came from far and wide to look at it, and stood there laughing till the tears rolled down their cheeks. They knocked on the hull of the Ark. “Have you heard the long-range weather forecast?” they shouted. “Bright and sunny for the next six months!” And they ran off laughing as loudly as they could.

Now that may have been the first, but it certainly wasn’t the last misleading weather forecast. For it didn’t stay bright and sunny for long. Rather it rained and rained and rained – as it had to if God was to carry out his threat to destroy every living creature.

The story of the universal flood from which the human race is saved when a hero builds a boat isn’t peculiar to the bible. Flood stories in the broadest sense have been documented in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Syria, Europe, India, New Guinea, Central America, North America, Australia and South America.

The story of Noah, iconic in the Book of Genesis, and as a consequence a central motif in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, invites the greatest attention. In all three scriptures the Flood comes as punishment for wrongdoing by man, part of a “give-up-on-this-lot-and-start-over” resolution governing divine relations with the human world. In the bible version the reason for the flood is that the human race has become unimaginably wicked. In fact, the flood story is a story of un-creation. When the waters are released they cover the whole earth, they’re allowed to burst out from the places to which they had been assigned and limited, as we read in the first chapters of Genesis - and the order that’s at the heart of creation becomes disordered.

It’s that message then that human disorder can undermine the prefect order of God that permeates the story of Noah and is ark. But it’’s also a tale of human faith and obedience. For even where only a few faithful people are found God can use their faithfulness to bring healing to others.

So Noah went on building his ark. Why? Because in a world that according to the book of Genesis, was corrupt and filled with violence, there was only one man who was blameless and utterly obedient – and that was Noah. And God was able to use him to save the human race from complete destruction. Noah’s family was allowed to come into the ark too and, presumably because they’d behave themselves, every kind of bird, mammal and reptile as well. Noah had a hard time of it – apparently there were no less than 900 compartments to this ark, each 6 cubits square and filled with creatures of every occasion. No wonder Noah was kept so busy going round them all - he never got a wink of sleep.

Poem: The Floods: Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936).

Hymn:  MP 48 Be still and know that I am God

I ought to  admit that there are parts of the story of Noah’s Ark that I find rather disturbing. Yes I know it’s unlikely to be historically true despite the fact that enthusiasts still descend from the summit of Mt Ararat in Turkey waving slivers of wood claiming they have discovered remains of the ark. And yes the deluge could not have covered the whole world nor could the ark have contained two of every kind of creature. What I find worrying is that what’s missing from the story of Noah is any compassion for other humans, albeit sinful ones. For elsewhere in the book of Genesis for example when God is planning to destroy the sin-city of Sodom, Abraham pleads with the Almighty to hold fire. Noah’s only concern was to build an ark and then sail away in it. And he did...... and the writer of the book of Genesis piles on the agony, the point is made relentlessly: the water prevailed .........the waters prevailed mightily upon the earth, the waters prevailed mightily above the mountains........And the punch line of the story – God blotted out all living things – the flood was all God’s doing,

Music: For the beauty of the earth: John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers

Offertory Hymn: MP 251 How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

Offertory Prayers

Prayers of Confession

Gracious God, we confess that we have been caught up in the ways of the world. Instead of looking to commandments and rules as a way to guide our life, we use them to punish and restrict others. Forgive us for our judgments and misconceptions. Forgive us for not working on ourselves, on our own lives. Call us back to Your way of life, a way of love, commitment, respect, and forgiveness. Call us back to a way of life that honours You and creation, and guides us to better love our neighbours as ourselves. In the name of Jesus the Christ, who ended sacrifice and death  and fulfilled the promise of new life, we pray. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as you choose again this day to love God and to love one another  know that God has forgiven you that which is past and offers to you a new and full life. Praise be to the name of God, now forever. Amen.

Sermon

So you’re a believer, what does this story do for you? Are you quite happy to believe that the God you worship was once able to engineer such a global catastrophe in order to punish sinful humanity? Do you see the story of the flood as the historical trailer for an eternal judgement in which God will display his holiness by punishing all perpetrators of wickedness? Or do you find the idea that God could do such a thing repugnant and unacceptable – that such a scale of punishment is out of all proportion to human misdeeds?    

