December 28, 2014
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Christmas is for children, they say, which leaves us grownups a bit adrift in this season. Last week, we paraded the children in worship and we were blessed by their singing and red dresses.
We say: Let the children be expectant and excited guessing what’s inside those fanciful wrapped presents. We are too old, too serious, to experienced to hope for anything new or surprising. Let the children’s eyes grow wide and mouths gape at the bright lights—we’ve seen too much to be startled by the wonder. Let the children dance with glee at the sheer marvel of it all while we are too grown up, too frozen and stiff to jump or wiggle with excitement.
Christmas is for children, we say. Let us grownups watch and enjoy them, which suggest grownups find happiness in Christmas only indirectly rather than first-hand for themselves. Today, the gospel of Luke insists however that Christmas is for grownups too.
Children don’t really need Christmas. They already have it. Christmas is their natural habitat. They believe willingly, trustingly. Their lives are filled with wonder. Their imagination is fertile and needs no further energy. Their hopes are naturally boundless. They haven’t yet grown up to know better. But today, we say that Christmas is for grownups too.
A grownup is someone who comes to church the Sunday after Christmas. It’s a good thing that we do. We grownups need Christmas. The good news is that Christmas is for grownups. As grownups we no longer find magic and mystery in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus. Grownups need the real thing, not its pretty reflections.
Luke makes it clear that the story of Christmas is for grownups because he does not end his story there in Bethlehem in a stable. No, the story goes on. Chapter 2 ends with the shepherds “returning, glorifying and praises God for all they had heard and seen,” and that’s a great climax, but the Christmas story is not over. Luke shifts the scene from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, from the shabbiness of the stable to the glory that was the Temple.
At the Temple, Luke introduces the characters of Anna, the old woman prophet and Simeon, an old man in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit was with Simeon and was “revealed to him that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah” (2:26).
Simeon in Us
I have to admit that while I have read and preached on this passage before, this year for the first time, I can identify with Simeon and Anna like never before. Now that I have announced my upcoming retirement, this passage rings more true for me. For those of us grownups who have lived through a few more Christmases and New Year’s Days than others, we can see the Simeon and Anna in ourselves.
Have you ever caught yourself thinking, if only I live till thus-and-such a thing happens, then I can die in peace? Maybe we’ve made it a goal to be sure to live to see our first grandchild or great-grandchild? For me, I have set a goal to see our first grandchild graduate from high school. Perhaps we’ll feel free to die in peace if we finally got to take that grand tour of Alaska, or if we’ve outlived an old enemy. For folks who are seriously ill, sometimes the wish is just to make it to the next birthday, or the next Christmas, or long enough to say goodbye to everyone they want to say goodbye to.
Simeon, in our story today, also had a specific thing in mind that he was wanting for. God told him it was coming. Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. It seems like the Holy Spirit nudged him to be at the right place at the right time. Simeon comes to the temple on the day that Mary and Joseph come, bringing the baby Jesus with them. He sees the child, and instantly knows: This is the one. Then he says, Lord, now you can let me die in peace. I have seen with my own eyes the fulfillment of your promise. The story doesn’t tell us whether Simeon did indeed pass away fairly soon after this…but he was ready.
After Christmas
I wonder, what Simeon might have thought and said, if he had been around thirty years later and seen what his people did to Jesus. I wonder if he were living today, would he be tempted to take back his word? It seems like our world, taken as a whole, does not appear to have seen God’s salvation. Some days it seems that we haven’t made much progress since Simeon’s day.
For us grownups on this Sunday after Christmas, the news still have people killing one another in Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, or at dozens of other places around the world. The poor and the hungry may have benefited from our brief Season of Sharing, but they will still be hungry and poor in this New Year. People who are addicted to drugs or alcohol will still be hooked. Children in abusive families will still get hurt.
Where is God’s salvation to be seen? In what ways has Christ’s coming made any difference at all? Is there anything that our eyes have seen that would cause us to burst forth in praise, as Simeon did: “Lord now you can let me die in peace, because my own eyes have seen the salvation you promised?”
At this first Sunday after Christmas when we don’t have the little children present, we grownups are asking: Is Christmas more like a fantasy than a reality? What is it? I think the hardest thing about Christmas is not the frantic pace of preparation…it’s not choosing the right gifts, or cleaning the house for the family to come visit…it’s not even spending time with family members that you’d really rather avoid. The hardest part of Christmas is what happens after. I don’t mean the cleaning up, or the weight gain, or paying off the credit card bills! I mean on December 26 when we woke up, got out of bed, and the world hasn’t changed. Our eyes may have seen, or at least caught a glimpse of, the salvation God has prepared for the entire world. But it doesn’t appear that the whole world as a whole was paying much attention.
Our eyes have seen, our ears have heard, our lives have felt, the coming of God. But we have also seen, felt, and heard God’s absence in so many places in our world. Sometimes that frustrates us, or angers us; sometimes we feel hurt by it; sometimes we’re indifferent to it. But what we have to recognize is that it is, at least in part, our fault. If we live in a world—and we do—where it seems that God is not seen or heard or even known…we have to ask ourselves, what have I done about that? Who have I told, lately, about God? Have I been sharing with others what my eyes have seen and my ears have heard?
