Sermon-From the crib to the cross, from revelation to response

An old man writing a book by candlelight, Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706) 

A sermon given during a lunchtime service of Holy Communion at St Olave Hart Street on Tuesday 3rd February 2026, marking the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple or Candlemas. A version of this sermon was also given during the Church of England’s National Online Service on Sunday 1st February 2026 which you can watch below or at this link.

There is something primal about people drawing together around fire. For centuries, the Church has lit and blessed candles on this day. The flickering light speaking in ways that words cannot.

Candlemas is a feast to be felt.

It is a pivot point. Seasonally, spiritually, and scripturally.

Forty days after Christmas, in the northern hemisphere, it falls halfway between winter and spring — a seasonal staging post marked by our ancestors in countless ways. In the life of the Church, it signals a turning of attention: from Christmas and Epiphany towards Lent; from the crib towards the cross.

Spiritually, it is also a pivot: from revelation to response.

Since Christ’s birth, scripture and song have led us to explore who he is, and who we are in the light of his coming. Now, in Simeon’s song, that recognition turns outward. We are called to share the light revealed to us with the world. To follow Christ to the cross.

Our gospel reading tells how Mary and Joseph arrive in the temple with their forty-day-old baby. On the surface, nothing remarkable happens: no angels descend, no stars appear. The young couple meet Simeon and Anna. Tradition pictures Simeon as elderly; scripture tells us Anna is eighty-four. She has made the temple her home for decades, worshipping through prayer and fasting day by day. Simeon has been promised by the Spirit that he will not die until he has seen the Messiah. Guided by that same Spirit, he arrives at the temple at the perfect moment.

Simeon takes the baby Jesus in his arms and prays the words the Church has sung ever since:

“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.”

His waiting is over. He can let go.

Yet the peace Simeon speaks of is not only personal — closure on a life of longing and faithful anticipation. It is a peace for all: for Israel and the Gentiles, for those inside the temple and those outside its walls. The peace he has seen, embodied in a forty-day-old child, is the fulfilment of God’s saving plan for the whole world.

Anna responds differently, but no less faithfully. She does not speak of departure or letting go. She leans into the world. Scripture tells us that she praises God and shares the child’s story with all seeking the redemption of Jerusalem. After decades of patient faithfulness, she becomes a bearer of hope — offering her soul and body as a living witness that God’s promised saviour has arrived.

Simeon is honest about the cost of that witness. He speaks of opposition, of rising and falling, of a sword that will pierce Mary’s own soul. Candlemas marks a pivot for her too: the first prophetic hint that her Son’s mission will involve intense suffering. We can only imagine her feelings as she hears the old man’s words.

Words which reveal to us that the peace Simeon receives is not the absence of struggle, but the assurance of God’s presence in the midst of it, in the person of Christ.

Candlemas reveals a truth at the heart of our faith. That joy and sorrow are held together in a sacred tension.

Amidst the light and joy of this feast, the scriptures we hear at Candlemas do not ask us to hide our sorrows, to hurry grief or banish it; they assure us that God’s faithfulness does not depend on our clarity or strength. Thank goodness.

Perhaps candles symbolize this best. They do not banish all darkness, but they bear witness to a light that endures — a light that transforms the space it inhabits.

As we celebrate the moment when salvation entered all of human life — in all its vulnerability — Candlemas reminds us of the pivot from the joy of the crib to the horror of the cross, only through which can we encounter the hope of the resurrection life. Scripture shows us two faithful responses, holding this truth in a sacred tension:

With Simeon, we pray instinctively, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,” receiving the assurance of God’s enduring presence, even before we fully understand.

With Anna, we turn outward, carrying that peace into the world, in our souls and bodies, tenderly and faithfully — like a flickering candle in the darkness — as our lives as disciples, and together as a Church are called to pivot from recognition to response.

Amen.

Image: An old man writing a book by candlelight, Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706)