I am not a traditionalist in some things as you can probably imagine. The traditional way to write a sermon is to find your biblical text, write the sermon and then pick the title. I work a bit backwards; I come up with the title, find the text and then write the sermon. Sometimes that gets me into a bit of trouble as you can well imagine. In some ways that was the case here. I thought I would find tons of research material on Simeon. But I came to find there were only a bit written about dear Simeon and only a bit more about Mary.
In a sermon written by Gwyn Walters in the prose style of an iambic parameter, it begins…
“We’ve had a baby,” says the parents proud,
With mingles sense of wonder, gratitude
And hopes and deep responsibility
Though young or old or married or unwed
We all may of our Savior say,
“To us a child is ours,” and likewise
A mingles sense of wonder, gratitude
And hope and deep responsibility.
I remember the sense of pride, wonderment, awe of giving birth to my first child, and of course the pain. Patrick was born 6 weeks premature. And due to birth complications for both of us, I was not able to see him till the next day. They brought him to me in a preemie incubator, all bundled up and safe and as they took him out to hand him to me, and I didn’t see a round faced chubby baby. Patrick was long and skinny and wrinkled. He looked like a very tiny wizened old man. He wasn’t the prettiest baby there was but he was mind and I thought at that very moment and every moment since that he was beautiful.
Patrick was born 2 days before my grandfather’s 69th birthday. For me it was very important that my grandparents, two very important people in my life, meet there first great grandson. When Pat and I were released from the hospital we were some pair. I could barely walk erect due to my Caesarean section stitches and Patrick this tiny scrawny baby with very little body fat looking like a 3rd world refugee child. But on our arrival home our first two visitors were my grandparents. My grandfather without hesitation picked up this child and held him and said, “He’s beautiful.” He then grabbed Pat’s tiny hand and said to him, “What’s up Charlie Brown?” In the years my grandfather was alive he and Pat shared a few birthday parties together. And till the day that my grandfather died, Patrick was Charlie.
Now step back with me to 2000 years ago. See the aged man moving slowly up the temple steps, pausing occasionally to rest. He has felt moved by the spirit to go into the temple courts. This wasn’t Simeon’s normal time to come to the temple but he felt moved to be there, beckoned if you will. He felt that he had to be at the temple that day.
The temple steps were a busy place for buyers and sellers of sacrifices. Beggars camped out on the steps, crying out, “Alms, alms, and alms for the poor!” The students and scholars scurried to and fro some coming to learn, some coming to teach all with the harried intellectual look. Then there were the people who came to make sacrifices. The sellers crying out they had the purest lambs and doves; the baaing of the lambs, the cooing and startled cries of the doves. The buyers looking at the animals and trying to quite the children and babes they held onto, soft murmurs and noises of comfort. Can you feel the chaos, can you hear the noise, can you sense it?
Simeon was no stranger to the temple, to the coming and goings of the people, the rituals of the courtyard. When suddenly a couple with a small babe catches his eye. They are like so many other couples there that day that have come to purify the mother and consecrate a child to God after the birth.
In Mosaic Law the woman was unclean for 33 days after childbirth, after which she made a burnt offering and a sin offering for her cleansing. If you were rich you could sacrifice lambs but if you were poor you sacrificed pigeons or doves. Simeon had probably seen them on the temple step as they were purchasing their doves.
Simeon feels drawn to this couple; he feels the Lord’s spirit drawing him near. And suddenly the dawning, the realization comes to him. The small family approaches him to do for them what the custom of the law required. Simeon takes the small child in his arms, the small babe. And he must have been amazed at what he held and what he was feeling at that time. For he knew, knew to his very marrow, that this baby he held was the Messiah, he had no doubts whatsoever about this at all, he knew what he held. The Holy Spirit had told Simeon that he would not die till he saw the Messiah, the one promised by the prophets, with hs own eyes.
As he holds this precious child, he prays the prayer that we read in verse 29-32:
Sovereign Lord,
As you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace
For my eyes have seen your salvation
Which you have prepared in the sight of all people
A light for the revelation to the Gentiles
And for the glory to your people Israel.
What an awesome prayer. Simeon knew what he saw; he knew that he had felt the Spirit call him that day. He knew he could now die knowing that the promise had been fulfilled. His eyes have seen the salvation. And he had held that salvation in his arms. The old saying “seeing is believing” comes to mind. But not only did he see but also he knew. He knew because he was open to the Holy Spirit. Simeon must have felt incomprehensible joy at the knowledge that the promised Messiah was here. He had an epiphany; he saw the grace of God.
In the book, “Let Us Break Bread Together” by Fred Daniel Gealy, he writes,
“The word Epiphany is a great Christian word. The grace of God has appeared is the testimony of every page in the New Testament. My eyes have seen God has not just shown himself in the past; nor is his coming simply some far-off divine event. That the one who manifested himself to the fathers is here. The coming one has come. The light shines. And in the presence of this revelation we see ourselves as we are in our true relations to the world, to one another, and to God. In showing himself to us, God shows us ourselves. Light is not to look at but to see by.”
Let me repeat that my friends, “light is not to look at but to see by.” Simeon did not look at Jesus, he saw Jesus. He saw in his arms the shining light. He saw the beauty of the future. But as much rejoicing as Simeon felt he also had a message to give to Mary, the child’s mother.
