Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord.
We pray this prayer all year round but through the months of winter perhaps we pray it a little more fervently. The days when we get up in the dark and come home in the dark are wearing - and then of course here in Glasgow, there are days when it feels like the sun never rises at all. We need light in the darkness to sustain us through the long nights of winter.
And there is light coming. Yesterday was the feast of St Brigid, known as Imbolc in Celtic tradition, a feast which marks the turning of the seasons. We are nearly half way from the winter solstice, heading towards the spring equinox, and we are beginning to notice the lengthening of the days - it’s still winter but we can see signs of spring.
And so on this feast of Candlemas, half way between the dark of winter and the light of spring, we light our candles, and we spend time with three old friends, Simeon, Mary, and Anna, each of whom has an encouragement for us.
Simeon is a faithful servant of God. We don’t know how old he is, though we can guess he’s coming towards the end of his life from his words. He’s been waiting for the fulfilment of a promise God made to him, a promise that he would see God’s Messiah, the chosen one who would come to bring God’s saving grace into the world.
And now that promise is fulfilled. As Simeon takes the baby into his arms we can almost feel the hope, as if he had finally found the thing he had been waiting for his whole life.
“Now I can go in peace,” says Simeon. Because he knows he is holding in his hand the light that has come into the world, a light for all nations, a promise that peace will one day come to our fractured world
We can be encouraged by Simeon to have hope. But if Simeon’s hope is fulfilled, ours is a restless hope. Light has come into the world, a light that the darkness cannot overcome. And yet the darkness is still working hard to dim and hide the light wherever and however it can.
Our task is to bring the light into the open. And this is no easy task, our world is not in an easy place. It can be tempting to look away from all that is challenging. But that’s not what God calls us to do. Jesus told his disciples not to hide their light away but to shine in the world, bringing God’s light wherever we go.
This starts with prayer. Prayer is the beginning of all we do, the source of all our actions. We start with orienting ourselves to God, rooting and grounding ourselves in faith. Then we turn to the world. If you’re not sure how to pray for the world, I commend to you the words of Bishop Mariann Budde, Bishop of Washington, that she spoke in a service to mark the inauguration of President Trump. I’d commend the whole sermon to you, but for now I want to share her closing prayer. She prayed:
May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people in this nation and the world.”
We can pray this prayer for our divided world. And as we pray, we can listen for the Spirit prompting us to be the answer to our own prayer.
If Simeon reminds us to hope, then Mary reminds us to trust. Simeon’s words to Mary are not easy words. “A sword will pierce your heart” he says to her. We know, because we know the rest of her story, we know how Mary’s heart will be broken, and healed, as she follows her son to the cross and the resurrection. Now, though, she is a young woman holding a baby. I don’t know what she made of these words. I don’t how many times over the years they came back to her.
From Mary I am reminded to trust the future to God. To hold on in my heart to the words that God gives me, to wait to see God at work in my life and in the world around me, and to trust - not in my own strength, but in God.
Simeon reminds me to hope, Mary reminds me to trust, and Anna reminds me to look for the joy in life. As she sees Jesus Anna is filled with joy in the gift of God’s grace - Anna’s name itself means grace. And that joy cannot be contained but spills out as she shares it with anyone who will listen to her!
Anna was a woman who lived many years longer as a widow than as a wife. She was a person of no significance in the world’s eyes, and I don’t imagine life was kind to her, but she had found her place in the house of God. Here she had a purpose, and here now she finds joy in this little baby, joy she delights in sharing with other
When times are hard it can seem frivolous to look for joy. Serious times call for us to be serious, don’t they? Well yes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look for joy too - perhaps in serious times we need joy even more than at other times.
Winter has been long but it won’t last forever. We can already see the signs of spring. As Karine Polwart puts it in a song:
Oh how the nights are long,
But life is longer still,
And the sun’s coming over the hill.
So we light our candles. With Simeon, we hope for the peace that will come, and we pray for that day. With Mary we trust that God is at work in and through us, even when we can’t see how. And with Anna we look for the joy to sustain us in the midst of the darkness.
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us
from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our
Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
