The temple in Jerusalem stood high upon the hill, visible from every angle, a beacon of holiness for the travelers who arrived daily from the hill country. Between those who came intending to make an offering, those who wanted to sit amongst the scripture specialists debating religious laws, or those who came, as Mary and Joseph did, to present their first-born child to God, the sacred space was filled with people. There were money changers, pigeon sellers, scholars, and priests.
Simeon did not fit any of those categories and yet he was as just as familiar. Decades earlier he had been a driving force in temple activities. Let’s imagine he was the one who organized the ushers, chaired the stewardship team, recruited the volunteers needed for festival days, and a served as a regular on the lay reader rotation. Now he was white-haired, wrinkled, and stooped over. The limitations of his body had not damped his anticipation for the long-awaited Messiah, the years of faithful efforts had nurtured God’s vision within him. Each day Simeon came to the temple, wandered around the outer rooms while he prayed, sang, took in the incense and the priests’ choruses, and watched the parents arrived, proudly holding their infants. Each life spoke hope for God’s future.
Mary and Joseph already have traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, guided Jesus into the world, and entertained shepherds at the manger. As devout Jews, they have taken their son at 8 days of age to be circumcised and spoken the name given by the angel: He shall be called Jesus. Now several weeks later, they have traveled again, this time to Jerusalem, up the rise to the temple, and purchased their two pigeons to be sacrificed at the presentation, for they could not afford a lamb.
Simeon spots the couple with their child immediately. Here is the child for which I have been waiting, he cries. How does he sense the truth? Is it the sure, steadiness of the mother? The tender protectiveness of the father? Is it their poverty, offering just the two birds? Or is in the baby himself? Does light emanant from him, stars shine from Jesus’s eyes? Luke makes it clear this is not a chance encounter, but, as William Herzog says, an appointment made by the Holy Spirit between an old, ever-hoping elder and the newly born Messiah. The servant of God could lay down the mantel of his waiting, having seen God’s promise fulfilled.
As Simeon sings a blessing to the baby and his parents, Anna overhears the rejoicing. She, too, is a familiar figure in the temple, more familiar that Simeon because she lived there with the hallowed walls. A widow who has found a home in God’s house, Anna spends her days praying, singing, fasting, and praising God. She, too, cradles the baby, sings to Jesus a blessing, and knows within her the peace of God’s promised arrival. Anna’s rejoicing spills over to others at the temple; for news such as this cannot be contained. Here is the child, God-with-us, for which we all have been waiting.
I wonder what it meant to two exhausted, overwhelmed, new parents to have their child receive such a welcome in God’s house. Every child deserves the rejoicing Jesus receives. Rev. David Steele imagines Simeon cradled every infant coming for a temple dedication and blessed each of them. Steele envisions Simeon holding up the babies and “proclaiming to them . . . you are the saviors of the world.” What might happen, he asks, if “that type of blessing sunk in and babies born today and tomorrow lived it, loved in this way and changed the world?”1
For Mary and Joseph, the words are a confirmation of what the angel Gabriel told Mary, what Elizabeth affirmed when Mary arrived to her house, and what the shepherds relied of the angels’ message when they came to the manger. This child is God. Simeon’s words add depth to the praise, for he names the pain that will accompany their parenting. There is great cost to partnering to bring God into the world.
What enables Simeon and Anna to recognize Jesus? That is the question lingering for me. Since the Incarnation affirms that Jesus is an ordinary baby, a fully human child, then the older prophets’ awareness that Christ child has come was not gained by his outward appearance. Truth emerged from inner wisdom; a spiritual sensitivity born of prayer, listening, worshiping, and life within a community of faith. Patience came as God did God’s slow, deep work. Prayer, listening, worshiping, singing, life amongst faithful friends. Doing this, year after year, decade after decade builds up spirituality wisdom. Then, when the time is right, the Spirit makes the appointment and one does see Jesus, cradled in one’s arms.
Have you experienced such a blessed moment . . . when the prayers, hymns, waiting and the hoping have given birth to Jesus appearing along your path?
· I recall Sunday morning drives to the church where I interned in seminary after rising before others in my apartment to get ready, resting in the quiet of the morning drive, finding that the hope-filled prayers I lifted were met with a growing sense that God was at work.
· Or I recall a Christmas home from college, when the candles lit at the Christmas Eve service welcomed me back onto a community that had sheltered me and the particular brilliance with which they shone made yet another claim on my life, This claim was a mantle of blessing and a call to Christ’s costly life.
Anna and Simeon are witnesses for us of the rhythms involved in noticing Jesus; worship, prayer, trust in God’s promises, patience; tending to the hope within us that God is here.
As the New Year beckons, it is an apt time to affirm the blessing of Jesus’s presence among us and the blessings Christ brings by welcoming us as God’s children. Today can be a day to recommit ourselves to nurturing the Spirit’s movement within our lives. I invite you in the moments of silence that will follow to contemplate these questions:
· What testimony can you offer to God’s faithfulness from the year about to be completed?
· How has the light of Christ shone for you and through you?
· What prayers do you have for the future, a future held in God’s promises?
May the year ahead be filled with the blessings of God’s accompanying Spirit. May Jesus bring to you a light upon your path and the joy of his claiming love. Amen.