The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 85: Candlemas Reflections: Light, Nourishment, and Spiritual Insights
This episode explores the significance of Candlemas, focusing on the intertwining of food, light, and spiritual lessons. We discuss the importance of feasting, fasting, and the role of candles in our worship tradition, highlighting how physical acts reflect deeper theological truths.
• Importance of light and candles in spiritual practices
• Relationship between food and community celebrations
• Concept of dependence on God illustrated through manna
• Preparing for Lent by using up food
• Significance of specific dishes in Candlemas traditions
• The historical and theological implications of beeswax candles
• Environmental considerations and stewardship in our practices
Be sure to join us for our next episode as we explore specific recipes and culinary traditions for Candlemas!
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the next of our episodes of the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. And we're actually still thinking about candlemas. We might even do two more on it before we move on to a different topic, because there's so much in this period between the Christmas and Epiphany celebrations, then we get into Lent and then there's this variable-sized bit in between that is Candlemass, and what we want to think about is something of the food and specific sort of recipes and purposes behind the feasting in this candlemas period. But before we do that, I'm going to share a prayer from PJ's candlemas book. It's just packed with interesting information. It's like over 300 pages and nearly every page has something extraordinary on it. But there's a one section where he shares liturgy from candlemas from the medieval period and I like this one.
Speaker 1:It's a prayer over candles and it kind of makes me think like if you are in a culture where you're always we are lighting candles, it seems like an amazing thing to take time, when you light a candle, to kind of pray a prayer like this, to meditate on the power of light over darkness. I mean, I don't know whether we could adapt this to do it whenever we flick a light switch on, but there's a pro, I think. As we've hinted at earlier, electric lights uh are a theological problem, in a way that candles are not. Candles are rooted in animal fats, possibly originally, then um, honey, uh, beeswax, but the electric light is a, is a sorcery business and uh doesn't really have that connection to life that candles do. But whatever is the case, even if we do adapt a prayer for whenever we switch on a light switch, to at least attempt to make the most of this, even where, even if we are employing this dark magic, um, at that moment when the light banishes the darkness, we can think about that, meditate about the light triumphing over the darkness. But uh, it's nice to think this prayer over candles, that that used particularly obviously at candlemas, but it could be used whenever a candle is lit.
Speaker 1:Here's the prayer Lord Jesus Christ, who, coming into this world, illuminateth all humanity, pour out. We beseech thee thy blessing over these candles and sanctify them by the light of thy grace and graciously grant that, just as these lights, kindled with visible fire, drive out the shadows of the night, so too illuminate our hearts with that invisible fire, that is, by the splendor of thy Holy Ghost, that, separated from the blindness of vices, with pure minds and eyes, we may always be able to choose those things which are pleasing to thee and useful for our salvation. Discern through the mists of this age that we may merit to arrive at the unfailing light through thee, jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with God, the Father, in the unity of the same Holy Ghost, throughout all ages. Amen, there we go Great prayer to you know, wanting to make sure that when we switch on a physical light, or lighter physical light, we are taking a moment to yearn for the invisible fire, the much more important illumination that occurs within our hearts and minds by the power of Jesus through the Spirit.
Speaker 1:Now then, with all that being said, we need to think about food at Candlemas. Now, a good chunk of the book is about that, and there's a whole section of recipes. Chapter 17 of the book is one delicious recipe after another from all over the world, these traditions of food, and we'll come to this thing called the obel cake, and that has a whole section in itself, and you might say what is that? Exactly what is that? It's something that will need explanation, but we'll leave that for a moment. I'll leave that hanging. What is an obel cake? And instead we're going to just think about the importance of food and what is the importance of food and what is the kind of food used at Candlemas. But also, just let's take a moment to appreciate the importance of feasting and just eating food in general and linking that into our church year and theological celebrations. Let's just think for a moment how the living God has created it. He's created us in such a way that we need regular food and if we don't have it we feel hunger.
