December 28, 2025 Reflection

Several years ago, my father-in-law was in the hospital. It was close to Christmas and he was close to death. He was a quiet man, and I didn’t really know him that well. But I did have one special connection. Bill, my father-in-law, was a very faithful, practicing Baptist, and I was the only church goer in the extended family. One day I was alone in the hospital room with him, feeling inadequate in the heaviness of the moment. He was unconscious and I had no idea what to say. I felt a bit like the little drummer boy…what on earth could I bring that the rest of the lovely family hadn’t already offered. And then I realized that while I didn’t have a drum, I did have my Bible, and I began to read him the story about Anna and Simeon.

It may seem weird to say, but I like doing memorial services in Advent and just after Christmas, because it gives me an excuse to reflect on this passage, which offers such hope, even when, especially when, people find themselves in the saddest times.

Anna and Simeon were two elderly people who, some 2000 years ago, spent most of their lives waiting in expectation for the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah would be the next great leader, like King David only greater. Simeon had been promised in a vision that he would not die before he saw the Messiah, and so I like to imagine that he would have lived always alert for any sign of God’s breaking into history. Anna also watched for the coming of the Son of God. She lived in the Temple until the age of 84, worshipping night and day as she waited. She always reminds me of the women of the UCW, the United Church Women’s organization, who poured out their lives caring for the church. The unending expectation of Simeon and the meticulous watchfulness of Anna offer great witness to the life of faith.

            “According to Luke, it’s now forty days after Jesus’ birth. After eight days, Jesus had been circumcised and named in accordance with Jewish law. Now, thirty-two days later, his parents are again performing their duty as faithful Jews by returning to the Temple, this time in order to offer a sacrifice and to consecrate their child to [God].

They would have been in a reverent, maybe a bit nervous mood that day, the way many parents are when their child is to be dedicated to God. I imagine then they were perhaps startled, even frightened, when Simeon, old beyond years and beaming with ecstatic revelation, comes up to them to touch the child, and then began to sing. It would be like a rather disheveled old man, a stranger to you, lurched up beside you on the bus and began to admire your baby, and then, started singing.

            However, Simeon doesn’t sing of angels and mangers, or for that matter drunken ditties, but rather he sings about letting go, of departing, of – truth be told – dying. Essentially, he says, “Thank you God. Now I can die happy.” In the infant Jesus Simeon has seen a sign that God has kept the promises made to the Israelites of old. In the baby Jesus, Simeon somehow sees that the Messiah has come, and now, he is able to accept his own death with courage, even joy. 

Up until now there have been many amazing instances of faithfulness in the book of Luke. Elizabeth and Zechariah were well into their senior years when they were told they would have a baby who would pave the way for the coming of the Messiah, and they went along with it, although Zechariah had some questions. Mary and Joseph responded to their news of impending parenthood, also with some questions, and then faithfully embracing all the risk and tumult their baby would bring. The shepherds resisted paralyzing fear and dropped everything to follow the star at the instruction of the angels. But to my mind, Simeon’s faithfulness takes the cake. At least the others had visits from angels to rely on. Without so much as a nod from a passing seraph, Simeon looks at this tiny scrap of baby and sees the salvation of the world. And then his song:

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 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 glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32) (adapted from Lauren F. Winner, December 26, 2011 By The Hardest Question)

            Anna sings next, and although we don’t hear her exact words, they are not songs of impending death, but of praise and thanksgiving. She, too, receives the Christ child as a sign that God keeps God’s promises and all she can do is respond with thanksgiving.

            The journey of Jesus will not be along a smooth path. Simeon knew from the first time he saw the baby that the way would be difficult, telling Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed…”

When our middle son was very young people would look down at him in his stroller and then look at us with sympathy. “Oh my” was pretty much all they’d say. Not because he wasn’t cute – he was very cute. But because he radiated trouble. His little eyes communicated that he was going to be a handful and onlookers expressed their compassion in advance. It wasn’t all that comforting.

These two seniors looked into Jesus’ eyes and saw not just a mischievous little hand-full, but the One who would change the world.  They were not naïve as to the cost of bringing about God’s kin-dom of justice and peace. Many would fall before there would be a rising up, and a sword would pierce Mary’s soul. And yet, and yet, they were confident that they could die happy, that the ending of their time, fraught with injustice and oppression, was beginning. And so, notwithstanding pending problems, they sang their praises to God.

And now we come to today, to this place and this moment. A gathering of wise and faithful followers of Jesus, the Annas and Simeons of the 21 Century, although we vary in age. Contemporary Christians believe that the Messiah has come, and his time has not yet been fulfilled. We are in the time of already and not yet. What we await now, what we seek to participate in, is the fullness of that coming. We wait and we yearn for all creation to experience the rebirth and restoration of that first creation that was so very, very good.

            At Christmas, we are reminded that the Messiah has come among us, that we do not live alone. We live in the love and the compassion of God, trusting that God’s radical and lifegiving love will see us through any of life’s trials. God’s love will also keep our eyes open to life’s joys, to the moments when indeed we can see the kingdom of God right in front of us. And it can offer us peace we see our final days drawing near.

This is what Anna and Simeon knew when they first saw the baby in Mary’s arms. That from then on, from now on, every moment of our lives we could live in the confidence of God with us, Immanuel. And we could also, as did Simeon, as did my father-in-law, greet the ending of our lives with that same confidence and peace.

These are still difficult times, and we can be consumed with worry. But in this season of Christmas, in this season of recognizing the birth of peace, hope, joy and love in our midst, perhaps as with Anna and Simeon “…the only thing left is praise. Praise for God whose love is felt in pain and loss. Praise for God whose hope knows no limits. Whose grace knows no limits. We give praise in the face of perverse power. We give praise as a form of resistance to that which or those who would seek to instill fear instead of trust. We give praise to shout out an alternate perspective/reality/worldview that chooses love and inclusion and compassion over hatred and exclusion and heartlessness. We give praise to affirm our belief that the world can be different, has to be different, and that that difference has begun with Christ bringing about the kingdom of God here and now.

We desperately need Anna and Simeon these days. We need them to help us utter the praise of God that simultaneously responds to God’s presence and resists the presence of evil. We need them to model the reaction to the convergence of waiting and fulfillment, the way of living in the now and not quite yet of God’s kindom on earth. We need them to give us the courage to trust in our God who is indeed present and powerful when the world in which we live suggests otherwise.” (Karoline Lewis, https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/just-praise)

We need Anna and Simeon, and the good news is that they are here – in your midst. You are the ones who praise and wait, you are the ones who worship and who continue to prepare yourselves and the world for the fulfillment of God’s promises. Who are part of that fulfillment, each time you offer a gracious act, each time you reach out in kindness, with your steadfastness in the midst of grief and worry, with each act of recycling and reducing as you maintain God’s Temple, this earth, ready for the coming of the Messiah. With the confidence of Anna and Simeon you greet each day, a day not without troubles, but also filled with praise for the presence of God in your lives and in our world. Today, still alight in the joy of Christmas we too can sing: “…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 glory to your people.”

Thanks be to God. Amen