Don’t expect this from our children but as grownups, what do my actions say? Do my actions look like they belong to someone who belongs to God, or to someone who considers God only a couple of hours a week, like maybe Sunday morning? When was the last time you really made a sacrifice for someone else? When did you stand up for what you believed was right, even if other people thought it was weird? When did you make a decision that you knew was God’s choice for you like how those who were baptized this year? And I pray that those who did publicly profess their faith in the Lord will continue to share with anyone else why they made the decision they did for a long time.
Some Christians have been complaining about merchants wishing us “Happy Holidays” instead of a “Merry Christmas.” I think it’s probably a good thing that merchants say that because even those of us who do celebrate Christmas need to be reminded that December and the months before that orgy of shopping has nothing to do with the coming of the Messiah. As grownups, we are called to know this difference to bear witness to others about our faith.
Waiting
When Simeon and Anna looked at children coming into the Temple in Jerusalem, they weren’t looking for whether the babies had their mother’s smiles or their fathers’ jaws. They looked for something else, something not easily spoken. They looked for the “consolation of Israel.” They looked for ancient promises to come true. God promised David a kingdom overflowing with peace and security, where people could dwell unafraid, where the sun would come up in the morning and its light would bless it in the early morning. People looked for that kingdom, for some sign of its coming. They looked in the events of history, they looked at the stars in the sky. Some gave up looking. After all, the Romans kept order and king or no king, the country prospered under the stability of Roman rule. Still, some looked and waited for something, something better. Anna and Simeon looked in the temple. And they looked and they looked and they looked and waited. The years passed and their youth passed and their health began to pass as well. They became grownups.
We live in a society unaccustomed to waiting. We have instant oatmeal, instant mashed potatoes, instant religion. We stand in front of the microwave, tapping our foot, “Come on, come on.” Why snail mail when you have email? Why email when you can text? Time exists to be managed. We don’t like to wait.
When we stop waiting, however, we inevitably settle for something less. We stop waiting and negotiate for whatever the present moment will surrender. We say, “Okay, so if it’s not peace on earth; it’s peace in my house for the next 15 minutes, which is as much peace as we dare to hope.” We trim our hopes down to a more manageable size, hopes that can be fulfilled without much waiting or stretching.
While we know that years can wear down hope and grind away our dreams, years can also teach us how to wait and where to wait, and because of that we can gain from the time of wisdom like the Psalmist prays, “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart” (Ps. 90:12).
Each year carries with it blessings and frustrations, happy surprises, and crushing disappointments. Will the legacy of many years be bitterness or will it be wisdom of heart? Will the passing days encourage us to hope or will they leave us in a ditch of cynicism? As the weight of years increases what grows in us: gentle patience or intractable anger?
It depends on where we do our waiting and how we do it. For Simeon and Anna, the place is the Temple of God. God had promised to be present in the Temple. Anna “never left the temple,” Luke says, “but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day.” Simeon was there in the Temple “looking forward to the consolation of Israel.”
In their waiting and looking they were prepared to see what God was doing when it arrived in the arms of Mary and Joseph. Listen again to what Simeon says after he has seen this child: “my eyes have seen your salvation.” Remember the angel’s command to Mary, “you will name him Jesus,” which means, of course, “God will save.” It’s just a child, an infant, no more, but in this moment the old man sings, “my eyes have seen your salvation,” and Anna, the little old lady Luke calls a prophet begins preaching the gospel.
Become Grownups in Christ
We who are the grownups at this church are the people to whom Christ has come. We’re not the only ones, but we are among the ones. Our eyes have seen God’s salvation, or at least, hints and glimpses of it. We know that the world has come from God, and will return to God. We know that Christ has come for the whole world, not just for us. As Simeon said it, “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” His eyes saw, and our eyes have seen. Are you ready to tell what you have seen? Are our hands ready to reach out to others who are in need of Good News?
If, like Simeon, our time on earth is coming to an end, would we be satisfied that we’ve done what we can? We don’t have to do everything, and we don’t have to do what God has called someone else to do. But we do have to respond to what our eyes have seen, what our ears have heard, what our hearts have felt. I have pledged to God that even though I will be retiring from full-time paid ministry in 6 months, it still means that I will do everything I can with God’s help because my eyes have seen and my ears have heard and my heart has felt the Good News of Christ.
Today, the good news is that Christmas is for grownups like you and me. I pray that we’d have the wisdom and courage to proclaim that God’s Messiah has come into the world. Now as grownups who do know better, our life’s job begins as well.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, you have come among us as a little baby, help us to see you as our salvation. Lead us beyond the superficial meaning of Christmas as simply a time of socializing and gifts giving. As grownups, we pray that we may understand your full revelation so that we may follow you as your disciples. As ones who have seen the light, lead us into the whole world with the light of Christ to proclaim Good News. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.