Celebrating Candlemas
As parishes prepare to celebrate the Presentation of Christ in the Temple over the next few days, the Archdeacon of Brighton & Lewes, Martin Lloyd Williams, in his sermon this weekend, underlines how the themes of light and revelation combine in the great narrative behind the story in St Luke's Gospel.
"A tradition soon sprung up in the Church to mark this extraordinary and transformative revelation in a festival that involved lights and candles, and so it became known as Candlemas - the celebration of the light of revelation," says the Archdeacon in a specially recorded homily to be used by parishes in live-streamed services over the next few days.
Mary & Joseph bring the child Jesus to the Temple and present him to an old man called Simeon in the Temple - who responds with what are now the well-known words of the Christian canticle known as the Nunc Dimmitis.
But Archdeacon Martin tells the hugely moving story of how after the birth of his son Ben the doctor remarked: "I believe your son has Downs Syndrome". A few weeks later a friend sent Martin and his wife a picture of Andrea Mantegna's painting (circa 1465) of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and that "a strong case can be made for saying that Mantegna depicted the infant Jesus with Downs Syndrome in the painting."
How Jesus is presented is always affected both by the context and understanding of the recipient : "whatever deep and hidden things, or prejudices or blindness God is revealing within you , embrace it," said the Archdeacon