Today’s hymn is one of many settings of Simeon’s short song (Nunc Dimittis). What perhaps sets this one apart form others is that the author (Mary Holtby) has departed from the original words in several places.
Instead of referring to Simeon’s ‘departure’ (meaning his imminent death) she has him asking to be ‘set free’ – which could be taken to mean ‘set free from this earthly life’, but is capable of wider application. We all have things that we need to be set free from.
She also drops the last line ‘the glory of your people Israel’, instead following ‘the hope of humankind’ with a parallel phrase ‘the glory of our race’. That worldwide message appears also in verse 2 with ‘on the nations lost in light I see his dawn arise’.
The Christ here is therefore understood as having a universal ministry from the start, rather than understanding Jesus having come first to the people of Israel. Simeon had been promised he would see the hope of his own people, and finds that he has been given a whole lot more, a universal vision of hope. Such is God’s way, offering blessings greater than we had hoped for.
The hymn I’ve chosen for today is “Lord, now let your servant go his way in peace”. The title is from Luke 2:29 and part of the chapter of Luke’s gospel that tells the story of Jesus from his birth to adolescence and is nearly all we know about his early life. The text is very familiar to anyone who enjoys Evensong in the Church of England. It is one of the Church’s shortest canticles (Bible passages that are usually sung rather than spoken) known by its Latin title “nunc dimittis” and is a setting of the song of Simeon, an elderly Jewish priest. The hymn is James Seddon’s four-part setting of the canticle to a regular metrical tune.
(c) Andrey Mironov CC BY-SA 4.0
The occasion
of Simeon’s song was the ‘presentation’ of Jesus in the Temple, an old Jewish
ritual that allowed a woman to be proclaimed ritually clean forty days after giving
birth to her son (for a girl it was twice as long -eighty days, see Leviticus
chapter 12). With the birth of Jesus arbitrarily celebrated on 25 December,
that makes 2 February the occasion to remember this ceremony, known as Candlemas
because candles are lit as a sign of revelation (enlightenment).
Simeon’s revelation
from God at some time in his life was that before he died he would see the “hope
of Israel” (that is the promised saviour, also known as the Messiah or Christ)
although this hymn doesn’t actually use that phrase. By the same revelation from God, he recognised
in the infant Jesus someone who in later life would be this hope, the one who
would rescue the Jewish people.
But rescue
them from what? It’s generally assumed
that people in his day were hoping for a military or diplomatic leader who
would save them from subjugation as part of the Roman empire and give them the
independence under God that they longed for. But it turned out that Jesus understood his
mission much more in terms of saving them from the twin evils of secularism
(ignoring God altogether) and legalism (trying to follow the letter of the religious
law while ignoring the basic principles of fairness, justice and mercy, the
fault of the Pharisees). He was sent to ‘redeem’ (literally ‘buy back’ God’s
people for God. Later Christian thought has
added further layers of understanding to this concept of redemption, but now isn’t
the time to go into those.
But there’s
more to the story than that. Simeon saw more than the hope of Israel in this
baby. He hailed him also as the “light of
revelation to the Gentiles shown and light of Israel’s glory to the world made
known” in the words of the hymn – other translations are available. Jesus is God’s gift not just to the Jewish
people but to the whole world. Mary had
known that ever since the annunciation, the shepherds at Bethlehem knew
it. But when Simeon proclaimed it in the
Temple, the secret was out. The people
of Jerusalem may have forgotten this incident thirty years later, until the Messiah
returned to fulfil his destiny.
For us, Candlemas
is a time to recognise the light that Jesus brings to our lives. That might be a
recognition of having forgotten God’s call and living life without reference to
his standards, or living by obsolete rituals that are holding us back from
living life as God intended (like the Pharisees), or offering a way out of some
kind of darkness in our life (perhaps depression, addiction, or being controlled
by someone else). Or it might be a time to remember a promise
that God once made that we have not yet seen fulfilled, or failed to grasp
fully, and ask him to fulfil it now. Go
your way in peace, God’s word has been fulfilled.
