Sunday, December 24, 2008

 SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1          12/28/08 (3)                                                                                      Luke 2:25-35

                                                                                                                                                               

Please join me in prayer. Lord, “We can better understand the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in the darkness. My God, shorten my wait and bring me into the light.”   Amen.

 

I.                     SIMEON’S SONG IS THE FINAL SONG OF CHRISTMAS.  IT IS A SONG WHICH IS SUNG AT WORSHIP.

A.                  A musical finale.  A celebration of an ending.

1.                  Simeon knew he was finished.  His work is complete, his remaining days on this earth nearly over.

2.                  Simeon is satisfied, he is now at peace with the world and with God.

3.                  Many of us would love to come to worship today and sing our final song of Christmas, our song of fulfillment.

a.                  “I have had a good Christmas,”

b.                  “I had a really full and complete year in 2008.”

c.                  May any of us say that? –I hope Bill and Renate will say it as they move on to their new home in Columbus, Georgia.

4.                  While Christmas Day may be over, our lives are not over. Our tasks are not complete-far from it, and we are not satisfied.

5.                  There are few people in the Bible who were able to say they had faithfully fulfilled the work God had given them.  Simeon alone was given permission by God to depart this life in peace,

a.        in the peace of God which “surpasses human knowledge...” and “...filled with all the fulness of God,” as Paul says in Ephesians.

6.                  Jesus was one of those few people who did say, “‘It is finished,’”

a.                  one of his final words from the cross.

7.                  This is not yet our song; but today we may pray as Simeon has been praying, or singing.

8.                  The old priest lived a life that was truly in season.  Each one of us is called to be like Simeon, a watchman, a seeker, someone who looks and waits patiently for God’s salvation to enter our lives:                         

            “Lord, let the day come when we may truly depart in peace.”

B.                 This is a timely song, like many of the carols we have been singing.

1.                  The image the Greek language conveys is that of a servant who has been told by his master to stay at his post and to watch for a certain visitor to arrive. The priest has been watching all night and was by this time sleepy.  The expected visitor arrives in the first hours of the dawn. Now in his song Simeon announces the arrival to his master.

2.                  Here in Jesus’ presentation in the Temple, Luke sees the fulfillment of all the expectations, of all the hopes of the Jewish people for centuries.

a.                  It is a timely image for us today in our church.

b.                  Simeon held this new hope right in his old, feeble arms, and he looked into the face of this new born smiling baby through tired, aching eyes.

c.                  So Simeon sang his hymn and he worshiped.

d.                  This past week I watched a movie, “Family Man,” with Nicholas Cage and Tea Lioni. A Wall Street tycoon is give a glimpse into the family life he might have had if he had not left his beloved girl friend 13 years earlier to become a high powered business man. The man begins to realize what he had given up when he hold his baby son in his arms and must change his diapers.  I have never been through that, never had a baby of my own to hold in my arms or change her diapers. (pause)

 

C.                 Simeon’s  music is a true benediction, the “Nunc Dimittis.”

1.                  Some of you may feel like a watcher and a tired servant like Simeon–if you are among the traditional generation, who have given more than your share and helped to hold this congregation together. Some of you are ready  to turn everything over to someone else, a new generation, regardless of how unprepared they may be.

a.                  Today you are tired; you are ready for your consolation.

2.                  Nevertheless, here is a consolation  for which you and I must wait as Simeon had been doing all his life,

(1)               What is the consolation for which you wait?

                                                (2)        What will comfort and re-affirm you and your hard work?

(3)        and will tell you, “Friend, it is worth it.”

b.                  If we do not believe, how will we wait?

c.                  If we do not wait, how will we see it when it arrives,

d.                  If we do not see it, how will we sing our hymn of completion?

3.                  A meditation came to me off the Internet, a “Daily Inspiration” from a friend, a former police chief John Smart, in Reedsport, Oregon.

a.                  “We can better understand the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in the darkness. My God, shorten my wait and bring me into the light.”

 

II.                   Simeon was ordinary. He appeals to me because he was ordinary. He was well-advanced in years as so many who come to this church. Yet, says John Calvin, “he was arrayed with excellent gifts--piety, innocence of life, faith and prophecy.” He loved the faith of his parents while he waited for the new.

A.                  This man’s  life was much more full than mine, or yours.

1.                  His was a life which was more in tune with the holy, the divine.

2.                  He looked on Jesus “with eyes other than the eyes of the flesh.”

a.                  In this babe he could now see “all the parts of salvation” come together.

3.                  He never prayed, “if only I could,” never prayed, “Lord, if only You would” a.No, his life was an open book to God.

4.                  Therefore he will depart in peace, he will go to sleep, he will die with everything he longed for.

a.                  He will finish singing his song; his last worship service will be over.

