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In the forty days between Christmas Day and Candlemas (also known as the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple) various events in Jesus’ life get jumbled up. We get the visit of the Magi at Epiphany to the young boy Jesus promptly followed the next week by Jesus as an adult being Baptised by John. This is then followed by Jesus calling his first four disciples  and beginning his ministry to the Chosen People. Then all of a sudden we are back with Jesus and his parents in the temple where he, as a baby, has been brought for blessing and his mother for purification. Christmastide is top and tailed by the events surrounding Jesus’ incarnation and the bits in the middle give us a potted history of his life before his death. 

It can appear to be very confusing this dotting back and forth in Jesus’ biography and it can make one wonder what happened in those so called hidden years of Jesus’ growing up. For all we are really told is that on another visit to the temple Jesus goes missing and is eventually found sitting with the rabbis listening to them and asking questions and sharing his own interpretations of Scripture with them. Not bad for a teenaged boy, but awfully worrying for his parents nonetheless. 

In all of this confusion of events Candlemas stands out as being significant. It is a commemoration today that marks the end of the Christmas celebrations (and once upon a time it was when folk took the decorations down) and firmly points us in the direction of Holy Week and Easter. Like John-the-Baptist pointing the way to Jesus as the Messiah, later in Jesus’ life, so today Simeon and Anna point the way to Jesus as Saviour and Redeemer; and like John they too indicate that his journey will not be easy and that it will cause pain to those who love him:

“³⁴Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”      Luke 2:34-35

I have always found those words; “and a sword will pierce your own soul” heartbreaking. One can only imagine what Mary and Joseph felt when they heard those words. They would already be wondering quite whom the child they cared for actually was and then to be told that their hearts would be broken in time to come, must have almost been too much to bear.  Knowing this, I can see why they got so upset when Jesus disappeared when they re-visited the temple in his teenaged years. They must have expected the worse. 

As we know the worse was yet to become but what they did not know was that through the trauma something amazing and glorious would dawn on that first Easter morning.

Candlemas is fully the end of Christmastide. In it we still see the light of the infant Jesus shining in the darkness but we hold alongside it darker undertones of prophesy that point to death and resurrection. Candlemas is thus the feast that unites both Christmas and Easter.

“Will you come and follow me,

if I but call your name? …

Will you leave yourself behind

if I but call your name?”

Words from the hymn by John Bell. Today’s Gospel reading tells us that James and John did just that. Last week heard read that Andrew and Simon did something similar. Would you or I do the same? Could you do just up and follow the call of Jesus?

That question might panic you but remain calm, you have already heeded Jesus’ call or you would not be here today. At some point in your life you will have decided (consciously or sub-consciously) to follow the ways of Jesus in your daily life. I too made that decision to return firstly to church and then too pursue a vocation to ordained ministry.

Following the call of Jesus is not always easy or straight forward but it is worth it. For in his call we are shown a better way to live. A way of life that calls us to be compassionate, caring and generous. A way of life that calls us to leave our old self behind and in doing so to grow in to the true person God has always meant us to be.

“What’s in a name?” Juliet asks in Shakespeare’s play. 

She goes on to say:

“….That which we call a rose 

By any other name would smell as sweet…”

Juliet is suggesting that a name is just a word, only a label. Names, she believes, don’t change the essential nature of the things or the people to which they are attached. That wasn’t the way people thought about names in the time of Jesus. They believed that names signified important things, and they also believed that names could be transformative. 

John the Baptist features prominently in today’s Gospel. We are told in Luke’s Gospel that his name was not his parents’ choice. An angel told his father Zechariah to name him John, and John means “God is gracious”. In today’s Gospel there’s a lot of naming and one example of renaming. John the Baptist twice names Jesus as “the Lamb of God”. Two un-named disciples name Jesus as “Rabbi”. Andrew names Jesus as “the Messiah” and then Jesus gives Simon a new name – Cephas or, in Greek, Petros which might colloquially be translated as “Rocky” though Sylvester Stallone would not be my first choice for the role of St Peter in a Biblical epic. 

“Rocky” sounds like a nickname, but I don’t think it was. Jesus did use nicknames. He called James and John “the Sons of Thunder” – perhaps they were unusually loud, or maybe they both had a short fuse. In their cases the nickname almost certainly arose out of their personalities. Yet their discipleship was transformative. James became a steadfast witness to the Resurrection and the first of the twelve apostles to be martyred. John is now honoured as the writer of the fourth Gospel, a theologically subtle and carefully structured work.

In the case of Simon son of Jonah, the new name that Jesus gave him was not about his current personality but rather about what he would become by the Grace of God through following Jesus. Archbishop William Temple put it well in his Readings in St John’s Gospel. He imagined Jesus thinking about Peter like this:

“You are the man we know well; and what we know is that you are eager, impulsive, generous, loyal and essentially unreliable. But that is going to be altered. One day you shall be called by a name that no-one would give you now – Rock-man.”

Jesus was starting something by renaming Simon in this way. There’s no evidence of anyone being called Petros before the time of Christ, and the name only became widespread in the third century AD through the spread of Christianity in the Roman world, a movement in which St Peter played an important part.  

So our Gospel suggests that there are two kinds of naming. There’s naming that is about recognizing who a person is, about their character and their role. The disciples recognise Jesus as a teacher, Andrew recognises him as the Messiah and John the Baptist recognises him as the Lamb of God. He, too, was starting something. You won’t find that phrase anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, though there are plenty of references to lambs as sacrificial offerings. 

