Candelmas 2015

Candlemas 2015 (Luke 2:22-40) “As it is written.”

Jesus came to fulfill the Law of Moses.

The Law reflects the fundamental pattern of the universe and our species. The three underlying principles of the Law are: choice, cause and effect, and consequence.

No one ever breaks the law. We can ignore the law. We can subvert the law. We can even violate the law. But, we cannot break the Law. The Law can and will break us.

That is why salvation is not about our ability to keep the Law. Moses and the prophets and the apostles are very clear that we cannot keep the law. Deeply rooted in our souls is the spiritual pride that insists on having everything my way.

Law based religion demands submission to the Law by an act of will. It ignores the deeper desires of the heart and the deepest desire of the soul.

Jesus was able to keep the law perfectly by love. As the incarnation of the logos, the transcendent rational pattern of the universe, Jesus in his own being resonates with the Law as the perfect plan and pattern of the divine. But, Jesus kept the law by love.

Theologians express this in a question. Was Jesus able not to sin; or, was Jesus not able to sin? If you ask the question from the place of will the answer is that Jesus was able not to sin. He could have sinned but he restrained his desires by an act of will in submission to the Law of God.

If you ask the question from the place of love the answer is that Jesus was not able to sin. The Ecumenical Councils decided that second answer- that Jesus was not able to sin- better expresses who Jesus is and how he made choices. Jesus is the very love of God in human flesh. His will is directed and ordered from his love. His love is the unchanging compass of love that led him from heaven to earth to the cross and back to heaven. It is the compass that will lead him back to earth in his second coming.

Mary kept the law of Moses in the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple by grace through faith grounded in love.

Mary did not keep the Law by will alone. She did not grit her teeth and suppress her own desires in order to earn God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. She did make a real choice early in her life to surrender her heart to God by faith. In that faith she recognized and appropriated the universal grace God pours out to all people everywhere but most people ignore, distort or reject.

Mary kept the Law of Moses by presenting Jesus in the Temple and offering the appointed sacrifices at the appointed place and time as an act of love in response to grace.

She could have questioned the particularities of the Law as so many people then and now do. She could have used her intellect to rationalize away the clear and explicit command for her to travel to the Temple in Jerusalem on the 40^th day after the birth of Jesus to offer the specified sacrifice at the altar of sacrifice.

Remember, the Law is holy and good. The Law is perfect and immutable. The Law is the impersonal aspect of God imprinted on every particle of the universe. Mary kept the Law of sacrifice by grace through faith in love. In that choice Mary fulfilled her part in our Heavenly Father’s Plan of salvation.

Mary understood that what is written in the Bible reflects the transcendent and eternal pattern of God. The very form of the pattern is love. It is the love that sets reunites us to the Father, through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And, it is the love that sets us free from sin to make a real choice to transform sin back into virtue.

Mary’s preeminent virtues were humility and loyalty. Through humility Mary responded to God’s grace by saying: I am the Lord’s servant may God’s will be done. Through loyalty Mary lived her life with the desire to meet God at the time and the place God wrote into the universe for him to meet us.

At the feast of the Presentation that time and place is the Temple in Jerusalem. On this commemoration of that feast, the time and the place is here and now at the altar of sacrifice on the Seventh Day, the Day of Real Presence. The Seventh Day is the pattern God designed into the universe for us to  make the real choice to receive divine grace by faith through love. That choice enters into the world of cause and effect to produce a result. The result is the glory of God manifesting in our lies, transforming our souls and setting us free to be the beloved of the eternal Father.