Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Today’s Texts: Isaiah 61:10—62:3, Psalm 148, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 2:22-40

Dear Friends in Christ, God’s grace and peace be with you. Merry Christmas!

My mother was in her 90s when my niece Amanda came to visit us in Minnesota. Mom’s dementia was slowing robbing her of her sensibility and connections with all of us. Most of the time she knew who we were, but she couldn’t always keep all of it straight. Her granddaughters may have been her nieces; her daughters were sometimes interchangeable with her sisters. She missed her parents and wondered whether we might try to schedule a visit with her great aunts and uncles. But she hadn’t lost her smile over the things she loved the most.

So when my niece carried 10-month old Everett into my parents’ living room, and placed him directly into my mother’s arms (where babies of the family inevitably ended up), her face lit up.  It’s not clear that Mom remembered exactly what a great-grandchild was, or how she was connected to this particular child, but she knew what babies needed, and how to care for them.

Holding a child gave her a sense of herself, and we glimpsed the best part of her personality for a few minutes again. The familiar ways she had spoken to all of us and to our children came right back to her, and she sang and cooed, remarking that he was clearly an exceptionally bright, perfect baby. Indeed.

We don’t know how Simeon recognized Jesus[i]. No angel chorus is described, no shimmering star in the sky proclaimed him divine. But the Spirit revealed something to Simeon that day, and he understood that his prayers had been answered. We don’t know his age, either, but he believed that he would live long enough to see God’s promises fulfilled, and something about the child convinced him that he had.

We read that Anna was 84, but she could have been well beyond that. Some of the translations imply she had lived 84 years beyond the death of her spouse, making her probably in her early 100s.

Whatever their age, when the elders encountered this child, they saw the future they had been promised. Simeon took the child Jesus in his arms, and sang a prayer of thanks and praise, affirming that he could die in peace. The fulfillment of God’s ancient promises was assured; and the baby was the proof.

I suppose all infants carry a sense of hope and promise for the future. After all, there are the obstacles involved in any pregnancy: the challenge of finding a life partner who will make raising a child a happy prospect, having the financial resources and access to healthcare allowing the chance for a safe delivery, experiencing the physical risks of pregnancy and the chances of something going wrong, and of course the trauma of labor itself.

Holding a baby after the whole ordeal is an absolute wonder – God creates life from love and offers us a glimpse of heaven. Imagining the child living into an unknown future offers its own sense of wonder and amazement. What kind of a world will the child grow up in? What new discoveries will they witness? What will the coming years provide, what new inventions, new possibilities will arise?

Today’s great-grandparents have seen the world transform so radically in their own lives, it must be a marvel to imagine what the next generations will encounter. Many also name the fears they have, as they worry about the world our youngest will inherit. The children we hold will live into a future beyond us, and will carry on in a world we will not know.

Maybe God comes as an infant because of the ways it changes the adults who care for them. Something about our interaction with babies can cause us to commit to do whatever we can to make the world right. We look into their helpless faces and pledge to repair all that is in our power to repair. We make it a goal to give them everything they’ll need.

But the older I get, the more I realize that there will be gifts I will not be able to provide. I confess that I am unable to make the world as safe or as helpful as the child will need, and I will make mistakes and miss things I could have offered along the way.

It feels like a precarious time to bring children into the world. A bizarrely warm winter; contested ballots and court decisions, atrocities of war; increasing numbers of unhoused people on our streets; lines outside of bus stations of those seeking asylum in our cities…. It all brings an ominous sense of powerlessness. Can it be safe to bring a child into this world at such a precarious time? Was it ever safe?

Simeon and Anna must have held all of these feelings, too. Simeon knows the specific dangers that Jesus will encounter. The growing tensions of the Roman occupation of Jerusalem, the gaps between the rich and the poor, the damage to holy places. He mentions that Mary’s own heart will break as she watches her child’s life unfold.

The cross of Christ is already on the horizon. Throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas, death and sorrow already woven into the text. The Feast of Stephen on the day after Christmas reminds us of the first martyrs. The Massacre of the Innocents reminds us of Herod’s ruthless fear of losing power, and his willingness to kill children to prevent it.

Simeon is not oblivious to the pain that families in his and every generation face. But rather than despair or offer a sigh of hopeless resignation, Simeon takes Mary’s child into his arms and sings. He sings for joy. He sings of revelation and consolation. In the face of this new life, the Spirit gives Simeon the assurances that Isaiah had known—comfort to the lost and least, a sense of purpose to the young and the old, a light to those on the outside, and peace not just to the powerful, but to all the world.

Anna is so convinced that she starts telling everyone who was looking for good news that this child was the gift for whom they had waited.

Simeon and Anna sing that sorrow and pain are not a sign of the absence of God’s love and glory. Rather, the God whom the prophets trust promises to break into the loss and struggle of this life. This is the actual gift of these Twelve Days. The in-breaking of the God of love, who has been part of the story all along, enters the human condition, bringing hope and goodness to life.

God breaks into our world, over and over again, in Christ, in creation, in every child born, in bread and wine, and in every moment of love, hope, justice or reconciliation.

Even as my aging mother knew, God breaks into our hazy memories, and shattered hopes, our disappointments and struggles, our losses and fears, and shines the hope of a new day into our stories. Even into precarious times. Whether we have lost the ability to name the child, or the connections we may have to him, a baby in our arms can open us to the future.

Whether we completely understand his significance, whether we worry whether his arrival will actually make a difference, or even if we have rejected the promise he may bring, there are those who will sing a lullaby to the young one. And somehow, that song may melt our own hearts.

Happy New Year, dear ones. May the Christ Child bring us hope for all that lies ahead. Thanks be to God.

[i] Luke 2:22-40