Recognition is, of course, the great theme of Epiphany. Our sequence of Epiphany Gospels began with the Magi recognising that the infant Jesus was very special. Next week we’ll read about Peter, James and John responding to Jesus’ call to follow him because they have recognised his authority. On Candlemas we’ll recall those wonderful words of recognition spoken by the elderly Simeon when the infant Jesus was presented in the Temple:

“My eyes have seen your salvation”

In today’s Gospel, Andrew recognises Jesus as the Messiah. He then brings his brother Simon to Jesus, and it is Jesus who recognises in Simon the possibility of transformation and renames him.

So what did the name Simon mean? There are two possibilities. In Greek it meant “flat-nosed” and I suppose it’s possible, bearing in mind that Simon’s brother Andrew had a Greek forename, that Jonas knew some Greek and spotted that the new-born baby was unusually snub-nosed. But there’s more mileage in the Hebrew meaning, for Simon was the most popular name for male Jewish babies in Roman times and Simon means “listening” or “hearing”. 

There’s an important clue there about why Jesus saw huge potential in Simon, despite the flaws in his character. Simon lived up to his given name. He was a listener and by listening to Jesus he was transformed into an eloquent and courageous apostle. It was not a smooth or an easy process. At times his faith faltered. In a crisis, he denied knowing Jesus. Yet the transformation happened and the world was changed.

Week by week we are listeners. We listen to the Gospel and by listening we open ourselves to being transformed by it. We are all in need of transformation, but for each of us the transformation will be individual and personal. The transformation is possible because God is gracious and because, as John the Baptist recognised, Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Do you believe in God the Father?

I believe.

Do you believe in God the Son?

I believe.

Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?

I believe.  

They are questions you or your God-Parents and parents will have been asked when you were Baptised and they are questions we will affirm this morning as we reply in support of our Baptism candidate when we say: 

This is the faith of the Church. We believe and trust in one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Creed is a statement of faith that we Christians confess and there are various versions of the Creed but basically it all boils down to the affirmation we will make today; that we believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In making that affirmation we mark a significant place in our journeys of faith in God.

We mark a place but we do not stop there for faith is something we explore and pilgrimage through throughout our lives. Neither is it a beginning for our candidate, they have been bothered by God and pondering on God’s ways for many years. Today is an affirmation of their journey and an acknowledgement that we the church recognise their journey and join with them as they go forward from this point in time. 

The important thing that it is a journey, one  that continues for there is always more to explore and discover about God, his Son and the Holy Spirit and what an exciting prospect that is for who knows where it will lead one or what it will inspire one to do but  as we will all say we ‘trust in God’ and in doing so declare that we are open to being surprised by God as well!

One of the ways of celebrating Epiphany, that I have greatly enjoyed over the years is to disappear to Southern Spain and to join in the celebrations that sprawl out on to the streets. Not only is it good fun it is also (usually) warm. Further North in Spain you might encounter snow but in the Malaga region you might, remarkably be in shorts and a t-shirt!

The Spaniards really go to town for Epiphany, there are of course the special church services but these are accompanied with marching bands and street processions in which the three kings or queens or both ride into town along with Father Christmas and other assorted characters. It is all a mis-mash of the sacred and the secular but beware! In the spirit of gift giving the ‘kings’ throw handfuls of boiled sweets into the crowd and you have to be lucky not to be hit on the head or in the eye by said sweets. No health and safety in these celebrations. 

Along with the processions and services Epiphany is the day on which presents are exchanged, which is perhaps more in keeping with the theme of the day than Christmas Day itself, when the present given then is actually Jesus Christ, the gift of salvation, from God to us.

Epiphany is different, gifts were given as symbols of thanksgiving for the redemption the kings sought and found in the infant Jesus. So present giving at Epiphany makes more sense, as we ape those ‘wise men’. 

The Epiphany story is a good story and whether or not it happened in the way we think it did does not matter for there is great truth in the story itself as recorded by Matthew and only in his Gospel account. The three kings (for use of a better term, they could be magi, sages or wise men) represent three different ages of humanity and three different geological and cultural backgrounds, to make but two suggestions. 

Casper is old and with a white beard and represents those from the Mediterranean. It is he who gives gold. Melchior is middle aged and offers frankincense from his home in Arabia. Balthasar is young and from Africa or the Yemen, depending on what source you read and he offers myrrh.   

The gifts also have a deeper meaning than just being gifts, useful or not. They are also traditional gifts given to a king; gold for its value, frankincense for its perfume and myrrh as an anointing oil. In relation to Christ they refer to his ‘kingship’ (the gold), his priestly ministry (frankincense used to represent the rising of prayer to God) and myrrh an embalming oil (signifying Jesus’ martyrdom). Or simply virtue, prayer and suffering. 

Like all good festivals Epiphany is also a time for families and friends to gather together and to enjoy each other’s company. Not everyone will remember Christ but those of us who do can appreciate the gift of family and friends and the blessings that Jesus Christ showers upon us. 

Matthew’s account of the kings visit is full of drama, they are inspired by a new star to travel from the East to find the promised Messiah, the King who will save the world. They encounter a corrupt and paranoid King Herod, who is so spooked and threatened by what they have to say that he orders the murder of all boys under the age of two. Which also tells us that the kings did not arrive at the manger with the shepherds (as many artists would like us to suppose) but up to two years later. When they find the Holy Family and pay homage to Jesus they are overjoyed but in their dreams later that night they are warned not to return by the way way as they will have an angry Herod to deal with. So they outwit ‘the old fox’ and return home by other routes. 

It is a good story with at its heart the message that Jesus is truly the Son of God, who was born to save us as king, priest and martyr. This is what we celebrate today the fact that in the face of the infant Jesus we see our salvation, totally, utterly and for all time.