Surely what the Hebrew storyteller is doing here is making a sombre point. Using his available sources he’s saying that the flood demonstrates what awful things could befall humankind were God to unleash his wrath according to the desserts of his sinful creation. It’s really a “just suppose story” – an appeal to the imagination drawing on folk memory, in order to focus on the greatness of God’s mercy – grace that contains God’s anger and sustains the creation in continued existence. Just as in the midst of the sea the Ark saved those who were inside it, so the church saves all who have strayed, but doesn’t keep them like that. It transforms them.

But to those who are victims of the unwelcome and frightening waters that are despoiling homes and farms and livelihoods in Somerset and across the south of England at present, these words may not yet bring encouragement, still less hope. It will require a huge act of faith to hear them in any way other than as a cruel mockery. But we who are dry and warm in our own homes should try to pray imaginatively for the children, women and men who are on our hearts right now. We can stand alongside them and on their behalf, hold on to our belief that there is no chaos, however awful, where God is not already present, sharing in the pain of victims, knowing in his crucified self the waste and the loss and the pain. They need us to hold on to our belief that in God’s time and in God’s way, not least through the care of those who are bringing help and support, they will find hope once more, and be given back their lives.

Finally in Noah’s story the flood subsides and the refugees prepare to leave the boat that had been their home for more than a year. They can build their life anew is a world was has been cleaned – indeed what’s happened here has been called the baptism of the world. For things have changed: the pattern of re-creation points to new beginning. There’s a new resolve in the heart of God. This kind of destruction will not happen again.

We need to be aware that the old testament of the Bible only speaks of the anger and wrath of God in the wider context of God’s love. Scholars have used the Greek word “pathos.” It’s not the same as our word pathos. No, they mean God’s constant concern and involvement with humanity. And that pathos is expressed supremely of course in the person of Jesus Christ who confronts and overcomes evil by letting himself be plunged into the flood of judgement that falls on sin. On the cross then, the judgement of God was decisively revealed. Yet on that same cross, the mercy and forgiveness of God are known abundantly.

Prayers of Intercession

Lord, your creative love gave us the breath of life, and your redeeming power was shown in life poured out; thank you for your rainbow world with its richness colour and culture, religion and race. Like Noah – and his wife and sons and daughters – and all the animals too – make each moment of our lives a miracle; make us laugh at the utterly impossible, give us hope when all things seem hopeless. Make us gamble all on your Almightiness and to dare everything in your great service, and as you looked down on the ark and your creation, look down on us now and give us your blessing.

Almighty God, creator and preserver of our world, we ask you to hear our humble prayers for all those afflicted by the devastating floodwaters throughout the country. We pray for those still threatened by flood in city & rural areas. Protect both life and property. In your mercy, bring relief to all affected areas.

We pray for the sick and injured, for the homeless, for the bereaved. Have compassion, merciful Lord, in the midst of their misery and suffering, comforting and relieving them according to their needs.

Heal those broken in body and spirit. Give courage and hope in the midst of despair. Through the generosity of government and individuals across our nation, provide a future for those whose present circumstances are marked by loss and desperation. Protect all those who are most vulnerable in the areas of devastation. And by your gracious hand, rebuild communities where men, women and children are nurtured with care and love. And turn the hearts of all to you, the God of all comfort.

Everlasting God, we pray for all emergency services and military personnel. We thank you for their unstinting dedication and efforts the. Give them courage in adversity, safety in service and protection from harm. We ask that you would also watch over their loved ones. In the service of others, may assistance be rendered to those in greatest need with speed and efficiency, justice and compassion.

In the midst of this tragedy, we thank you for the compassion and generosity of government, businesses and individuals. We ask for an ongoing spirit of community care and generosity as local and national bodies help to reconstruct communities and bring hope to victims and to future generations.

Give wisdom to the Prime Minister, this coalition government and to all who exercise significant community leadership at this time. Enable them to chart a course through the complex challenges during the phases of recovery in the weeks and months to come. Amen.

Communion Hymn: MP 649 The King of love my shepherd is

The Communion

Hymn: MP 111 Dear Lord and Father of mankind

Benediction

Ray Anglesea is a self-supporting minister working in Durham Cathedral bookshop,
Crook Local Ecumenical Partnership and in the West Durham Methodist Circuit

Flood Damage - Is the hand of God jolted by human interference?

