Follow Jesus by imitating Him

 

January 31^st – The presentation of Christ (Candlemas).

This festival, (transferred from the 2^nd February) marks the end of the whole Christmas and Epiphany season. After this Sunday it is “Sundays before Lent” until Ash Wednesday on the 17^th February.

Malachi 3: 1-5. Messenger and Angel are the same word in Hebrew and the message is that divine judgement will be painful for those who experience it. The judgement starts in the temple and its worship (v3) and then will pass into the social sphere. To all the Hebrew prophets a worthy temple cult went hand in hand with social justice. Chosen today to accompany the “presentation of Christ in the temple” gospel story, arguably it might be better suited to the cleansing of the temple story?  

Hebrews 2: 14-18. Jesus was like his brothers and sisters “in every respect” (v17) the writer of Hebrews attests. It is this total identification with humanity in our temptation and suffering that qualifies Jesus to act as the great high priest acting on behalf of all humanity.

Luke 2: 22-40.   The presentation of the first-born male carries no such sacrifice as described by Luke so what Luke is really describing here is the purification of Mary. But liturgical accuracy is not Luke’s aim here. This “new thing” is rooted in the story of old Israel and the scriptural allusions are rooted in very old Israel indeed. Simeon for example reminds us of Eli in relation to Samuel. As with the annunciation story and the shepherd’s vision, Jesus here is the object of faith and hope, yet the child’s purpose will only be carried out through suffering which Simeon also foresees.

 

There is intense debate over what Luke was actually describing here – as he appears to have confused two events – the presentation of the first-born male, which doesn’t require any sacrifice with the purification of Mary, which does.

But as I wrote in the pew sheet Liturgical accuracy is not Luke’s focus here, so we mustn’t be side-tracked down that blind alley.

Jesus is being presented as an object of faith and hope. He is recognised as such in the Temple – the very focus of Jewish religious life – by two people who represent the traditions and history of the Jewish people.

Simeon and Anna are pious, old and wise and represent all the traditions and beliefs of old Israel recognising that in this small child, all those traditions will find fulfilment in Him.

In this baby Simeon saw “the light for revelation to the gentiles” meaning that Israel’s divine mission to be a light to all the peoples of the world would be fulfilled in him, but he also saw that this new thing would cause some to fall and some to rise as they perceived and acted upon his message and in a prediction of that child’s grisly end he tells Mary “And a sword will pierce your own soul too”

Light of course illuminates all the dark corners of life, bringing to light all those things one tries to keep hidden. In his battles with the scribes, the pharisees, the Herodians, the Romans and in his healings of the souls that came to him looking for salvation, light, truth, and clarity was what he brought into every encounter.

And that same light is what illuminates the way we follow Jesus. We follow him by imitating him – choosing to see, think and act as He did.

Our character should bear the all the hallmarks that made Christ a light in the darkness like humility, truth, honesty and righteousness tempered by mercy. We like Him should treat everyone as a human being first before we label them anything else – rich, poor, black white or Asian, educated or not, Good or not, Christian or not.

We should try to bring healing and justice and wholeness to the people we have contact with and into the situations we find ourselves in.

This is how we follow Jesus. We follow him by imitating him and his way of being a human being.

And we mustn’t let ourselves be drawn into the argument that we can’t do any of that because Jesus was divine and we are not.

As the writer of Hebrews makes abundantly clear, Jesus was a human being in every fibre of his being just like us.

Indeed, if Jesus wasn’t a human being just like us he could not offer us salvation or it would be rendered meaningless because He was above us – not one of us.

Jesus was born, lived, suffered and died just like us. As a human being

But that divine light within Him shone so white hot it infused every atom of his humanity making him truly the light of the world.

In choosing to follow Jesus we fan the flames of that divine spark within us so we too shine with that same light – God’s light.

To try and illustrate what I mean by that I’ll use this encounter Jesus had with his opponents recounted in John 10: 30-39

Jesus was due to be stoned for the blasphemy of saying “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30) and he countered that charge by saying that their own law says that all people can “be as gods”.

Jesus was quoting a psalm – psalm 82 to be precise, which as Jesus said himself cannot be revoked so I’ll end this reflection with the quote from psalms which describes what we all become when we shine with the light of Christ and follow him in his way by righting wrongs and bring justice and healing to those who are weak and despondent. We become children of God. Psalm 82: 6 quoted by Jesus himself.

“I say, you are gods,

Children of the most high, all of you;