Near Death Experiences, Monkeys and Candlemas (Hebrews 2.14-18, Luke 2.22-40)

 I’ve nearly died twice. One time I can remember, the other time I can’t.

Our reading today from Hebrews is all about death and what God does with it. And today we celebrate the presentation of Christ in the temple or Candlemas. It’s an important day, and I’ll explain a bit more later, but our readings are linked. Candlemas, That’s about death too, but also about light, life, unexpected joy and promises.

When I say I’ve almost died twice, I don’t mean dying as in ‘I had a hangover and I felt like I was going to die’, or ‘I was so embarrassed I felt like I wanted to die.’ Because if that was the case, I would have hundreds of ‘near death’ experiences.

No, I mean literal, near death experiences.

The one I can’t remember was when I was about five or six years old. Some tree surgeons were cutting down a tree at the house opposite our house, so naturally, I wandered across the road to go and have a look at what they were doing. We lived on a quiet suburban road. And I was an annoyingly inquisitive child, whether that’s changed I’ll leave it up to you.

When my curiosity had been satisfied, I decided to go back home. Straight into the path of an oncoming car. As the car sped along the road suddenly at the last moment one of the tree surgeons grabbed me by the shirt and hauled me backwards. The car missed me. My Mum saw the whole thing.

Thanks to that man, you now have me as a Team Vicar, blessing or curse the jury’s still out, ask again when I’ve been here a year.

Next, the one I remember.

Swimming pools are a lot of fun. But they’re also dangerous places.

A seven-year-old Graham is also highly incompetent.

The Welsh holiday cottage we’d rented had its own private pool, so Dad and I went for a swim. There were no lifeguards.

We were both in the pool and Dad said ‘I’m just going for a swim up the other end.’

With that inquisitive streak, my seven year old brain decided that it would be a good idea to follow him up the deep end. Forgetting the fact that I was at the stage of swimming where if I couldn’t touch the bottom, I found it difficult, nay impossible.

So I followed him up the deep end, got tired, tried to put my feet down, couldn’t, panicked, and began to drown. I remember beginning to sink in the water and looking up at the surface thinking ‘well, this isn’t good. I’m drowning.’

Luckily Dad realised, and with a speed I’ve never seen from him, before or since, grabbed me and hauled me out of the water. 

The fear of death is something that has often stalked me. I don’t know about you? The fear of the unknown and I think there are two competing things going on in our brains. There’s our monkey brain, and our human brain.

Our human brain is full of stuff like art, poetry, forward planning, philosophy, music, not wearing socks and sandals.

Our Monkey brain is stuff like anger, aggression, greed, anxiety, lust and wearing socks and sandals.

Anxiety can be a good thing. It comes from when we lived in trees and kept us alert to predators and other nasty things that might be coming.

Yet for someone like me who has Generalised Anxiety Disorder it gets to a point when this anxiety, the sense that something is going to get you, overtakes your life and makes you feel trapped, always alert, unable to rest, and I see all the terrible things that might possibly happen, and believe they are real.

Anxiety is an epidemic in our society, and the current situation we find ourselves in has not helped. There’s also an extreme anxiety in the Church as an institution, as we come to terms with the fact that we are rapidly shrinking, resources are stretched and everyone is a bit knackered. And I don’t just mean clergy. I mean laypeople too, and I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who do things for the church. It’s been a terrible two years, and for those of you who been battling with anxiety or depression, and yet still turn up here, still try to love God and your neighbour, you are heroes.

Both Bible readings combat my anxiety, and I find Candlemas deeply comforting and here’s why:

Redemption has come, and faithful people waited and waited. But it came.

Our portion of Hebrews sums up a lot of what the hope of the Gospel is, and what the Christian faith means to me.

The writers of the letter (Which probably weren’t St Paul) were writing to a group of Jewish converts who had become Christians. These Jewish Christians were going through a time of severe persecution. Many of them had started to say, why don’t we just go back to the old ways? After all it’s the same God.

The writers are writing to convince them not to do that and give many reasons why they should stick with Christianity and Jesus, and in this part they talk about the freedom from fear that Jesus gives.

They’re explaining how amazing the incarnation is. Angels were important in Judaism, but here they’re saying, Jesus is greater than the angels. You don’t need them, you need Jesus.

That Christ has defeated death, through his becoming one of us. We don’t have to be afraid of it anymore. He became fully one of us and is merciful. Knows our weaknesses, our temptations and yet loves us despite them. That in comparison to the frail human high priests, offering sacrifices for sin at the temple, Jesus, the perfect high priest had done it all for them. Saved them from death.

That God did it all for them and loves them.  

We’re so used to instant gratification, but the people of Israel waited thousands of years for God. Sometimes we have to wait for good things. Simeon and Anna waited all their lives. “For the consolation of Israel.”

It wasn’t a good time for their people, they were oppressed and downtrodden but they waited, they never gave up hope.

When Simeon finally takes the Christ child in his arms he sings an amazing song, which I prefer in the Old Language:

“Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.
According to thy word. For mine eyes have seen, thy salvation.
Which thou hast prepared in the sight of all people,
to be a light to lighten the gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people Israel.”

Simeon declares God’s wide love, wide redemption for the whole world. It’s a spine-tingling moment.

Can you imagine what it must’ve been like to hold all eternity in your arms. God’s glory is now seen in the child that he holds.

Jesus’ birth causes the expectations of earlier songs to be realised in an unexpected way.

God didn’t come, thumping Israel’s enemies into dust, it wasn’t through naked power that God redeemed the world. But through God’s sacrifice of himself in love.

This entire story shows that disaster is not God’s last word.

Sometimes we may feel like we are drowning. We might feel near death and filled with an anxiety that we cannot quench. The monkeys in our heads are having a party, and they’re bashing on the doors inside our skulls.

But it doesn’t matter how anxious we feel, about the future, about the church, about where we are and when we will die. God’s got us. God’s got you.

So today at Candlemas we turn from the cradle to the cross. From birth to death. From incarnation to new life.

We no longer need to fear, but journey with Jesus and with one another, as we tell the story again of God’s love for us.

For this reason he had to be made like them,^[a] fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸ Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Photo by Andre Mouton from Pexels