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Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Psalm 148
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:22-40
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Blessings are a glorious gift, both to give and to receive. The book of Numbers has this blessing given by the Lord to Moses to give to Aaron to give to the nation of Israel :
“The LORD bless you
and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace.” [1]
This peace from the Lord ends with the coda “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” So lovely, so wonderful, so glorious—the Lord’s words blessing you with the warmth and glow of his radiance shining; the promise of the Lord’s face turning toward you and giving you peace. The blessing, the very words of the Lord coming down and showing favor. Now that’s a blessing.
Sure, it comes from the Lord to Moses to Aaron to Israel , so they weren’t the first to get the word, but the word is meant for them, they are the people of the Lord. That’s the great priestly blessing of the Lord.
As much as it is a joy to bless, this is a blessing we cannot give on our own. This glorious blessing comes from the Lord alone and I say “Amen, thanks be to God!”
But let’s face it; in this day and time, in this economy, with political unrest not just outside the country but within our great nation, given what we know about this world and even scarier what we don’t know; some days the blessings are harder to find. The blessings are often hidden in the sin and sorrow of the world.
In this vein, let’s make something perfectly clear. Luke’s gospel, the source of our reading this morning, has no mention of the magi or their gifts. What it does have is Mary and Joseph offering either a pair of doves or two young pigeons as a sacrifice at the temple for the presentation and consecration of their son. Not a ram nor goat nor sheep nor calf, Mary and Joseph offer two small birds according to the Law of Moses.
We could say that the clinic has a sliding scale and they paid what they could afford.
This sliding scale meant the same thing then as it does now; the parents of our Lord and savior were very poor. There was no gold or frankincense or myrrh to offer at the temple. There was just enough copper in the coffers for them to make those zigzag trips across the Judean plain to make their sacrifice.
Those of you who are parents know about the sudden expenses that come with having children. Imagine being poor and having those expenses. Poverty makes everything in this life more difficult. I know for a fact that for some of us, that difficulty doesn’t take a leap to imagine. From experience you know exactly how the Holy Family was doing financially.
Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and speaker in the mid to late 19th century, said this about blessings:
If one should give me a dish of sand and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my eyes and search for them with my clumsy fingers and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it and now would it draw to itself the almost invisible particles by the mere power of attraction.
The unthankful heart, like my fingers in the sand, discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find in every hour, some heavenly blessings.[2]
The temple had its regulars and its residents, one regular was named Simeon. Simeon was a righteous and devout man “waiting for the consolation of Israel .” This could be translated that he was “looking forward to the exhortation of Israel ,” but the New Living Translation takes a different tack. It says that he “was eagerly waiting for the messiah to come and rescue Israel .” I often say all translation is interpretation, and this one is a little far out as interpretation of the language goes, but it is spot-on as an interpretation of the situation.
Simeon’s blessing was the first heard by Mary and Joseph. Scripture tells us Simeon took Jesus in his arms and praised God, saying:
“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel .”
Scripture then tells us “The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him.”
Sometimes scripture has a wonderful sense of understatement, and after what had come to pass for Mary and Joseph over the past year, and especially over the past eight days, in my humble opinion “marveled” would be a start to describe how I felt. “Shock” would be a turn in the right direction. “Awestruck” would be closer but as for me I want a word that has a little more fear in it.
The other blessing at the temple came from the prophetess Anna. She finds the Messiah too. Where Simeon was led to the temple by the word of the Holy Spirit, Anna was all ready at the temple. Anna had spent the last sixty-four years in the temple in prayer and fasting. As a widow, without mention of children, she would have no other recourse than to go to temple and receive a portion of the widow’s share of the offering.
When she saw the baby Jesus, she saw more than just a newborn. Anna took the Lord in her arms and shared him with all who were at the temple looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem
She acted in accord with Isaiah’s words, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem Zion
Paul tells us God walks the earth so that we might become sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty. We are no longer slaves but heirs to the Kingdom of God
Then again, as glorious as these blessings are, they come with something more. The blessing Simeon shares with Mary and Joseph is followed by a foreboding prophesy, “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.”
