The End of Waiting

Sermon

Well, by now, most of the poinsettias have found a new home, and presents have been unwrapped and the Christmas feasts are either gone or finding new life as leftovers. The radio has stopped the Christmas music, and I for one will be happy not to happen upon “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” for the next eleven months.

Our Chancel Choir is taking a well deserved rest, as are our organists, and so we are blessed this morning with the delightful tickling of the ivories that only Teresa Wilhelmi can provide. Families got family time, and some of you had the last week as vacation, and hopefully not too many gifts will need to be returned.

Did you get want you wanted? Did you get what you wanted for Christmas and from Christmas? Did you keep your new year’s resolutions? I only made two: to put my laundry away the day that it’s done and not to go on a diet. I kept one but not the other.

Were our prayers answered? Maybe some were, but we keep praying for peace, for an end to war in Ukraine, for ceasefire in Gaza, and those prayers continue to be lifted up. We keep praying for those we love who did not experience a miraculous cure. Some prayers were answered as some families reconciled, but some remained estranged.

I wonder sometimes if we set our expectations too high, so that when our expectations for a present or a resolution or a prayer aren’t met, we end up at least disappointed if not disillusioned. During my first late Christmas Eve service at Westminster, one poor unfortunate soul threw up during the communion prayer, and that has been my bar ever since. Did anyone throw up during the service? No? Then everything was awesome!

I’m starting to think that maybe expectations do not always serve us well, especially the superlative ones. The best things in life, the most meaningful, the most sacred, are usually not found in the mountaintop moments but in the ordinary, everyday things. Pay attention to that, and we might be happier.

That’s something I take from this story of Simeon and Anna. These two faithful old people are not mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament except these few verses in Luke’s gospel. They just show up for this short scene and then exit stage left.

We don’t know much about them, except that they were faithful Jews, and that meant that devotion, prayer, and obedience to God were part of their everyday lives. Going to temple was part of that. So was waiting for God’s promised messiah to come. And there they are, doing what they always do, but this time, it’s different. Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus show up, because they too are faithful Jews, and they too are obedient to their God and to their religion which requires that certain things be done—circumcision, for one, and the rites of purification for both baby and mother.

In this story of Simeon and Anna, Luke introduces one of the great themes of his gospel: the good news of Jesus affects human lives. Mary will sing of great joy and weep in terrible lament. Simeon will die in peace. The sick will be healed. Herod will be challenged. All manner of people will be invited to follow, and some—but not all—will. The innocent will be unjustly executed. The dead will rise.

At last Simeon and Anna know that all their devotion and faithful waiting has come to fruition. They have seen the messiah. They can depart in peace. But not quite yet. Simeon speaks, and the key of the scene changes from major to minor; a layer of chiaroscuro sets in; a serious solemnity is laid upon this child, and our perspective changes.

“This child,” Simeon says to Mary, “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—and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”

No parent can know what joy or heartbreak their child will bring; if they did, the human race might have died out long ago. Mary could not know how Jesus’ life would unfold but surely she had a sense that there was something special about him, what with all of the angels that had been flying by her way of late.

But Jesus bringing about the fall and rise of Israel? Jesus knowing the inner thoughts of people? And whatever happens in Jesus’ life being like a sword piercing Mary’s soul? Simeon is not mincing words. He’s waited too long for the messiah. The child will change things, and it’s time to get serious about that.

New Testament scholar Fred Craddock put it this way. “Jesus will bring truth to light, and in so doing, throw all who come in contact with him into a crisis of decision. In that decision, rising and falling, life and death, result. Jesus precipitates the centrally important movement of one’s life, toward or away from God.”

The question, then, for us is this: will we let this Jesus make a difference not only in our lives but also in the world?

The first question may be easier because we have a degree of control about it. Each of us decides if we will allow the way of Jesus to change us. His words are invitational, leaving the choice to us. “Follow me,” he said to those first disciples, not “Follow me or else.” He invites us with those same two words.

And then if we start down that path, we learn that Jesus has some stuff to say about how we live in relationship to each other—without judgment, with compassion, without category as to background or occupation or status or wealth or gender. Jesus teaches that God loves us and teaches that that’s what he’s about, too. And so in living with each other, we honor God.

To follow Jesus is to learn something about courage, too—the courage to speak truth to power, not to remain silent when something is wrong, whether it’s a racist comment, or a lie that gets spread, or hurting someone else, with intention and a mean heart. It’s the courage required to face evil, and decry it, and work against it—for Jesus, even at the cost of his own life.

So if we say we will let Jesus make a difference in our lives, we have a decent sense of what we’re getting ourselves into.

But the second question is a bit trickier: will we let Jesus make a difference in the world? The tricky part comes with the difference between Jesus and Christianity. Christianity has not always served humanity very well. Too often it has wielded the weapons of conflict, violence, and ostracism, not to mention hate and hypocrisy. That being said, Christianity has also provided a groundwork for so many peace efforts, and humanitarian aid, and plain old hope.

I think if the followers of Jesus really followed him, the world would be better. We would love each other better because we would understand love to be what one of the earliest followers of Jesus described it as: patient, kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, not rejoicing in what is wrong but celebrating what is true. Even those religions that do not believe Jesus was the messiah honor him as a prophet who spoke God’s truth.

Since he was born, the people in his orbit had a choice about this person Jesus, to believe that he is the messiah, or not to believe that, or to wander about somewhere in between. Set against the backdrop of two thousand years, we see that Jesus, his disciples, and even his church have changed the world—I think more for the good than not. Like the arc of justice, the arc of Jesus and his church is long but bends toward the good.

I invite you to think for just a few seconds about how Jesus has made a difference in your life, for better or worse, and then to consider what that might mean for the world.

The Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn painted this scene of Jesus’ dedication at the temple several times during his lifetime. He painted it, he sketched it, he made pen and ink drawings. In the paintings he emphasized different parts of the story and different people. Where the light shone was a clue to Rembrandt’s interpretation of the story, as was the expression on the faces of Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna, and the priest.

My favorite of these works is a painting Rembrandt made in 1631, on the early side of his career. The grouping of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, and various folks around in the space is dwarfed by the temple itself. An archway frames the family, but the building is cast in shadow. The light shines on the family, on Simeon holding the baby and looking upward to his God, who has granted him the blessing of finally seeing his messiah.

It’s as if Rembrandt is saying that the temple will fade away into the shadows as this new life takes center stage. The structures of the past will no longer matter as much as people will, and people’s adoration of each other, and people’s gratitude to God. The old age has come to an end; a new age awaits.

I do not know all that awaits us in the coming year. I know a few things—our daughter graduates from high school, I turn 60, my sister retires. I don’t know what awaits the world in 2024, apart from the drone of a presidential election. I hope that we will know less murder and less war in the new year, and extraordinary efforts for peace, and a compassionate response to the refugee crisis, and COVID going away for good and nothing taking its place.

And I do not know all that awaits Westminster in the next year, apart from weekly worship, and meetings, and lots of prayers and singing, and living out our faith by serving others, and hopefully no more flooded hallways, and hopefully some clarity about what kind of staffing will best serve Jesus and his church here at the corner of 16th and Hancock.

What I do know is that against the backdrop of life—ours and the world’s—the light shines on Jesus and reflects back on us. That light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

To the glory of God.