Tag: rembrandt

It’s been ages since I posted a sermon as I tend to now put them on the church website but I thought I’d post this one.

A sermon given at St Mary’s Church on 2nd February 2025
Luke 2. 22-40

I’ve been fascinated by Rembrandt’s art for years and if you’ve been to my study you’ll see his image of the Prodigal Son, which may be well known to you.

Like most European artists in the 17^th Century the main focus of his work was religious, and Rembrandt mined the scripture for dramatic imagery. The image he came back most often in his life was this one we’ve just read from Luke’s Gospel.

The Presentation in the Temple.

Here are two paintings by Rembrandt of this scene at the temple, painted at different times in his life. The first is The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple painted in around 1630 when Rembrandt was around 25 years old, full of hopes and dreams for his future. It’s a lavish image, opulent, full of people, the light shines out from the infant Jesus at the centred.

The second one, Simeon’s Song of Praise was painted nearly 40 years later and was probably the last painting he ever painted –  it was left unfinished on his canvas when he died. It’s a close up of the scene, Simeon is an old man here, almost blind, wearied by life which is all behind him.

Rembrandt was a master at the use of light and darkness to draw us into the picture and so let’s use that to look closer at the characters in this scene.

Imagine a stage on a theatre which is in total darkness. And then a spotlight shines onto various sections on the stage illuminating the characters one by one.

Imagine I have four spotlights.

Spotlight One – Mary and Joseph

Here we see a young couple doing what is best for their new son – all the male children in a Jewish household are circumcised at eight days old, as was Jesus, and 33 days after giving birth to a male child, the birth mother is expected to participate in the rite of purification.

So, Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the Temple to present him to YHWH. They are poor – we know that because they can only afford to bring doves as an offering; the wealthy parents brought lambs. Mary and Joseph knew they had been given a great gift in this son of theirs, they had been given hints by the angels who visited them of course, but they can’t yet have known what was in store for them. Like all parents they would have longed for the best for their child.

But the prophesies they hear from Simeon are sobering – first they hear that he will be a light to the gentiles and glory to Israel. But then they hear that he will be opposed, and that this will cause them great suffering and pain – ‘a sword will pierce your own soul too’.

Imagine hearing this.

Spotlight Two – Simeon and Anna

These wise elders represent Israel (Simeon) and the temple (Anna). We learn that Simeon was devout and righteous and ‘the holy spirit was on him’. He had been waiting for a saviour for Israel all his life and the spirit led him to the temple on that day.

Rembrandt’s image of Simeon is beautiful in that it shows the blind old man at the end of his life who sees in this baby the light they had been looking for. Simeon takes the child in his arms, and prays a prayer of blessing– a prayer we know as the Nunc Dimitus:

‘My eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all people’ (Luke 2.30)

Simeon’s song is both Christmas and Good Friday – it encapsulates both joy and great sorrow.

We learn that Anna was 84, had been the daughter of a prominent man but widowed after only 7 years of marriage, without children, and literally lived day and night in the temple – she never left – she prayed and fasted night and day. She was the very first person to tell people about Jesus: ‘she came up at that moment and gave thanks to God, and spoke about Jesus to everyone who was waiting’. (Luke 2.38)

These prayerful elders recognised something that no-one else around them did. That all they’d been searching for and praying for was to be found in this vulnerable child. How did they recognise him?

Spotlight Three – Jesus

It’s unlikely that as Mary and Joseph brought their child into the temple that he had a ready break glow round him, or a shaft of light emanating from him as in a Dutch master painting!

No, Jesus was a proper human baby. He was vulnerable, he needed to learn from his parents. We hear: ‘the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom’. Some of that wisdom would have been taught to him by his parents.

How did they recognise him?

Simeon, ‘filled with the spirit’ was led to the temple: Anna – though years of prayer and fasting – this is how they knew who Jesus was. Because they were so deeply rooted in prayer, and had been for so many years, that they recognised the light and salvation of the Christ child when it was there amongst them.

Spotlight Four – each of us

In the first few chapters of his Gospel Luke, rather like a Rembrandt painting, invites us to enter into the stories, to identify with the characters.

We have older parents amazed to conceive (Elizabeth and Zachariah), a young woman preparing to have a child (Mary), a man working out how to support his family (Joseph), two elders who are nearing the end of their lives (Simeon and Anna), and next passage we hear of Jesus as a young adolescent working out his independence from his parents. Different people at different life stages all encountering Christ.

So where are we in this story? The spotlight is on us now.

Maybe we identify with these young parents bringing up their children in hope and love; or with the elderly Anna waiting in hope and prayer; or with Simeon, nearing the end of his life marvelling at what has been. Or maybe we can’t see ourselves in this family scene at all because that’s not our experience of life. Perhaps we identify more with the outsiders on the edges looking in, wondering if this child has anything to do with us.

I wonder if perhaps we could then just gaze at the focus of this scene, at the infant. Because in this infant all the hopes and dreams of Simeon and Anna, Mary and Joseph have been fulfilled.

Simeon sings: ‘my eyes have seen your salvation’. And what does salvation look like?

Like a vulnerable baby.

This story is both Christmas and Easter. Joy and suffering. Death and resurrection. The great mystery is that God is made fully known to us by entering into humanity in human form and so from this moment on there isn’t any separation between God and humanity.

That’s what Simeon and Anna noticed. That their salvation was right there in their midst and no-one else had even noticed. God entered into the mess of humanity through Christ and continues to do enter into the world through the spirit which lives in US, you and me.

Simeon and Anna didn’t miss him.  Let’s not miss him. So, this is our story, and we are invited to enter into it. As we go from here God won’t be revealed to us by a spotlight shining to show us the way – here, here, here. Instead, we see God working when we spend time rooted in prayer, when we spent time with the people Jesus spent time with, when we make decisions to love one another and when we live our lives remembering that we have God within us.

Now, this is the news that Simeon and Anna were so excited about. And Anna’s response to this?

‘At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child
to all who were looking’. (Luke 2. 38)

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