Britain is on course for its wettest winter in 250 years, a crisis that could cost the country at least £0.5 billion. Weeks of relentless, exceptional rain and hurricane force winds has seen millions of people in Devon and Cornwall lose their train connection with the rest of England; sections of rail track across the South are functioning intermittently; flooded roads are expected to remain closed, homes, shops and businesses in the submerged counties of Somerset, Oxfordshire, Essex, Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Berkshire and Cambridgeshire have been flooded. The Environment Agency’s latest map of looming hotspots is dotted with so many red and yellow dots it looks as is the south of England has a rash. It would appear that each morning floods are again bringing misery to many and, as one who lives within sight of a River, my heart goes out to those whose houses, businesses or farmland have been flooded or are threatened.

The severe weather has brought much comment. Much of it is, understandably, angry, some is of the ‘told-you-so’ variety; and most of it feels too late: ‘if only you hadn’t built there,’ says the engineer to the developer; ‘if only you had stopped burning fossil fuels,’ says the environmentalist to the consumer; ‘if only you had acted quicker,’ says the local resident to the government minister.

In all the comments and arguments perspective is vital. The bulk of Britain, indeed the bulk of southern Britain is unaffected by floods. No Government is to blame for rain, although it is worrying that the sixth largest economy in the world appears to be unable to manage this present crisis and that a whole corner of the country could lose its rail network for 6 weeks, if not longer.

Before population pressure forced peoples to live on the brinks and in the basins of their lands, a flood was seen as a seasonal boon. Civilisation was nurtured on the crescent plain over which the Tigris and the Euphrates annually deposited their fertile silts. Ancient Egyptians hymned the Hep-Ur or “sweet water” of an overspilling Nile. But as populations swelled with the passing of centuries, as rivers were embanked, coastal waters walled and settlements established in areas once submerged, the flood has become a bane. Rising waters bring death and disease; they ruin crops, destroy industries and disrupt transport systems.

The intense storms that have been lashing Britain this winter are “likely to be linked to man-made global warming” according to the Met Office’s chief scientist. All the evidence suggests that climate change has been a contributing factor – a warmer atmosphere holds more water.  Is the hand of God then jolted by human interference? The evidence that humans are the dominant cause of current global warming is overwhelming and continues to grow. There are several greenhouse gases responsible for warming, and humans emit them in a variety of ways. Most come from the combustion of fossil fuels in cars, factories and electricity production. The gas responsible for the most warming is carbon dioxide. Other contributors include methane released from landfills and agriculture (especially from the digestive systems of grazing animals), nitrous oxide from fertilizers, gases used for refrigeration and industrial processes, and the loss of forests that would otherwise store carbon dioxide.

The Met Office's latest analysis finds that persistent rainfall over Indonesia and the tropical West Pacific triggered the weather system that has sent wave after wave of storms across the Atlantic to the UK. It says: "The severe weather in the UK coincided with exceptionally cold weather in Canada and the USA. These extreme weather events on both sides of the Atlantic were linked to a persistent pattern of perturbations to the jet stream over the Pacific Ocean and North America.”

Steven Croft, the bishop of Sheffield, quoted in The Guardian, Wednesday 12^th February 2014 described the threat of climate change as "a giant evil; a great demon of our day", adding: "Its power is fed by greed, blindness and complacency in the present generation, and we know that this giant wreaks havoc though the immense power of the weather systems, which are themselves unpredictable." He said the church had a "critical role" to play in lobbying politicians on climate change in order to bring about manifesto commitments to reach the target of an 80% reduction in UK greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The church's renewed commitment to tackling climate change was welcomed by Christian charities. Paul Cook, advocacy director of Tearfund, said the current flood in Britain was serving as a wake-up call to the church. "The climate really is changing, and it's happening now," he said. "It's not just a problem for our grandchildren, it's not just a problem for polar bears, it's not just a problem for people thousands of miles away; it's a problem for us too, today."

"Climate change is increasingly becoming one of the moral issues of our time and the church has a powerful voice with which to speak," said Christian Aid's senior climate change adviser, Dr Alison Doig. "The next 18 months will significantly shape the politics of climate change with the UN global deal on emissions expected in Paris next year and the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report next month. The church can now engage prophetically on this subject and speak with a united voice for those suffering both here and abroad."

In the meantime we remember in prayer people and communities affected or threatened by flood water and the emergency services and military that is helping to relieve their misery.

Ray Anglesea

Ray Anglesea is a self-supporting minister working in Durham Cathedral bookshop,

Crook Local Ecumenical Partnership and in the West Durham Methodist CircuitI

Candlemas liturgy

Candlemas

A powerpoint liturgy used for the celebration of Candlemas at Crook Local Ecumenical Partnership, Sunday 2^nd February 2014.STF = Singing the Faith, New Methodist Hymn Book. STF 232 Through long year of watchful waiting (Tune STF 14 Regent Square )was written by a previous Crook LEP minister, Revd. Tom Wilkinson.