If you want to read between the lines, “falling and rising of many in Israel ” can be read as a foreshadowing. Being raised is another way to think of the crucifixion. This could be a prophecy of Christ’s life and death, and the lives and deaths of his apostles and disciples too. It also speaks to the grief of a mother losing her child in one of the most horrible ways the empire could devise.
Oh yes, Jesus, Mary and Joseph are blessed, but there is more. There is knowledge that along with great blessing, life will not be all wonder and glory. With life in a sinful world, God Incarnate, the Lord’s Christ will suffer and with him his people. Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel , the exhortation of Israel , he was eagerly waiting for the messiah to come and rescue Israel , but he also knew that with glory would come mourning. It’s the ultimate party killer of a blessing. Yes, you are blessed and you are a blessing in a cursed world.
So here is the truth that the Simeon shares, the salvation of the Lord’s Messiah has come to walk among us. God’s greatest blessing to humanity, the presence, the face of God is here now. There can be no greater blessing than this, Emmanuel, God is with us. Yet, in the midst of this blessing there is something sinister. God is with us and there will continue to be suffering. God will be one who suffers too.
How can we possibly imagine this? The Almighty God comes to earth and this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel . God will be with us and God will be spoken against revealing the thoughts and motives of many. The Lord our God will even cause his own mother pain. Stereotypically the greatest fear of any Jewish Mother is that her son will cause her pain like a sword piercing her soul.
As great is the blessing so too as deep is the sorrow and pain.
Now and not yet, this is the way many theologians describe the coming and the blessing of the Lord. Yes, the Lord is with us. Yes our God was born, lived, was crucified, dead and was buried; and on the third day he rose again from the dead. The blessing has come, but pain will still be painful—even in the light of the blessing. Grief will still be harsh, even in the light of the blessing of the Lord.
This is our position in the world. Death has been conquered. Jesus lives! And pain still hurts. The pain and indignity of poverty experienced by the holy family still exists today. In a country where the greatest lie we can believe is that “we” are just like the rich and “they” are just like us, there is wealth beyond imagination and poverty beyond belief. This is true. Yet the words of Rabbi Abraham Heschel ring out in truth, “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”[3] This is the cry of the prophetess Anna.
Anna doesn’t worry about her poverty. She has been without the general protections of her society since she was about twenty years old. Now, sixty-five years later, living in the temple so that she will have some protection, she finds her Lord, our Lord, and rejoices. She doesn’t worry any more about her position because she knows her savior lives. She sees life like the glass is no longer broken, but filled with living water:
It's all holy ground if we look with spiritual eyes.
It's all holy tastes if we eat with a spiritual mouth.
It's all holy sound if we hear with spiritual ears.
It's all holy smells if we breathe with a spiritual nose.
It's all holy territory if we have a spiritual touch.
Everything is holy if we feel with our spiritual heart.[4]
The truth that Anna shares is that even in a world where there is pain and strife, holy life is enough. Yes there will be pain. There will be sorrow. There will be heartache. There will be poverty. There will be injustice. But it is with those who writhe in pain, cry in sorrow, are broken by heartache, muddled in poverty, and trapped by injustice—that Christ lives.
Christ lives with those who need him, not with those who rely on themselves and their wealth. This is Simeon’s first prophecy. This is Anna’s prophecy. This is our call: live into all of life, the blessings and the pain, because Christ has come to share both with us.
So now, as our Lord once blessed his people,
The LORD bless you
and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace.
Amen
[1] Numbers 6:24-26
[2] Henry Ward Beecher, found on HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1531, retrieved December 30, 2011
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid, Adapted from Jonathan Kramer and Diane Dunaway Kramer, Losing the Weight of the World: A Spiritual Diet to Nourish the Soul (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 305.
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