fresh start

Candlemas 2010
(Malachi 3: 1-4; Ps 84: 1-6; Hebrews 2: 14-18; Luke 2: 22-40_


Did you ever long for a clean, fresh start?

I had a small taste of one. A couple of years ago I suffered a bout of actual temporary amnesia. It’s a middle-aged guy stress-related thing. I found myself slowly swimming to consciousness in what I recognized as an emergency room cubicle. My first conscious act was to try and guess whether I was in Providence or Adventist based on the pattern of the curtain across the opening. My son Jake was sitting there, and he was the first person whom I could remember beyond about 1 minute. This kind of amnesia lets you keep most long-term memory, but makes it impossible to remember short-term, even from minute to minute. It’s like your brain is walking on ice, constantly slipping and losing footing. I have no memory of about 5 hours of that day.

Jake says I was very entertaining, funny and charming, operating on a kind of 14 year old level with little impulse control. It sounds like I had a great time—I just wish I had been around to enjoy it. It was a re-boot, a fresh start, a brand-new day starting at 4:30 PM.

But today there is astounding news—we do not need a memory-scrub in order to taste the reality of purity. No matter what we carry as baggage or burden, along comes today to fill us with light and to scrub us as fresh as any infant with that fresh baby-smell. That’s today’s feast. That’s Candlemas, this ancient feast of Light and newness and the promise of purity in a smudgy world. No re-boot needed—we are simply carried into the temple like Jesus was carried by his parents. We are received, we are welcomed, and we are filled with the Light that shone that day for eyes to see and arms to hold.

Malachi the prophet knew the day would come when the daily business of religion in the Temple would be stopped in its tracks. “The Lord whom you seek will come suddenly into his temple…” Wouldn’t we be as shocked as the Temple-folks if into Sunday-morning-as-usual the Lord suddenly came? What would we do? Welcome him and be glad? Or be anxious, startled, frightened, or even angry that he interrupted the flow of the Mass?

When he comes, says the prophet, it will be jarring. We’re talking about a deep look into the truth of our lives and our openness to the surprise of God. The process is like burning base metal out of gold, like scrubbing cloth until it gleams. Beneath is pure gold and fair new cloth. But how do we uncover the fresh glory of what God has breathed and woven into the depths of our souls?

For this is what the old Law and the old words and the old customs are all about, and only what they are all about—opening ourselves to the New. Those who are truly faithful to the old ways, whether those of ancient Israel or of Anglo-Catholic Episcopalians, are most open to the New Thing that God is doing in our midst. Those who use the old ways to ignore the new Light are actually unfaithful to the old ways. Or, as one priest said, these days one must change in order to stay the same.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from Simeon and Anna.

These two lovely elders had grown old as faithful servants of the old Law. But both had explored the depths of what was the old Law was really all about. Their hearts had been plowed and planted by prayer and watching and quiet faithfulness and just plain showing up. And so they were revealed to be as young and pure in soul as the young Pure One carried in his parents’ arms. The business of the Temple did not pause for the little family coming in quietly with their poor persons’ offering. The high priest did not stop whatever he was doing, the sacrifices at the altar did not cease, the Levites did not stop their busyness, the singers did not hush. But Simeon and Anna stopped, and their souls shone with light as they sang of the new Light.

So we light candles, at this feast marking the thin border between Christmastide and Lent. We hold light in our hands to greet the new Light among us. We shine with light along with Simeon and Anna and all those truly young in soul. We only keep the ancient faith truly and faithfully if we welcome the new Light when it comes. And in the new Light we are made pure, with no amnesia needed to make a new start. We greet Light and we are light. We greet the Pure and are made pure.