Speaker 1:Now he didn't need to create us that way. Look at the sun, the S-U-N. It has been created in such a way it is embodied, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, that heavenly creatures have bodiesless food that emerges from within itself and it can consume its food at enormous speed, constantly and it doesn't need to take in any. It has it within itself, just this almost infinite amount of food. We could have been created like that, embodied, like the SUN is embodied with internal massive resource. I mean, for example, if we think about something like quantum fusion, where you could have like a cold nuclear reaction that would yield almost limitless power. Now we could have been created with something like that operating within us in a controlled way, such that we just have endless reserves of energy emerging from within ourselves so that we never need to eat, we never feel hunger, we never feel a lack of energy or anything like that. But we were not created that way.
Speaker 1:He created us in such a way that we need to take food into ourselves and that our bodies lack ourselves, and that our bodies lack, have a constant lack of nourishment. And he did that to teach us deep lessons about dependence. And you'll remember, in Deuteronomy he deliberately took the ancient church into circumstances where they felt very thirsty and very hungry, and he did that deliberately in order to find out what was in them. What is it that they craved most when their body craved food and drink? And it reveals things about us hunger and thirst. And what do we most hunger and thirst for? And and and. Therefore we can fast and it's in very quick.
Speaker 1:Some people, some people, say to me oh, I can't fast because I feel very, very hungry or I get I I get um, very strong symptoms if my blood sugar goes down and things I'm. To me, that's a reason definitely to fast, because the lord's given you the ability to quickly experience the intensity of a fast. So that should be. A person who fast is like in is, is more readily urgent. And in fasting, because perhaps they don't need to necessarily fast as long as some other of us do, because they might quite quickly feel it and the idea that you feel dreadful.
Speaker 1:In fasting, jesus says yeah, of course you do, and don't go on about it, don't let people know you're fasting, because of course you might feel dreadful, but he created us in this way. And then you'll remember in scripture we're told in the Lord's prayer give us today our daily bread. And of course it's not really thinking about just food, it's thinking about the daily bread of the manna from the Exodus wanderings. That's the obvious reference to daily bread, isn't it In the scriptures. And what was the manna all about? Well, jesus says I am the bread that came down from heaven. So when you eat, when they were eating the miraculous manna, they were really supposed because he makes the point, doesn't he? That most of them just ate that manna and got nothing more. That that's all they did. What they were supposed to do is, in the eating of the manna, like a sacrament, they were to also consume Christ himself, the bread that came down from heaven, and then he was offering that, when he was doing the feeding of the 5,000, breaking this bread, feeding many, many people, and they just said let's have some more of that food. And he's like but don't you see, when I was giving you that bread, I was giving you Holy Communion, I was giving you myself, you were to consume me, not merely food.
Speaker 1:And so throughout the Bible we're constantly shown this connection between food and theology, food and physical food and spiritual food, and how deeply linked they are. And hunger, physical hunger, spiritual hunger, physical thirst, spiritual thirst and all these things are deeply intertwined. And you get this idea that some people don't like the festivities of Christian festivals like Christmas or Easter, and they're like no, no, we shouldn't have all this feasting because it distracts us from the real spiritual meaning, because it distracts us from the real spiritual meaning. And just recently someone argued that what we really need to do is focus on the theological truth, say, of Christmas, and just think about the incarnation and the meaning of that, and not have big Christmas meals or festival items, because that is undermining and distracting and taking us away from the spiritual reality. And so they feel that it should be mentally focused on, without physical accompanying food, feasting activities, decorations, anything like that, all of those what they called physical are distracting from the spiritual. But of course, as we've just seen in the Bible, it isn't like that. So, for example, but of course, as we've just seen in the Bible, it isn't like that.
Speaker 1:So, for example, when the Lord gives them the Passover, and then so at the original Passover, they roast the lamb, apply the blood, the unleavened bread as part of the entire thing, and then what he could have done, he couldn't. He could have said each year, no-transcript. And then, similarly, you know, in the autumn, spend a week chatting about your new creation, hope, and that you're longing for a permanent embodiment. And you just think, you know, just talk about it, think about it. And he could have done that, but he didn't do that. What he did say is I want you to think about those things and talk about those things, but the way in which you will do it is have a meal with Roslam at Passover, actually do a Passover meal that draws you into those spiritual realities. Similarly, don't just think about the new creation, spend a week, seven days, living in a tent. Then, when you move back into your permanent dwelling and can have a shower and use it, that feeling of permanence, and how much better it is to have a permanent dwelling than a temporary one. You will experience it physically, emotionally, and how much more that will assist your theological discussion, your spiritual meditation.