 Epiphany gifts are gold (chocolate coins), myrrh (bath oil) and frankincense (incense), Poem and Sketch from “Cloth for the Cradle,” Wild Goose Publications. Music as stated. Candles decorate the church and communion table.

        

   Giovanni Bellini:  The Presentation at the Temple, c1459

                                             

              Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

Introduction

Dear friends: forty days ago we celebrated the birth of our Lord Jesus        Christ. Now we recall the day on which he was presented in the Temple, when he was offered to the Father and shown to his people. In their old age Simeon and Anna recognised him as their Lord. In this service we remember both the joy of his coming and his searching judgement, looking back to the day of his birth and forward to the coming days of his passion.

Call to worship: Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.

Psalm 118:19

Epiphany Gifts. Gold, incense and myrrh are brought to the communion table

Gold of Gold we seek your glory, the richness that transforms our drabness into colour and brightens our dullness with vibrant light.

God of incense we offer you our spoken and unspeakable longings, our questioning of truth, our search for your mystery deep within.

God of Myrrh we cry out to you in our suffering, the pain of all our rejections, our baffled despair at undeserved suffering and we embrace you, God, with us, in our wealth, in our yearning, in our anger and loss.

Prayer: Gracious God, as your Son Jesus Christ was presented in the  temple and acclaimed a light to the nations, so grant that in him we may be presented to you to shine in the world as lights that reflect his glory. God our Father, whose Son was revealed to Simeon as the light of the nations, and the glory of Israel, let these candles (+) be to us a sign of his light and presence, that, guided by the Holy Spirit, we may live by the light of faith until we come to the light of glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord.        

 Hymn: STF 34 O worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness

Poem: It was to older folk that Jesus came: Wild Goose Community   

  

Psalm 102 (verses 15-16, 18-22)

Let all the peoples praise you, O Lord, Let all the peoples praise you; Let all the peoples praise you, O Lord, Let all the peoples praise you;	2. For generations as yet to be born wrote this, that they may in turn praise the Lord; God who surveys the earth from heaven shall set the captives free. Alleluia. Let all the peoples........
1. Nations and rulers shall one day revere God’s holy name and God’s marvellous glory, when the Lord comes to build Zion again, showing his majesty. Alleluia. Let all the peoples...........	3. Zion shall hear the Lord proudly declared; God’s praise shall resound in Jerusalem’s soul; Kingdoms and peoples shall one day unite, serving the Lord their God. Alleluia Let all the peoples .................

Sketch: Anna and Simeon: Wild Goose Community

Music: Song of the Angels, Margaret Rizza and the St Thomas Music Group.

Offertory Hymn: STF 229 Mary and Joseph came to the Temple (Tune STF 125 Bunessan)

Offertory Prayers:

Reading: Malachi 3:1-5 The prophet not only foretells the coming of the Saviour, but also proclaims that the Lord will come and be seen in his Temple

Hymn: STF 232 Through long year of watchful waiting (Tune STF 14 Regent Square)

Lord to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life

Gospel: Luke 2:22-40 we hear the account of Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus in the Temple, as the Jewish Law required, and Simeon, recognizing the Christ-child as the light of the world

Lord to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life

Music: Nunc Dimittis: Geoffery Burgon, Wells Cathedral Choir

Sermon:

Prayers of Intercession

Hymn: Arise, shine out your light has come (Tune: Church Triumphant)

1. Arise, shine out, your light has come, unfolding city of our dreams. On distant hills a glory gleams: the new creation has begun.	4. The sounds of violence shall cease as dwellings of salvation rise to sparkle in eternal skies from avenues of praise and peace.
2. Above earth's valleys, thick with night, high on your walls the dawn appears, and history shall dry its tears, as nations stream towards your light.	5. The dancing air shall glow with light, and sun and moon give up their place, when love shines out of every face, our good, our glory, and delight.
3. From walls surpassing time and space unnumbered gates, like open hands, shall gather gifts from all the lands, and welcome all the human race. Brian Wren	James Williams Elliott

Benediction: Lord you fulfilled the hope of Simeon and Anna who lived to welcome the Messiah, may we be prepared to meet Christ Jesus when he comes to bring us to eternal life. So may Jesus Christ, born of Mary, fill you with his grace to trust his promises and obey his will.  

