Episode Details

The Problems of LifeI’d like to begin with a quotation from one of the greatest fictional characters of recent years. I won’t say who it is except that she is a much older woman giving advice to a much younger female family member. The quotation is this:“My dear, all life is a series of problems which we must try and solve. First one, then the next, and the next, until at last, we die.”As it turns out, this is actually quite a good piece of advice and it proves useful to the younger character, though she is baffled by it at first. The point her elder relative was really making is that we shouldn’t see problems and difficulties as somehow getting in the way of life but as being part of life’s essence, as being the central way that we grow as human beings, how we learn, how we change. In that sense, problems and difficulties can be seen not as unpleasant and annoying but as opportunities. As the old Stoic saying goes, the obstacle is the way.But it’s that last part that offers us the twist: until at last, we die. If we adopt this stoical attitude of simple focussing on our problems and attempting to solve them, thinking about little else, then death sneaks up on us, and all of our growth and development, wisdom and insight, simply disappears. And there is a sort of humorous absurdity about all of this.Candlemas – The Mid-Way PointToday, we celebrate the feast of Candlemas. It’s a feast day which is rich is symbolism. It occurs midway between the Winter solstice and the Spring equinox and therefore marks the time when the icy grip of Winter begins to loosen. Candlemas has been historically a time when farmers begin to anticipate the new season of planting and sowing their fields, turning this day into one of hope for fecundity and fertility. And in the Christian Church this feast commemorates the Presentation of Jesus by Mary and Joseph in the Temple. Traditionally candles are blessed and used in procession, symbolising Jesus as the light of the world. Our readings also make it clear to us that this day is all about birth, death, and resurrection. And this latter constellation of themes is what I would like to talk about today, particularly the notion of death and rebirth. I want to focus specifically on the two characters that we are introduced to in the Gospel reading, Simeon and Anna.Simeon and Anna: Prepared to DieSimeon and Anna were elderly people waiting for what is said to be in the text ‘the consolation of Israel’, by which we can probably infer that they were waiting for the Messiah, the one who would come to deliver the people of Israel, not from Roman occupation, but from sin and death. They had lived their lives in a way which was devout and holy and therefore were in a position both to recognise Jesus as the Messiah when he arrived at the Temple and to entrust themselves to him as the one who would save them.It is remarkable when you think about the words uttered by Simeon: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared in the presence of all people.” What does this mean but that he was ready to die because he had seen with own eyes the salvation of God and was able therefore entrust himself to him? To entrust himself to Christ, even as he saw him only as a baby of forty days old? The great scholar of the ancient Church Origen says as much about this passage commenting that Simeon knew that the hope of life to come could only be from ‘the anointed One whom he enfolded in his arms’.It was as if Simeon, through the power of the Holy Spirit, intuited the truth that is written in our New Testament reading, Hebrews chapter two: Christ partook of flesh and blood so that ‘through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery’.Simeon did not fear death. Why? Because he had lived his life in anticipation of seeing the Lord’s