Speaker 1:Now, then, all of that is setting us up to appreciate that candlemas is packed with food and feasting truths. Now then, let's get pj in on this. What is the purpose? What's what tell us? Maybe, first of all, uh, because candlemas is a sandwich, is the filling that we use this idea? Well, it's a food analogy, isn't it that the one piece of bread is christmas and epiphany tide, the other is lent, and then there's this variable thing called candlemas in between. Is it relevant that it's leading up to lent?
Speaker 2:yeah, definitely so.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people are familiar with the idea of carnival or um, pancake tuesday and you're trying to use up all the fat and meat you've got in your house because in lent you're not going to be using that anymore. But there's also this fact that you've got loads of grains and you've got loads of dough and spices and you know things like that more like um, they, they also have to be eaten up, uh, but sometimes they would clash, like you know those kind of flavours. So there's a sense in which you use up the grain first, and partly that's because you'll start to get the first fruits of grain and everything quite soon, so you'll be getting new grain. So you've got to get rid of old grain for kind of a different reason, less about just we're going to be fasting in the future and partly just we've got to make space because we'll have this new grain, so we've got to eat the old stuff up. So there's space.
Speaker 2:And so that has a, as we think about the church calendar, that has a real kind of meaning, because when Jesus is describing the end of the world, he very often describes it in a harvest kind of analogy, like the end of the harvest where it's like we're picking everything clean, everything's got to be gathered up now, so that happens in like September sort of time really, and that's why we celebrate Michaelmas. Then I think we've covered Michaelmas.
Speaker 1:We'll do more on Michaelmas. I think yeah. So when?
Speaker 2:we think about theaelmas. Oh, we'll do more on michaelmas, I think, yeah, yeah, so that when we think about the church year and we think about that, that informs how we eat, and how we eat informs our theology. So we've got that, that. You have all this grain kind of taken in at that point, ready for winter, where there'll be no food for a while. So you're meant to store up loads, but then when it comes to spring, it's like, well, there's some new stuff coming in, and then that's got this new creation feeling where like we get rid of the old and we're getting in the new so the idea is you've got all this, lots of grain based things that were stored up to get you through the winter, or there's the meat kind of idea of carnival.
Speaker 1:So it's these things, the old stuff, that gets us through the winter, and the idea is let's use all that up because we're about to get new stuff. Is that the idea?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, definitely, and and particularly with candlemas um, the prophet simeon gives this prophecy about the rising and falling of many. So, like, when Jesus comes, loads of stuff gets torn down and then loads of little stuff that we because there's that idea everything that can be shaken will be shaken. But we'll be surprised to find what Jesus isn't going to shake, because he says you know a bruised reed I'm not going to destroy. But we'd think, if something's coming and it's going to shake everything, it's the bruised reed that's going to get destroyed. But Jesus is the opposite and there'll be loads of stuff that's little and weak and he'll raise that up instead.
Speaker 2:So there's a sense in which this, when old things are gotten rid of and new things are brought in we're thinking about the new creation, when Jesus kind of initiates this thing and then he'll do a kind of final rising and falling. But simeon kind of says just, uh, in a bit over a month after jesus is born, and he sees jesus and he says, really what jesus does is raise up humble things and destroys mighty things. That's kind of who jesus is. He's the guy who does that.
Speaker 1:The rising and falling of many so they so the in the so candle must, because it's marking a transition from the old food get and then moving towards springtime foods.
Speaker 1:It is a transition the the whole point of it is it is to is to have a feeling or an experience of transition from old to new, and because Jesus himself is all about this transition from old to new and so it's a way of challenge to us.
Speaker 1:When I was young and worked in a greengrocer's store the greengrocer stores that we had back then there was a very strong sense of seasonality to food and certain vegetables and things were available at some time of the year and not at all at other times of the year.
