Title:- The Scent of Shadows
Hosea 14:7 Those who dwell under his shadow shall return; They shall be revived like grain, And grow like a vine. Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
Forty days after Christmas, today, the ancient church celebrated ‘Candlemas,’ the presentation of the infant Jesus in the temple for the post-childbirth purification of Mary. The Greek church called it ‘Hypapante’ (“Meeting”) in reference to Jesus' meeting there with Simeon, to whom it had been revealed that he would not die before meeting the Messiah. Simeon met Him, he met the promised one, he met the one so long foretold, Jesus the Saviour of the world and he met Him, in the arms of His mother! I wonder, where shall we meet Jesus the rest of this year? I wonder where shall might meet Jesus today?
The custom of observing this festival with lighted candles (the source of its name, Candlemass) dates to at least the mid-5th century. What a marvellous tradition! In the young country of America of course, just to be a little weirder, February 2nd was 'Groundhog Day' at Gobblers Nob! The day when a small hairy creature, emerging from his hole, predicts that should he see his shadow, then there will be six more weeks of winter; and if he should not see his shadow, then spring is imminent. Like a lot of American traditions in the now not so New World, this particular ground hog tradition probably stems from the old country, the old world, and many people think this weird Pennsylvanian tradition emerges from English beliefs revolving around seeing shadows that are cast on the feast of Candlemas. C.S. Lewis was right in that wherever we walk on this planet, we do indeed live in the ‘shadowlands.’
Yet, something bright is rising in the East! Do you see it yet? Do you smell its softly scented solid oak bouquet, that sweet and crimson bloodied Rose of Sharon crushed and soaked in graveyard linen? Do you smell its groaning greener fields, its waiting mountain ranges and its troops of fun-filled freesias, floating just above the broken surface tension of the slightly shaken and slowly swirled, sniffed and sipped, rich red wine of the promises of God Most High?
May the shadows cast on your journey this year, be long and loving. May they be cast by the Morning Star rising high in your hearts, so that in this year of our Lord, we all may possess more of our inheritance, which is Christ in us, the hope of Glory. Now friends lift up your snout in the shadow of the cross and drink the air, breath deeply through those flaring nostrils and get a few good lungs full....right now! Do you smell it? Do you taste it on the back of your tongue? LIFE! There it is, LIFE!
Spring is coming. I say again, spring is coming! He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Listen: -Jesus, dead, was taken down from the cross into the arms of His mother. Jesus, alive forever more, was taken up from the earth into the arms of His Father. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven from where He is coming again!
Pray: -Lord, my eyes, they look for You. Lord my heart, it longs for You. Oh my God, rise high and shine strong, in the shadow lands of my soul, both today, and all along my sojourn here. In Your great name I pray, Amen.
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