Presentation of Christ in the Temple
READING: Luke 2:22–40

Candlemas

A usual reflection and also 4 scripts that could be read inside of the address

Candlemas arrives without fuss. No angels sing. No star points the way. A young couple walk into the Temple carrying a child and a pair of birds. It feels almost ordinary – and that is the point. The story has moved from stable to sanctuary, from wonder whispered at night to the routines of daylight. God is not making a scene. God is being carried.

Mary and Joseph come “according to the law.” Not as a performance of piety, but as a way of belonging. This is how you show up, how you locate yourself in a shared story when life is precarious and resources are thin. They bring what they can afford. Two birds. Enough. The Temple does not ask for more than that – and neither does God.

The drama of Candlemas is not in what happens, but in who notices. Simeon is not important because he predicts the future. He matters because he has learned how to wait. His life has been shaped by attentiveness – the kind that does not rush, does not demand proof, does not try to force meaning into being. He recognises what others might miss: that hope has arrived quietly, small enough to hold.

When Simeon says, “My eyes have seen your salvation,” he is not claiming mastery or certainty. He is describing recognition. Salvation is not an idea to be argued for, but a presence encountered. It is the moment when something in the world suddenly makes sense –  when hope takes on a face, weight, warmth. Salvation is seen before it is explained.

This light, Simeon insists, is for everyone. Not fenced in. Not guarded. Not owned. It is not a possession of the Temple, or of the devout, or of those who get things right. It is given — freely –  and it widens as it is shared.

And yet the words do not remain gentle for long. Simeon speaks of falling and rising, of inner thoughts being revealed. Candlemas light does not flatter. It shows things as they are. Light exposes as much as it warms. It unsettles comfortable arrangements and reveals truths we might prefer to keep hidden.

Mary hears this as a personal cost. Love will wound her. Faith will not protect her from grief. There is no promise of safety here – only a promise of presence. Candlemas does not offer sentimentality. It honours the truth that to love deeply is to risk being pierced.

Nearby stands Anna, another watcher, another life shaped by long years and unanswered prayers. She does not keep her hope private. She speaks –  to anyone who is listening –  about renewal, about a city that might yet be healed. Her faith has not made her quiet. It has given her a voice. She knows that hope, if it is real, must be spoken aloud.

What binds Simeon and Anna is not certainty, but patience. They have lived long enough to know that meaning rarely arrives on schedule. They recognise that some truths take time — and that waiting itself can be faithful work.

And then, just as gently as it began, the story closes. The family goes home. The child grows. There is no explanation of how it will all unfold. No attempt to control the light that has been received. Life resumes, changed only by being quietly blessed.

The quiet ending matters.

Candlemas teaches us that light is not given to dazzle or dominate, but to accompany. It is meant for  our ordinary and extraordinary lives- where every we find ourselves . It does not demand certainty. It invites trust. That loving light of God  is first something we notice in our lives …long before it becomes the life of faith that we often try to organise or defend.

SO Candlemas is not an ending , but a sending. The light leaves the Temple. It goes home to Nazareth. It slips into the world as it is — unfinished, fragile, beloved.

We receive the light.

We do not control it.

And in that receiving, quietly, faithfully, something holy begins to grow.

4 scripts that could be read inside of the address

Simeon Speaks

I have learned the long art of waiting.
Not the restless kind that watches the door,
but the patient kind that learns the weight of silence,
that trusts God does not hurry because love is never late.

Day after day I have stood in this place,
hands empty, eyes open, heart trained to notice.
Not every moment carries meaning —
but I learned not to rush past the ones that do.

And then today —
not with thunder, not with angels —
but with footsteps.
A young couple. A tired love.
A child small enough to miss.

They brought what they could afford.
Enough.
God has always worked well with enough.

When they placed him in my arms,
I did not understand everything —
but I recognised him.
Salvation – God’s love is like that.
It is not seized.
It is received.

My eyes have seen what my life has been waiting for:
not an answer, but a presence;
not a victory, but a light.
Warm. Real. Alive.

This light does not belong to me.
It cannot be locked in stone walls or guarded by certainty.
It will widen.
It will disturb.
It will reveal what we hide –
and heal what we dare to name.