Speaker 1:You still get that a little bit with things like broad beans which like a new potatoes, but basically speaking, we kind of live with exactly the same food all year round because it's we live in where the food is produced very unnaturally and brought from around the world. But I can remember when there was very much a sense of these are foods that are now and they're available for a time and then they're not available and very much, like so many of these Christian festivals, are based in a kind of much more natural cycle of life where you do need to like. In the, the bible, you store up the grains for the until the springtime. But most of the most humans throughout most of history, have lived that cycle, so they it's not that they artificially need to like experience an old ending and a new beginning at springtime. That is, in fact, how they experience life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And so some people have this idea where, like right now you've got time and change and things and then in the new creation then there'll be no more changes of stuff and so there'll be no time. And often people who like that they look at verse and revelation there'll be no time. And they're often people who like that, they look at verse in Revelation, there'll be no time. And so then they're like, look, nothing will change anymore.
Speaker 2:But if they really read all of Revelation and all the kind of apocalyptic stuff in the Bible, they'll see that actually every month becomes its own season. And we see that when the tree of life is described, you know every month that it totally changes what fruits on it. So like there's a different season every single month. So far from there being no change and no time, in the new creation there's far more of it. And like we already kind of see how that's possible, like right now, if, if you go to like the arctic or the equator, then you sometimes get like two seasons or maybe even one, whereas then if you go a bit towards the middle you know the um, middle areas between those two then you kind of get four seasons maybe.
Speaker 2:So we already know how life can be with different amounts of seasons, and so that kind of helps us to imagine what will be like when there's one new one every month at least. I mean, you know, maybe that will end up being even more, who knows? But, um, yeah, so jesus is really about that kind of always and he'll continue to be in the new creation, all about like all right, we've had all this, let's get a new batch of stuff in, uh, but he'll do it every month now and then you. So at the moment he lets us have like six months doing one season, or maybe three, depending where we are. But then he's thinking, no, we've got to ramp it up, we've got to have more time, more seasons, more of this going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to kind of live in harmony with our natural environment and to experience the coming and going of crops and foods and things. The Lord's designed us like that and seems to want us to kind of ground ourselves very much in that. And the Christian liturgical year has that built into it to help us live in a way that reflects the seasons. And that's one of the great things about candlemas it's, I notice, in the book you talk about it's being filled with springtime foods and I like the idea that Candlemas is often for sweet tooth people and Carnival. Both Candlemas and Carnival are effectively doing the same thing. Let's use up the old and bring in the new. But Carnival is for Carnivores and is more, I guess, savoury in that way, meats, and so if you run Carnival in your candlemas you can either go more meats heavy or more of the sweets, because so many of the recipes that are outlined in the book are very sweet things.
Speaker 1:Um, and this idea of preparing for lent and using up things for lent and then then just give us a quick um, just because I know most of us know what lent's all about. But can you just like quickly summarize why, people, what's? Why would you want to have less food going into lent. What's the challenge of lent? You don't need to give us a big thing on it, but just to give people a general sense of what. Why christians for like thousands of years and they have this idea of let's use up all our food.
Speaker 2:As we enter lent so there is a strong idea, as we thought, how the whole church year is about the life of j. There's a strong sense in which we want to imitate Jesus. So there is that sense in which there's things Jesus does that we can't do. But then even the cross, which is the ultimate thing he does, we can't do. He does say you do have to take up your cross and follow me.
Speaker 2:And so when Jesus then begins his ministry by going off into the wilderness and fasting, and so he does it much more intensely than we can ever do and face down the devil and defeats him, and so we can't quite do that, but we certainly can fast, we can do everything we can do to imitate him. So right from the Didache, you know, we have people encouraged to do this, to imitate Christ as much as is possible. And then you know fasting has to be this key part of it. And so the church year at that time, as we've thought before, it, would start on Lady Day, which you know, so that's in spring. And so there's this idea where, as we kick off our year, we start how Jesus decided to start his ministry.
Speaker 1:And this idea then, of that Jesus, of course, does a very, very strict 40-day fast, presumably just water, though not necessarily like Moses does, no food or water for 80 days by the power of the spirit. But there's Jesus Really it's not food and that some Christians do that in Lent they tend to fast the whole of it. Others might have one meal a week, or some of us may just say, and we'll, we'll reduce our diet to something much simpler throughout lens, and so we might do an episode. Well, we might get a book on lent uh from pj at some point, who knows um, but that's, that's what the preparation is.