5.                  Simeon approached death on this morning cheerfully, expectantly. [pause]

 

B.                 When you see Christ with your own eyes, there is such a powerful effect, an inner realization that your salvation is completed , and you and I live at peace with each other and our neighbor.

1.                  What a beautiful piece of music tht fashions our worship together: Here is Simeon’s Song recast in the lyrics of Dan Tompkins in 2007, (You Tube).

                                    “I had waited all my life to see the baby boy;

                                    My life could not be full until then.         - 2 -

                                    My heart leaped up when I saw                                 

                                    them bring the Christ child to me

                                    My tired eyes beheld the living destiny.

           

                                    For my eyes have seen thy salvation

                                    The son of God I held him in my arms.          

                                    For no longer was Jesus in the distance

                                    but in the flesh.                      

            And that comfort yields the perfect kind of peace.”

2.         This is a majestic song with a haunting tune.  [pause]

 

C.                 While it is a song of final completeness and impending death, it is at the same time a song of victory that anticipates a glorious tomorrow, a future of promise!                  

1.                  Here is what we mean when we talk about a “blessing” or a benediction;

a)                  We see it in Simeon’s benediction and Jesus’ blessing.

2.                  Simeon is able at this moment  to take this child into his arms and consecrate his destiny.

3.                  But also hear what he says to the infant’s mother:   

4.                  First he says to her, “This child is destined for greatness.” 

a)                  How many times have we heard that? 

b)                  This person has great unrealized potential.  There’s no limit to what he can accomplish...and then what happens?

c)                  How often do we have great hopes...when a new pastor arrives, or a new young family with children...we get an enthusiastic over a new youth leader, a vigorous, energetic new church secretary.

 

D.                 And then somehow, there is a sword that pierces the soul of our church:

1.                  Secondly, Simeon tells Mary, “‘(he is )a sign that is spoken against, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.’”

2.                  Without the sword, without a sign that is spoken against, do you imagine there can be a destiny of greatness? 

a)                  Without a falling, can there be a new rising?

3.                  Remember again our opening meditation: Lord,

        “We can better understand the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in the darkness. My God, shorten my wait and bring me into the light.”

4.                  We all begin as children in the church, in the kingdom; so also Simeon.  Hopefully, that is where we will also end up.

a)                  Karl Rahner, the celebrated Roman Catholic writer talks about “the wonderful adventure of becoming a child of God.”

b)                  It can be, it will be, if like Simeon we are totally open to the adventure of faith, if we are open to seeing God’s salvation coming to us in this very place in the acceptable year of our Lord.

c)                  Can we do it without exposing ourselves to risk, to falling? (I do not think so.)

 

III.         Here we have the beautiful contrast between the aged and the infant–“the odd couple.”                                        - 3 -                 

A.         Both belong together in the sanctuary of God: the baby, in the arms of the elderly.  Both are happy.

1.             One of my favorite Christmas stories involves a couple and their little child who were traveling home from the holiday family gathering. They stopped in a McDonald’s. As they stood in the line to order, says the young mother, I saw Eric’s attention drawn to someone sitting in the corner.  Little Eric leaned over my shoulder and laughed at the man sitting at the table.  “Hi ya, little kid!  Hiya!”

     I shuddered, says the mother.  The man was–well, he was a bum. He clean coveralls on, a clean patched plaid shirt. His face was washed, but the stubble of several days growth stood out on his chin.

     “Peek a boo! Peek a boo! I see you,” the man shouted.  I wished he would just somehow disappear. Eric joined in the game and started laughing gleefully. Eric’s eyes never left the bum’s face.

    As we got our food and started to sit down, this  old fellow stood up and

 approached us. This bum was all of 70 years old.  And his unshaven face looked imploringly at mine and asked, “Please, ma am, could I hold you baby, would you mind...for just a moment? Eric’s arms reached out to his.  And I found myself doing the unthinkable, I let the bum take Eric in his arms.  Eric buried his head against the man’s neck.

    After a minute or two, he gave me back my baby.  With some  tears running down his face he said, Thank you, ma am; thank you so much.”    ...[pause] And just then I saw the man more clearly; he was not a person off the street, a bum; he was God’s precious child just like my own baby.  That was the best Christmas gift I received in many years

 

            B.         It happens over and over again–in every church– the final song of Christmas, and the first song of the new year.

1.                  For us it will happen soon, when together you and I baptize Mazie Wynn on January 25, the beloved daughter  of Jay and Julian Peters, when I hold her in my arms with all of you gathered around: the tiny child of God and the aging pastor.

2.                  There is a blessing and a benediction, and a final song of Christmas.  Bill and Renate, you will not be here to sing it with us, but the rest of us: we shall sing it together.

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