First Sunday after Christmas
Luke 2:22-40
December 28, 2008

Nunc Dimittis

Her name was Anna. Some folks called her a prophet, and others, less pious, called her "that crazy old woman who comes to the temple every day." In fact, Luke says, she lived in the temple, day and night, fasting and praying around the clock. She was a member of an elite group of widows who spent their lives in prayer and doing good works. She was 84 years old – which for those days was very old indeed.

She made quite a racket on the day Mary and Joseph came to the temple for Mary to offer the sacrifice of purification and to present their six-week-old son Jesus to the Lord. Anna threw up her arthritic arms, and her voice cracked like a wounded accordion as she began to praise God for showing her "the redemption of Jerusalem," the very sight she had been praying and fasting for all those long years.

At last, she could go in peace.

His name was Simeon. Luke doesn’t say how old he was, or what he did for a living. Lots of people assume he was as old as Anna – and that he was a priest in the temple. The text doesn’t actually say that. It just says that he was righteous and devout, that he was looking forward to the "consolation of Israel," and that the Holy Spirit rested upon him. I don’t know why people therefore assume he was a priest. In those days, as in ours, ordination was no guarantee of any of those things.

It had been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would see someone before he saw his own death: the Lord's Messiah. Luke says that it was also the Holy Spirit who tapped him on the shoulder that day and told him to hot-foot it over to the temple where the promise would come true. I can see the old geezer dodging traffic and shouting "Out of my way!" to pedestrians as he shuffles as fast as he can to meet his destiny.

When he gets to the temple, the place is as crowded as usual. The rich folks are making their sacrifices of lambs and the poor folks their sacrifices of doves or pigeons. I wonder whether Simeon began to search amongst the lamb-offerers, or whether the Spirit led him right away to the coarse clothes and awkward manners of the carpenter and his wife.

He watched as they gave the priest the offering for Mary's purification and presented the boy for a blessing. Perhaps it was the fourth such ritual for the priest that day. Perhaps it was the twelfth. Whatever the case, the priest must not have seen in that child anything like what Simeon saw, or else he would have said something.

The old man rushed up to Mary and asked to hold the child Jesus in his arms. Who knows what moved her to hand her baby over to this stranger? Perhaps it was the glint in his eye. Perhaps it was the way the wrinkles in his face arranged themselves into a smile. Perhaps it was the way he seemed to be looking past her, looking up, seeing something she was just beginning to ponder in her heart.

She handed over her son, blessed at his birth with the song of angels and the visit of shepherds, blessed forty days later by the priest, and now, for the first time, the means of blessing.

"Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word, the old man prayed, "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 the glory of your people Israel."

Luke says Simeon spoke these words, but is wasn't long before the church was singing them. The Nunc Dimittis, this song has come to be called, the "Now Dismissed." It is the song of those who see the world with a glint in their eyes, who look up from the child in this old man's arms to a cross on a hill far away, and see in them both a promise kept, a freedom won, a peace bestowed.

I suggested on the first Sunday of Advent that we should let the culture have its Christmas – and for the most part, it has. Already the lights are coming down and the carols have ceased in the shopping malls.

For those in this room, however, Christmas has just begun, for there is more to Simeon's blessing than these words of thanks for the special favor God has shown him by showing him this child. In fact, his words to Mary are as much curse as blessing: "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 . . ." Then, lifting his piercing eyes to Mary, he tells her, "and a sword will pierce you own soul too."

This is the rest of Simeon's prophecy, the rest of the story, the part of Christmas that annually goes unacknowledged by the culture of conspicuous consumption and even more conspicuous avoidance of the truth. The peace this child brings comes with a price: a sword will pierce his side, and nails his hands, and the pain Mary bore in bearing him will be nothing compared with the pain of seeing her little boy grown up and stapled to a cross.

Christmas leads to Good Friday, and Good Friday to Easter. That's why the world is finished with Christmas as it knows it, and that's why you and I are here.

The Shelter on Tennessee Street is back to normal. Its phone will not be ringing off the hook now with offers to do "something special" for the 200 or so folks who sleep there every night. No need for that now. Christmas is over.

The state legislature is gearing up for a session of belt-tightening. Don’t look for talk in 2009 of expanding services to the least prosperous of our neighbors. Don’t look for more money spent on children’s programs to honor the child of Bethlehem. No need for that kind of talk now. Christmas is over.

The prisoners on Florida’s Death Row sit in their 6 x 9 cells and wait for the Governor’s to sign a new batch of death warrants. No fear of a public opinion backlash now. Christmas is over.

But it's not, is it? The story of the Christ child isn't over. It's just begun, and it looks as though you and I are the ones God has chosen to tell it.

God's love for the world doesn't stop on December 25^th, or when the lights on Park Avenue are extinguished, or when the city maintenance crews stop wearing those funny red hats. It doesn't stop at the cell doors on death row, or at the gurney were some other mother's child will be strapped and pierced.

The sword that pierced Mary's soul is still piercing the souls of mothers and fathers. It's the sword of revenge, the sword of hate, the sword that masquerades as justice. It's the sword of authority that refuses to submit to God's word made flesh in Mary's boy.

Christmas is not over. The incarnation of God's love for the world is not finished. There is still light to shed, good news to tell, truth to speak to power, but we can go in peace because we have seen the salvation of the Lord.

And if our vision of that salvation should grow dim, we can look to Anna, or Simeon, or some other prophet whose name has not yet been revealed to us, to open our eyes and grant us peace.

 

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