A generation or two ago, it was very common if not actually the norm for Sunday services at an Anglican parish church to include Morning and Evening Prayer or, as they would probably have been called then, Mattins and Evensong. And at that time, if you’d have asked a member of an Anglican congregation to name a canticle, that’s a song from scripture, they would almost certainly have been able to give you one or more of three answers: the Benedictus, the Song of Zechariah which we use at Morning Prayer, and/or one of the two canticles we used to use at Evening Prayer, the Magnificat, the Song of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the one we heard in this morning’s Gospel, the Song of Simeon, which we know as the Nunc Dimitis, which is the Latin translation of the opening words of the canticle, ‘Now you let depart’.
The Nunc Dimitis is a canticle that works in a number of ways. It begins as a song of faith, and of praise and thanksgiving for faith vindicated. We’re told that the Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he’d live to see the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, and the opening lines of the Nunc Dimitis express Simeon’s thanks and praise to God that this promise had been fulfilled. And not only the promise he’d been given, that he’d see the Messiah with his own eyes, but God’s promise to the people of Israel too, that they’d be given a saviour, the Messiah:
“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation
that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples…”
But having begun as a song of faith, and of praise and thanksgiving, it then becomes a song of prophesy. We know from scripture that God had promised a Messiah to the people of Israel, but Simeon extends this promise to include all people of all nations:
“…for my eyes have seen your salvation
that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”
We know that the word ‘revelation’ means to show something that was previously hidden, and the word ’glory’ can mean to say or show something good and praiseworthy about who or what we’re speaking about. So if we take these two lines together, Simeon’s words express his faith and his prophesy that the Messiah, this child Jesus whom he’d just laid eyes on for the first time, this baby boy who wasn’t quite six weeks old at the time, would go on to show to the people of the world something good and praiseworthy about the people of Israel. And he’d do that so that along with the people of Israel, the people of all nations could receive salvation too. But what does all that mean? What does it mean to be God’s people, Israel, and what about that did the nations need to know so that they could receive salvation?
In the Book of Genesis we read that Israel is the name God gave to Jacob, and so Jacob’s descendants became the people of Israel. No one’s quite sure exactly what the name ‘Israel’ means. When God gives Jacob the name, he explains it this way;
“Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
We know that ‘El’ is short for ‘Elohim’, which is a name for God, but what ‘Isra’ means, or meant, we’re not sure because it could have a lot of different meanings and connotations. It can be interpreted as having something to do with struggling and strength, it can be interpreted as ‘seeing’, and it can also be interpreted as standing firm, especially in the way a plant stem becomes firm after taking in water. So, whilst we can’t be entirely sure what ‘Israel’ meant, it’s generally thought that it has something to do with standing firm with God, perhaps especially after having seen God or becoming filled with God. And we could interpret that as becoming filled with the Holy Spirit or what Jesus called ‘living water,’ an abundance of goodness that flows into a person from God and flows out of a person to others.
But whatever the exact meaning of the name ‘Israel’ is, it clearly has something to do with knowing God, being filled with a desire to live as God wants us to live and standing firm in faith. This is what it means to be one of God’s people, Israel, and this is what Jesus came to reveal to all people. He came to be the glory of God’s people Israel, by showing what it means to be one of those people. He came to do that both to call the people of Israel back to what they were always supposed to be, and to show the nations, those who had not been God’s people, how to be his people so that they could receive salvation. As St Peter put it when writing to the Gentile Church in what’s now Turkey,
‘Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’
To be God’s people though involves a commitment to live as God wants us to live, and part of that commitment is to allow the abundance of goodness that we’ve received from God flow out to others. If we don’t do these things then we can call ourselves God’s people until we’re blue in the face, but we won’t be his people, except in name only. And I think it’s very important to understand that in light of what’s happening in the world at this time.
To be one of God’s people, we’re called to keep the commandments. The people of Israel whom Simeon spoke about in the Nunc Dimitis had ten; Jesus summed them up for us in the Church in two;
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
And the Scriptures are full of examples of how God’s people should love God and their neighbour. Such this from Leviticus:
“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt…”
And this from Isaiah:
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice, correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
Or this, again from Isaiah and which Jesus himself quoted as the reason he had come into the world.
‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound…’
One of the great problems genuine people of faith have is that there are so many people who claim to be people of faith but who act in ways that are contrary to the teachings of the faith they profess. These people are not God’s people but because they claim to be whilst at the same time acting in ways that scripture tells us are abhorrent to God, such as these which we find in Proverbs;
‘…haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.’
they give genuine people of faith, and faith itself, a bad name because we all become tarred with the same brush. But, even in the days when this country was regarded as a Christian country, it would have been ludicrous to have regarded all the people of this country as Christians and to have seen their often very un-Christian behaviour as Christian behaviour. And in the same way, it’s ludicrous to see all Muslims as terrorists and to see what the modern nation state of Israel does, and is doing, as the actions of what Simeon and scripture call God’s people Israel.
We have to be very clear to distinguish between people of genuine faith and those whose faith is only a name to hide behind whilst they carry out acts which the faith they profess quite clearly says are wrong. Jesus came to be the glory of God’s people Israel. So when we see him and hear his teaching, we’re seeing and hearing what God’s people should be. And if people don’t do these things, they’re not God’s people. So let’s not listen to them or do as they say and do. Jesus came to show us these things so that we could be God’s people too. So when we see him and hear his teaching we’re seeing and hearing what we should be. So when we don’t do these things, we’re not God’s people. Jesus came to show us these things so that we could receive salvation. So let’s not do anything that will make us God’s people in name only, but listen to Jesus and do what will make us God’s people in reality.
Amen.
Propers for the Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas) 4th February 2024
Entrance Antiphon
Within your temple, we ponder your loving kindness, O God.
As your name, so also your praise reaches to the ends of the earth;
your right hand is filled with justice.
The Collect
Almighty and ever-living God, clothed in majesty,
whose beloved Son was this day presented in the Temple, in substance of our flesh:
grant that we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts,
by your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
Malachi 3:1-4
Psalm 24:7-10
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Malachi 3:1-5
Psalm 24:1-10
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 