And the blessing of God Almighty......................

Candlemas

A sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook - 2-Feb-2014

The best days of Christmas for me are those that fall between the 1^st January and 2nd February, the feast of Candlemas. Strictly speaking this time has more to do with Epiphany- tide than Christmas, but I like this time of the year not only because I am still eating Christmas cake, mince pies and finishing of the Christmas pudding with lashing of Brandy Cream but because the Christian story rolls on in quiet, week by week gospel readings, and we begin to see and understand who that baby in the manger is, the penny begins to drop.................... The fullness of God revealed in Christ.

But Candlemas is a strange festival. 

Down with the rosemary, and so

Down with the bays and mistletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all

Wherewith ye dressed the Christmas hall;

so wrote Robert Herrick, writing in the 17th century. It sounds like a poem about Twelfth Night. But it's called ‘Ceremony upon Candle­mas Eve,’ according to the dean of Durham.

Originating back as far as the 5^th century, Candlemas, 2^nd of February was a feast for blessing the candles in church. In the middle ages, at Candlemas there were elaborate ceremonies of blessing tapers and carrying them in procession to light up churches and there was much partying. Sound good to me.

In the calendar the 2^nd February is one of those cross-quarter days, half way between the solstice and the equinox, like All Saints’ Day, marking the progress of the cycles of the seasons. Such days bring us close to nature. if Candlemas Day “is fair and bright, winter will have another flight; if the day brings clouds and rain, winter will not come again.”

In Durham Cathedral, where I work, two small Christmas trees arrayed with twinkling lights are to be found either side of the quire steps – they are still there. Many visitors and tourists ask why we leave the trees up after 12^th night. The answer usually given is that the Christmas season does not end until 2^nd February. The famous miner’s nativity crib too is left out until the last hours of Candlemas. In Durham Cathedral this afternoon the cathedral is lit up with over 2,000 small candles, on ledges, pulpits, on the base of columns, around the baptistery, to celebrate the end of the Christmas period. It is indeed a beautiful atmospheric service; may favourite service of the whole year.

Candlemas also commemorates the encounter of Jesus, Mary and Joseph with Simeon and Anna as we saw in our sketch and heard from our gospel. Candlemas recalls how the infant Jesus was brought to the temple, received by Simeon and blessed by God. Those young parents, Mary and Joseph, and elderly Simeon and Anna nearing their deaths, and the little tiny child: all of humanity is there, beautifully portrayed in the masterpiece painted by Rembrandt, a few months before his own death; the painting must have come from the depth of Rembrandt’s soul confronted by his own approaching end while touched by a vision of faith and hope. Simeon and Anna spent their whole life in and around the temple in Jerusalem waiting for what Simeon called the “consolation of Israel.” In the autumn of their lives they rejoiced and thanked God for the sight of the baby Jesus, the young prince of the house of David. Seeing Jesus enabled them to see something greater than death. They could see God’s salvation in Jesus and therefore were able to face their own deaths in peace. What Simeon had discerned however imperfectly was a revelation of unlimited loving, a child whose entire life, fired by love without reserve would bring light and glory.

Candlemas is the last childhood “snapshot” we have of Jesus. Next time we meet him in the temple he will be an adolescent, confounding teachers and scribes, and then not again until adulthood. So the childhood stories, packed as they are with meaning and symbolism are worth unpacking. Even more so since Candlemas is a “pivotal feast”, one last look over the shoulder at Christmas before the serious season of Lent gets underway.

What should we make of the “odd couple,” Simeon and Anna, waiting to see the Holy Family? They are a bit late in getting in their plaudits, aren't they? The shepherds have long gone and even the wise men are on their way home. Yet the gospel carries an important message in stretching out the timeframe for recognising Jesus. Consider the wise men. The genius of their story lies in the fact that they come to Jesus through unconventional routes. They do not get to Jesus by proper observance or by following the Old Testament – they come through their religion to see the light, and this is important, they return home with it. But Anna and Simeon are apparently more conventional. They don’t make journeys. They have waited, kept their counsel, waited and waited and waited. I like their part in this aspect of the Christmas story, for waiting is what many of us must do, even if there is an important distinction to be made here: that between waiting and dithering, of being patient and of being delayed.

