February 2, 2025

The Presentation of Our Lord, Year C

Luke 2:22-42

Epiphany, Winnipeg

My brother wrote a song a few years ago, I think it’s just called Old Man. It opens up like this:

“There’s an old man sitting quiet, in the mirror next to me. He watches from the veranda, but he really doesn’t see. His heart is full of laughter, but his body is so still; he knows what’s coming to greet him, just over the hill.” I guess it could be a song about any old man you or I might know, but when I hear it I just see my Grandpa Moe, mom’s dad, and I picture grandpa sitting in his denim overalls at the small table in the kitchen of his place on the farm, and I smell the coal burning in the stove in the living room, and there’s a hint of stale cigarette smoke, and I hear grandpa sneezing as he opens up the day’s paper. That’s what always happened when he opened up the day’s paper. I can imagine grandpa looking forward to consolation, quietly looking forward for so many years, since Grandma died seven or eight years before, since a few sons died in infancy so many years before that, probably looking forward for consolation since he started saying goodbye to his closest friends as he and they all grew older. He always knew that there was some Grand Consolation coming, just over the hill. He knew the consolation he had received so many times…but for all those years he still needed more, and kept looking forward to a consolation that will heal it all.

We heard this morning about Simeon, who is an old man looking forward to consolation. He’s looking forward to the consolation of his own people, who are living in a land where the Roman Empire rules over all. He’s grown up in a religious tradition with a long storied history of floods and being saved, of people God’s chosen people, and being called Pharaoh’s slaves. Being made free then being lost for a time, being sent into exile and brought back home again, sometimes at war with the neighbours and sometimes at peace. But he’s always believed that God is bringing in blessing and life for the people; the stories he’s seen and heard tell him so. He looks forward to something good; It’s in his DNA. He knows there’s some Grand Consolation on the way, and he’s always looking forward…to a consolation that he knows is coming.

So one day the Spirit led Simeon to the temple, and Simeon saw a couple there with their child, their child no more than forty days old, and Simeon looked, and saw, and took hold of the child, and he giggled with delight, the way you might have heard Desmond Tutu giggle with delight, or the way a grandparent might giggle the first time they hold a new grandchild. He giggled with delight, and laughed as he said “Finally, I am free. My looking forward is over. I’ve seen God’s salvation right here. I’m holding the consolation of Israel and the light to all the nations, right here in my arms.”

All that fuss over an infant child, a child born into poverty. An infant child to expose the cruelty and lies of an empire, an infant child whose weakness stands strong before all the powers of the world. An infant child whose living, dying, and rising will be the consolation of Israel, the nations, and all of creation.

That’s what Mary and Joseph run into when they come to the temple that day. They come to the temple just to do what their tradition requires of them: To dedicate their firstborn child to God, and to offer a sacrifice that would render Mary pure again after having given birth. It sounds strange, but it’s what was done – it’s in Leviticus twelve and Exodus thirteen if you’d like to look it up. So they show up at the temple with two birds to sacrifice; that’s the amount specified for someone who was poor and could not afford to bring a sheep. When they get there, though, they are met by an old man they have never seen, and with a look of wonder in his eyes he takes Jesus in his arms and says, “God, now you are letting me go in peace. I’ve seen your salvation….a light to the Gentiles, the glory of your people Israel…” and he looks down at this child in his arms, who is the consolation of God’s people.

You can imagine the two parents being a little bit flustered by this whole thing, right? And then Simeon turns to Mary and says, without a giggle this time, “Your child will be for the falling and rising of many in Israel." Mary hears this and remembers what an angel said nine or ten months ago, and she thinks back to that song she once sang about her God, who fills the hungry and sends the rich away empty, who pulls down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.

Then Simeon’s song takes a turn in another direction: “Your child will expose the plots and the plans of so many, and he will be opposed. He will stand strong and will pay the price for it, and a sword will pierce your heart too.” For an instant Mary – and Joseph, as he listens in – feels what every parent fears somewhere inside: that life might not go smoothly for their child, and that she, a mother, might have her own soul pierced with grief over what will happen to her child.

And then Simeon hands Jesus back, with the joy of consolation and the hints of sorrow passing from his hands to Mary’s.

What do we make of all this today? Is it just another story about Jesus?

There’s all this fuss in the temple over a child born into poverty, who will bring light to the nations and consolation, finally, to Israel. This child born into poverty who will reveal the plots and plans and the sin of all the ones who hold all the power.

This child born into poverty who is the consolation of all.

For as long as there have been people we’ve been trying to make a life together that looks like all the love and joy and goodness that God has created. Sometimes we’ve gotten it right, and for a time the corner of the world we live in is at peace and more or less just and fair…on the surface, at least. But that time has never lasted long; maybe a few years, maybe a few hundred or so, but even the strongest of empires will fall and the best that we know can turn bad. And the powerful few still prey on all the rest.

We even see it in our own lives, and we know how relationships, even when they are strong and healthy can still have so much hurt, and sometimes they need to be healed and sometimes they can’t be healed. And each of us knows, and maybe even pondered while we confessed a few minutes ago, that there are those ways that we ourselves can get it right and also get it so wrong. Love our neighbour and hurt our neighbour. Our lives come together, sometimes it seems like they might come apart. And we’ve had to wait, like Simeon, because we’ve seen that we can’t make it all come out right. So we continue to look forward, with Simeon. We look forward to the consolation of Israel, and Gaza, Ukraine and Russia, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Canada and the US. We look forward to the consolation of all those around us who suffer; we look forward to our own consolation, with all that is broken in us.

There’s one more someone in the story. Remember her name? It’s Anna. She’s eighty four years old, and they say she’s never left the temple since her husband died maybe sixty or more years ago. Maybe she has sought refuge there, because a widow might just be left with nothing else to live on. Anna comes onto the scene, with Mary and Joseph and Simeon and that little boy named Jesus, and when she hears and sees what’s happening, and when she sees that child, she starts telling the story too. She tells the story to everyone who’s waiting for the redemption of Israel, which for us might just mean everyone who’s looking for a broken world to be pulled back together again. Anna tells the story, and then someone who hears the story might tell it again – “This woman told about the consolation of the world, in this little child! The consolation is coming!” And they told someone else, and they told someone else, and here we are today.

For thousands of years we’ve kept on keeping on and that vision that Simeon and Anna share has carried our faith and stirred up our hope. That Holy Spirit of God that filled the spirit of Simeon and Anna and Mary and Joseph, the Spirit that filled an old man sitting on the front porch, the Spirit that fills us in this room, carries us along with the news of that child born who is born into poverty, who does more than all the kings and presidents and tariffs and treaties could ever hope to offer.

That grand consolation is coming. We’ll reach out and take it in our hands (feel free to giggle when it does) as we see and taste the salvation of our God, a light to all the nations. The consolation will go with us from here, a gift for the whole world. We look forward together to that consolation, that we have been given along the way, that will be given for all time to come.