I can imagine that Simeon’s eyes were tearful in the love for the Messiah, this child he held; the joy that he felt as he held the Messiah. But I also imagine that they were tinged with sadness as he said to the child’s mother, Mary, ”this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
As a mother, as a parent, we want to protect our children. Simeon said a beautiful prayer to God and then gave a strange blessing. What must have Mary and Joseph thought. They knew they had a special child. They knew he was like no other but he was just a child a mere babe. He cried when he was hungry, he cried to be fed and changed. He grabbed fingers and suckled his own. This mere child would change the world. Did they fully understand the heartache to come?
Did they know the hostility he would endure? The persecution? The hatred by some…the love of so many. Did Mary know that she would have to watch her firstborn die upon a cross…mocked and belittled by soldiers?
Our first desire as parents is to protect our children. Kiss away their hurts, sooth them when they are ill, protect them from harm. The hardest sorrow in life is to lose a child to death. Jesus had told Mary and the disciples that he would return. Did they or Mary fully understand what Jesus meant? Mary knew as her child grew, what he was, what he was destined to become. Did she always remember? When Jesus was out playing with his friends, doing his chores, as he helped Joseph in the workshop; did she forget that this child doing ordinary everyday things had an extraordinary birth and future? Not until Jesus was in his 30’s did he take up the mantle of his destiny. Remember Jesus took upon himself the full weight of humanity.
From manger to a cross; Mary, she holds our attention as the young mother. But she was more; she was the mother who lost her 12 year old son and when they found him, he was teaching the teachers. What an awakening that must have been; a true reality check.
When Nicholas, my youngest son was little, he got lost in a department store. He had been with me and I became engrossed in looking at cleaning products he wandered off in search of something less boring that scrub brushes, mops and bathroom cleaners. I looked up and could not find him, and then I began the frantic search. I looked and looked and then hit panic mode. When suddenly I hear across the loudspeaker, “Will Nicholas’s mother please come to the courtesy desk?” When I arrived there I asked why he had gotten lost. And with his big eyes and sweet faces, he says, “Mama, I wasn’t lost, I knew where I was, you just didn’t.” That must have been what Mary felt. Jesus wasn’t lost. He knew exactly where he was, she was the one who didn’t know or understand.
Then when Jesus was in his 30’s and attending a wedding in Caiman with his family, he turned water into wine. All Mary said to her son, was we are out of wine. She knows, he knows. And he says to her that it is not time. But she knew. In here heart she knew it was the time.
When Jesus was betrayed and it was found that he was to be crucified; did Mary recall Simeon’s words, “and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.” To see a child suffer to any degree is painful; from a small hurt, to a serious injury, to a deathbed. But to see your child so cruelly punished, tortured, and hung upon the cross; oh how her heart must have been breaking. She must have felt the sword piercing her heart. As a mother you want to take away your child’s pain and suffering. And Mary, Mary knew she could not. From the wood of the manger to the wood of the cross, Christ had a destiny to be fulfilled. When the final words emanated from him and he said, “It is finished”. I cannot imagine her pain and her grief. Did those words from Simeon echo in her mind and heart again, “And a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”
Awe but dear ones, this is not a sad story, please listen. We have a child who was born in a lowly manger, died upon a cross and then he arose after 3 days. That is when the real tears had to flow, when the realizations came to life. This child that she had born, that she had raised and ha kissed his boo-boos better, that she had hugged and wiped away tears, that she had watched to grow to manhood and to fulfill a destiny, a destiny she did not fully understand, had risen from the dead. He had risen not to go home to her in Nazareth but to go home to his Father in Heaven.
Simeon listened and was open to the words of the Spirit and to the promises of the future. He was able to see what he so much desired; the babe, the Messiah. Mary gave her heart for this child, she gave birth to it and let it go and be the world’s hope.
At Christmas time we celebrate the birth, at Easter his death and resurrection. But it’s neither one season nor the other that makes the year complete. It’s the knowledge of his birth, death, and resurrection that makes us complete. That gives us hope.
Simeon’s eyes and Mary’s heart; a physical and emotional path. They say that there are people who are tangible and those who are emotional and with the story of Simeon and Mary we see both. But Simeon and Mary had a common bond. They were both open to the Holy Spirit and God’s guidance. They were able to listen and to see. As we too can.
They were able to listen so that they then were able to see and feel the presence of Christ. George W. Truett said, “Christ was born in the 1st Century, yet he belongs to all centuries, he was born a Jew, yet he belongs to all races. He was born in Bethlehem, yet he belongs to all countries.” He belongs to all countries, all people, and he comes to us.
As we come off the glow of the Christmas Holiday and we look forward to the New Year, what are your plans? Will you throw away the holiday feeling like you threw away the wrapping paper that adorned your gifts? Or will you hold onto the feeling and cherish the holidays and make it lasts long after the lights are off the tree? Can you, will you open your hearts to Jesus? Is there a voice speaking to you now telling you that Jesus is there waiting for you? Open your eyes and open your hearts to Jesus. As Simeon blessed him as Mary cared for him, he is waiting to bless and care for us. Come to him as child with eyes and heart open wide. Come to him to be blessed and to be loved.