It was reported that a minister was visiting projects in Africa. His busy programme was running very late and the road linking his various destinations was rugged and slow. He was five hours late on arriving at the final gathering of the day, and a great crowd of people greeted his arrival with singing and dancing. The honoured guest was full of apologies for his late arrival, to which he received the memorable, if intriguing, reply. “Don’t worry. We knew that the longer we waited, the sooner you would come.”

I am still pondering the logic of those words, but suspect that it is a response that springs from a degree of patience that is now all too rare in our fast, western culture. Waiting patiently is, for many, a counter-cultural activity in a society that expects so much to be delivered in an instant. By contrast, the Psalmist tells us that if we wait patiently for God; he shall give you your heart’s desire. 

That said, the ability to wait with patience is surely valuable, especially as some of the toughest bits of our living can require it. My daughter as many of you know waited patiently for nine months for her baby boy to be born, only to learn that 6 hours after his birth he was not going to make it. A dear friend of ours gave Ki and I this nugget of gold - "Time is of no consequence to God, and to him the shortest life is as significant as the longest. The short life of my grandson; the long lives of Anna and Simeon are significant.

Grieving can take patience. A widow reflected on just how long her deep, and often biting, grief was lasting following the death of her husband. She made no secret of just how tough it all was, but then pointed out that it would be very strange if such pain simply evaporated when she had lost the most significant person in her life. She was having to learn patience, and it took time for her to discover that, when all that was familiar and secure had shifted, her feet were once more on rock and her steps were again secure. It took time to learn that she had a new song to sing - perhaps in the minor key, but with a deep note of gratitude for all that had been, and with renewed trust that God was with her in the dark and difficult places. It takes patient waiting to discover that the depth we can encounter can hold possibilities, lessons and inner strengths that we might not have found in any other place.

For the virtues of determination, patience and waiting are rewarded. As they say Good things come to those who wait.

And isn’t this the point of Candlemas? Part of the genius of the Christmas narrative is to make us journey to see Jesus – we need to go looking for him; seek him out, make an effort. But the gospel also tells it another way. To those who cannot move or do not know how to, to those who are patient, for those who wait, God will also come. Later in the life of Jesus, Jesus will meet seekers and those who came to him, but he will also seek the lost and the ignorant, and those who’d never thought of looking; he is there for them just as much.  And isn’t it strange that the last people in the Christmas story are probably the oldest and wisest. Ann and Simeon, who embody the wisdom of waiting, the virtue of patience and the strength to endure, according to Luke are rewarded for being there – for not deserting their posts.

The outcome of this encounter at the temple is the beautiful Nunc Dimmitis, Simeon blesses the child and the family, and leaves Anna, whose words are not recorded, to prophesy. To be sure, this is a strange encounter on a special day.

I sometime think how funny it is that Jesus spent so little time in religious buildings, and on the first two occasions, like most children, he had to been taken there by his parents with little choice in the matter. When he was old enough to make up his own mind he hardly ever seemed to go. But is it good that Luke affirms that Jesus can be found in the temple. But you can also find him outside the church. God is not constrained by our walls, whether physical, tribal or doctrinal, and he sometimes get inside them. Simeon and Anna found God inside faith; alas many don’t.

And so at the end of the service we will blow the candles out.  It is a deliberate, almost sacrilegious thing to do: to extinguish the light of the infant Jesus. Yet this movement from light to darkness is as important as the more comfortable journey from darkness to light. It is a truth of our humanity. There are many who exist in a kind of twilight world with little belief or hope or lasting values to sustain them. Our world faces dark times with the threats of war, global poverty, disease and climate change. And more personally, we know in our lives and relationships how the light dims from time to time, and when it does, the dark feels hopeless and frightening. Sometimes even faith can desert us; and then, in the dark cloud of unknowing when we have taken leave of God, we are ever more in need of his mercy.

During cold February days, light and dark mingle at this time of year. The light, glorious as it is, is still partial and fragile, for the dark and the cold will cling on for a few weeks yet. Yet the days are getting longer now. The worst of winter may not yet be over, but February doesn't last forever. Soon we shall climb towards Easter. To turn this morning in our service from the Christmas liturgical cycle to the Paschal cycle is to turn from winter to spring. The sap is rising, snowdrops and green shoots are appearing in the gardens.  As we gather here in chapel during the last hours of Christmas, we light candles of longing in dark places and keep the precious flame alive. For soon the Easter day will break and candles and shadows will flee away; Christ will become the eternal light and the glory of the nations, and our hope will emptied in delight.

Amen