Happy New Year
I was visiting at my sister’s this week in the days after Christmas and we had a baby among us. A three month old baby boy called Connor who had cheeks that were just built to grab onto. He slept a lot of the time that he was with us and when he woke up he had a killer smile so everyone in the room wanted their turn with him and made ridiculous sounds and faces in order to coax that smile out of him. His parents had made a calendar for 2018 with him dressed in appropriate dollar store costumes for each season or major holiday. More oohs and ahs and rounds of laughter. Of course the little Princess Chloe, the Coton de Tulear who owns the house and usually demands all of the attention was none too pleased with this! She went into a growling fit with her newest Christmas toy. But to no avail. When there is a baby in the room he or she is going to be the object of everyone’s attention. It’s as if there is nothing in the world more important than that baby in that moment.
What is it about the presence of a baby that can make usually rational and emotionally controlled adults descend into a world of babbling and idiotic face scrunching? Well, the baby is something new. A new life with years ahead of him or her with incredible potential for continuing the life of a family and for making an impact on the world. In the face of own struggles and mistakes and our growing cynicism about what might actually be possible to change the world for the better, here is this new little one who just maybe might be able to succeed where we have faded. Maybe we are taken back to our own childhood or to the exhilaration of having our own children and what that meant for us. Maybe we just find it hard to believe that this little bundle of cheeks and smiles and smelly diapers can really be one of us. Whatever it is we just love a baby among us.
As we continue the story of the nativity in Luke’s gospel today, we are in that place. A baby has been born and his parents are doing everything necessary to welcome him into the world and bring him into the circle of his family and culture. On the eighth day, Jesus was circumcised as any other son of Israel would have been. And then at 40 days old, Mary and Joseph take him to the Temple for the ritual of redemption that was required for all boys as well as the rite of purification for Mary after having given birth. Parts of the ritual requirements in the patriarchal culture into which Jesus was born. Since Joseph and Mary had come to Bethlehem for the census, according to Luke, it made sense to stay on for this further ritual in the temple in nearby Jerusalem before returning to Nazareth. It is significant to note that they offer the sacrifice of the poor – two turtledoves or two pigeons rather than the lamb that they would have offered if they could have afforded it.
In the Temple they encounter two old people, Simeon and Anna, who spend a lot of time in there and who like many in Jerusalem were waiting for, hoping for and anxious for, the coming of the Messiah. After such a long time of living and waiting and observing the world all around them, they are both overjoyed with this child. He is a sign of hope. A sign of new possibilities. Just like any baby that comes into our midst. Think of when a baby is baptized here at St. Andrew’s and he or she is carried down the aisle and introduced to you as the newest member of the Church of Jesus Christ. There is an energy that flows from us and around the child as we see in the child our own future and hope for the Church. Simeon and Anna felt that when Jesus was brought into the Temple. They recognized in him not only hope for themselves but for God’s people. In Jesus they believed that they had seen the Messiah. The one who would redeem Israel and be a light to the rest of the world, a light to the Gentiles, or the nations. That adorable little baby captured them and their imaginations to see beyond their current situation to a new day when God’s reign would come.
It is an appropriate story to read on this New Year’s Eve Day. You have been, no doubt, seeing lots of images of old people and new babies to mark this annual turning point. The year has grown old. We have done pretty much all we can do in it now. If you have something more to do in 2017, well you’d better get at it! Soon this year will be gone, with all its joys and sorrows, its hopes and disappointments. The news is filled with retrospectives of what has happened. What was the greatest story of the year? Who was the most beautiful? What was the greatest surprise? What was the greatest disappointment? What was the biggest grossing film at the box office? (Up until yesterday “Beauty and the Beast” but closely followed by and possibly now surpassed by “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”). At midnight tonight, there is no chance for change. It will be finished. And a new year will be born. A new baby year will come into being with 364 days stretching out in front of us. If you are a “J” in the Myers Briggs personality chart, you already have your calendar filled in, your travel booked and your presents ordered for Christmas 2018. If you are a “P” you are seeing a vast expanse of days with endless possibilities for all the things you didn’t get done in 2017 and much, much more. The image of a new born baby is everywhere ready to grow into the new adventure which is this year. We’ll sing “Auld laing syne”, no one quite sure what the words are or what they mean, and we’ll launch out into 2018, many with a little lubrication to get the train in motion.
