Tag: refined

2nd February 2025

Reflection with readings below

Today marks the end of the season of Epiphany with the nature of the baby Jesus made manifest in the temple by first Simeon and then by Anna. This child is God’s salvation – the light for revelation – that is to benefit both Gentiles and the people of Israel. But it is no easy task – no magic transformation. 

“This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed– and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Salvation is a process, a process of change and of challenge. It will demand reassessing our inner thoughts. It will demand falling and rising, the crashing down of our selfishness and our raising up to  new life. 

Malachi tells us that the Christ, the one who will save us, will be like a refiner’s fire and like a fuller’s soap. Christ will refine our thoughts and actions to make them pure – if we accept the process. Christ will scour and cleanse us till our souls are without stain or blemish. Christ will – and does – persist in this task until we are able to ‘present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.’ 

Until all that we do, all that we have to give through our lives, is done in righteousness. 

This process of salvation – of refining and cleaning, of reforming and teaching – is clearly a work of centuries. It is an ongoing process in which each generation is called to accept the ways of God, to live according to God’s values, to work together in righteousness.

Last Sunday’s gospel gave us the passage where Jesus stands up in the synagogue and reveals that he is the one to proclaim the good news. What is this good news? That we all can be healed and changed and so be part of the year of the Lord’s favour. The gospel is not passive; it’s not just an acceptance that Jesus is Lord. It is active: it is ensuring plenty for the poor, freedom for the prisoner, sight for the blind and new life for the oppressed.

Simeon’s words remind us that the gospel message is not just one that is active in the response that it demands of us, it is also likely to be a task that will involve suffering. It will not be a simply ride. Yet like Simeon and Anna and Mary, we should be willing to accept this and still be ready to rejoice, for this is the salvation we have waited and desired. 

Malachi 3:1-4

Thus says the Lord, See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight– indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Psalm 84 

1 How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts! *
My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.

2 The sparrow has found her a house
and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young; *
by the side of your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.

3 Happy are they who dwell in your house! *
they will always be praising you.

4 Happy are the people whose strength is in you! *
whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way.

5 Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs, *
for the early rains have covered it with pools of water.

6 They will climb from height to height, *
and the God of gods will reveal himself in Zion.

7 Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; *
hearken, O God of Jacob.

8 Behold our defender, O God; *
and look upon the face of your Anointed.

9 For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room, *
and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God
than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.

10 For the Lord God is both sun and shield; *
he will give grace and glory;

11 No good thing will the Lord withhold *
from those who walk with integrity.

12 O Lord of hosts, *
happy are they who put their trust in you!

Hebrews 2:14-18

Since God’s children share flesh and blood, Jesus himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.

Luke 2:22-40

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, the parents of Jesus brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word; 

for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 

a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.” 

And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed– and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.