I see now that love will cost his mother dearly.
Light always does.
But it will not abandon her.

I am at peace.
Not because everything is resolved,
but because God has kept faith.

Now I can rest.
The waiting has not been wasted.
The promise has arrived —
quietly,
and completely enough.

Anna Speaks

I have lived long enough to know
that hope does not shout.
It waits.
It learns the shape of grief
and refuses to let it have the final word.

I have prayed through years that felt empty,
through days when the answers did not come
and nights when the silence stayed.
I did not leave.
I stayed close to the place where God might pass by.

People think faith makes you small,
makes you quiet.
They are wrong.
It gives you lungs.
It teaches you when to speak.

When I saw him,
I did not need persuading.
My body knew before my mind did.
This is what I have been waiting for.
Not an escape from the world,
but its healing.

He is small —
and that is how I recognise God.
God has always trusted small beginnings.
Seeds. Wombs. Whispers.
A child carried by hope-worn parents.

So I spoke.
To anyone who would listen.
I would not keep this to myself.

I spoke of freedom,
not the loud kind that breaks things,
but the deep kind that restores.
I spoke of a city that could breathe again,
of lives that might yet be gathered back together.

Waiting taught me this:
hope hoarded becomes brittle.
Hope spoken becomes light.

I have watched the years pass
and learned that God is faithful
even when the world is not.
What we wait for does not always come
how we expect —
but when it does,
it is enough to set us talking.

I will keep speaking.
Not because everything is finished,
but because something has begun.

And I will not be silent
about a light like this.

Mary Speaks

I did not come here expecting a moment.
I came because this is what you do.
You show up.
You carry what you have been given.
You trust that God meets you somewhere
between duty and love.

I brought my child.
I brought my tired body.
I brought two birds —
all we could afford.
Enough.

I have learned that God often hides
inside the ordinary.
In feeding and walking.
In waiting your turn.
In doing the next faithful thing.

When the old man took him from my arms,
I let him go —
just for a moment.
Love always asks that of you.

His words were gentle
until they were not.
Light, he said.
Salvation.
And then — a sword.

I did not argue.
I did not ask him to soften it.
Truth does not need protecting.

I know already that love will wound me.
It has begun to.
Every time I look at him,
I know I cannot keep him.

This child will not belong to me forever.
He will belong to God —
and to the world God loves.

So I will treasure what I can.
I will hold what is given today.
I will not borrow sorrow from tomorrow.

If there is a sword,
I will not turn away from it.
I will stand where love asks me to stand.

I will learn, slowly,
that light is not something you keep safe —
it is something you let go into the world.

And when it costs me,
I will remember this:
God trusted me
to carry love
for a while.

Me

I am standing here with a candle in my hands.
It is smaller than I expected.
The flame trembles every time someone moves nearby.

Christmas has almost slipped away now.
The carols are quieter in my memory.
The crib will soon be packed back into boxes.
Nothing dramatic marks this ending — and somehow that feels right.

Candlemas does not ask me to feel triumphant.
It asks me to notice.
To notice what has stayed with me from these weeks of light and story.
What I have seen that I might otherwise have missed.

I think of Simeon and Anna — not people with answers,
but people who learned how to wait.
They recognised hope because they had made space for it.
They did not grasp it.
They received it.

The candle warms my fingers.
This light is not dazzling.
It does not solve anything.
But it is real.
And it is enough to carry.

I realise that taking this light into the world
does not mean becoming brighter, braver, or more certain.
It means letting it shape how I walk.
Into ordinary days.
Into conversations that matter.
Into places where patience is harder than opinion.

For me, this light might look like listening more carefully.
Or telling the truth gently.
Or choosing not to turn away from someone else’s pain — or my own.
It might mean loving without guarantees,
hoping without timelines.

This flame will not last forever.
Neither will this moment.
But something has been entrusted to me.

So as the season closes, I do not feel emptied.
I feel quietly sent.
Not with instructions,
but with light.

I leave knowing this:
I do not need to control it.
I only need to carry it —
into the unfinished world God already loves.

Photo Credit: Simon Vouet – Presentation in the Temple