Speaker 1:And here's candlemas using up. Now. Then, um, what I would like us to look at and we may have to save this for the next episode to look at the specific recipes and foods and regional variations that come for Candlemas. Let me just ask this, so that we let's save the actual foods and recipes to the next episode. But this concept of just the concept of candles, lighting the candles at this time, what would be, do you think? Because, like, churches still retain the use of candles a lot? Is that like rooted in this theology of candles, like, why do churches carry on using candles so much?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. There's so much meaning in it and so, um, one of the key things that started it was it was a way of like illuminating a place without having much kind of um smoke or like a kind of without you don't have to have a big fire or a torch or something. Yeah, and even even an oil-based thing might give off something like that, whereas there's something about beeswax where it basically gives off nothing. So that was considered like. So there's kind of a health and safety thing.
Speaker 1:It's a practical, it's a safe way of illuminating a building.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there is that. But then, as we thought, there's so much theology to do with beeswax and with honey and with bees and you know, um, and definitely very christmassy um. But then, uh, just that idea where it's like, when we're getting our light, we want to get it from something that has some kind of meaning with it, so we might at some point, you know, think about going back to tallow candles or like the things like that, um, for that meaning of like something's got to die in order to illuminate us. And then we think, wow, it's got to be jesus, really, um. But then we also, you know, beeswax and there's a sense in which it keeps this apiary profession alive. And one thing, like, when we look at um ethiopian orthodox monks, they will often set up an apiary as a part of what's an apiary?
Speaker 2:well, a place for looking after bees, yep um. So they will set up an apiary, sometimes in the desert, and then everything blooms around them and they fight back the kind of desertification. And we see where places had been christian once, like when, when Augustine describes where he lived in his time, it's totally verdant, totally green all over, and then over time it's become desertified. Under Islam, also under French industrialization, they deforested a lot and things like that, whereas we see a total. So that's like enlightenment and Islam don't have this same respect for beings, I suppose.
Speaker 1:Or nature, but neither the enlightenment nor Islam have any theology of creation. Really, Both of them are very negatively positioned towards the natural world and the kind of cycle of seasons or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Both are attempting to dominate them rather than live in harmony with yeah, definitely, and so that led to this exploitation of forests and everything, and so the Sahara has grown massively under their watch. But then these Ethiopians, when they set up kind of apiaries and they're looking after bees, then of course the bees go out and they continue spreading life. So, and there's a way in which, if you decide to think, all right, we know this helps loads of stuff, it helps other people, it helps the, you know, even the environment and things. Try and buy things and live in a way that you know that we in debt ourselves to each other in such a way that that's going to start helping each other. That we do think about everything we do has to be helpful to each other.
Speaker 2:That, um, you know, and like I was thinking about that verse in um acts where, like it says and that everything, they didn't consider anything only theirs. So it's that word, edios, which means alone. They never considered it theirs alone. It has to help everyone else. So you can't just think, oh, I'm just going to do this, I'm just going to have this, this is just going to help me. Christians can't do that, because you think about the persons of the Trinity. There are things particular to them, there's things that the spirit is kind of light, that the sun isn't, and all of that, but none of that's alone. In a sense, everything that the spirit has that we don't kind of see the sun doing, all of that helps the sun and the father and all of that. So we're never alone, even if there's something kind of particular or owned by us. And so we have to think that way and I think what to him to bring that around to candles?
Speaker 2:why that's helpful candles is we think I'm not just gonna light something with electricity, because that's really helpful and really quick easy, yeah, easy yeah, because that means we get fewer bees, that means we get less honey and that means the Sahara Desert has grown and causes all kinds of mayhem.
Speaker 1:I agree there are like massive consequences to modern living. That it is easy, but there are huge unintended consequences to the cycle of life and a pattern of life. Life and a pattern of life. And somehow the fact that churches continue with candles is actually has kind of very deep significance and it's a kind of testimony to a way of life that we've forgotten but we may yet rediscover.