Anna and Simeon can move on. They have seen the coming of the Messiah. They can let go of the old and allow the new to come into being. It had not been an easy life. Anna had lost her husband at an early age and in that society there were not many possibilities for a widow. She had dedicated herself to a life of prayer and fasting in the Temple until she had reached the age of 84. Not the life she might have chosen for herself when she was a young woman, when life’s possibilities did not seem to have limits. But this is what her life had turned out to be. Not full of a great deal of joy, but filled with hope as she looked to the future and was known by those who came to the Temple as a prophet. And her hope, and the hope she had inspired in many, was fulfilled in this child. This child was the future, was God at work in the world, making all things new. She may have recited Psalm 148, “Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven. 14 He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the Lord!”. The fullness of time had come and she had found her fulfillment in this child.
Simeon’s life had been filled with the Spirit. He was a person in whom people had seen God’s Spirit at work, in all that he did. And Simeon was the kind of person who just knew that something great was about to happen. Even though his life was passing away, even though he was old, he was still inspired to look forward to the new day, the new thing that God was doing in the world. And when he walked into the Temple that day, he knew that this was it. He knew that this little baby was destined to do great things. The words that he is recorded to have said are some of the most precious in the Christian tradition, known as the “Nunc dimittis”:
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.
This is what the Spirit had been preparing Simeon for, all his long life. This was the new thing that God was doing. This was the stroke of midnight when the New Year is born and you can let go of all that has gone before. And Simeon sets the tone for what we will learn throughout the Gospel of Luke. Not only is this child the fulfillment of the dreams and hopes of the people of Israel but this child will be a light for all people. This good news begins here, in the temple, in the baby Simeon holds in his arms but it will go from here into the whole world, into the places where it was thought that God’s light would never shine, salvation, wholeness, liberation, to the whole earth. Something to sing about even at 30 below zero in the middle of the night. This is it!
It would be good to leave it there. With the “Nunc dimittus”. Simeon’s words on seeing the child. But we cannot. No more than we can add time to the old year in order to accomplish all that we have not finished can we remain at midnight on January 1. We need to head home, to get in out of the cold, some may need to nurse a headache in the morning. We need to enjoy the one last day of the holidays, finish up some turkey and chocolates perhaps before the diet starts in earnest. And then it will be back to work, or school, or to whatever our regular routine might be. We need to carry that “Happy New Year” into the days and weeks to come. And the little baby will grow, faster than we can believe, and begin to find out that babies become children and children become teens and teens become adults and adults become middle aged and middle aged people get old. And there will be challenges in all those stages of our lives. This child, full of hope and expectation that Anna and Simeon held in the Temple will not be a sign of hope for all. The coming of God’s reign will be a challenge to some and his life will not be good news for some. Even his mother will experience some of the pain that will be his. This moment is not divorced from the rest of the gospel. The little baby we hold in our arms whose smile brightens the room will be grown up, one day, just like us. He may not be able to smile. And the good news of his birth may be forgotten as even his friends turn against him. He will walk with us in December as well as in January. But somehow, this child will become for us a sign of redemption and hope that go far beyond any calendar year, beyond any one lifetime, beyond the life of any people. That child that Anna and Simeon held in their arms will hold the whole universe in his arms and love us with a love that will never end.
Sing a different song now Christmas is here,
Sing a song of people knowing God is near:
The Messiah is born in the face of our scorn,
Sing a different song to welcome and warn!
Shout a different shout now Christmas is here,
Shout a shout of joy and genuine cheer:
Fill the earth and the sky with the news from on high,
Shout a different shout that all may come by.
Love a different love now Christmas is here,
Love without condition, love without leer:
With the humble and the poor, with the shy and unsure,
Love a different love. Let Christ be the cure!
Dance a different dance now Christmas is here,
Dance a dance of war on suffering and fear:
Peace and justice are one and their prince is this son,
Dance a different dance. God’s reign has begun!
Happy New Year. Thanks be to God. Amen.
