The Gospel of The Old Ones
There are days when it seems easy to imagine the end of the world. Whether it comes from a nuclear holocaust or a super-heated climate crisis; whether it be from the collapse of republican democracy or the advent of a fascistic dictatorship; whether it comes from an asteroid crashing into our planet or the outbreak of civil wars throughout this fragile earth, our island home; whether it be random acts of gun violence or a gradual stripping of individual rights, first for one group, then another, and another; from another pandemic or the simple lack of a well vaccinated population. If we do not imagine these apocalyptic events on our own, there are entire industries devoted to injecting all kinds of fears into our day-to-day existence, whether those fears are from the right or the left; from red or blue ideologies; from fear of education, fear of science, fear of modern medicine, fear of genetically modified foods. There seem to be no end to the kinds of fear entering our lives through radio and television; through social media platforms; through endless conspiracy theories; through cult-like ideologies.
On good days, we try to keep our heads down to somehow believe we can screen all these fears out and power our way through an equally endless series of tasks and responsibilities we believe we must attend to lest life itself come crashing to a halt. We try to avoid or ignore interruptions of what passes as our necessary “routines.” It becomes more and more rare to allow ourselves to take time-out, take sabbath time, time to look at the sky, let alone time to sit in silent meditation and contemplation. To give ourselves space and time to just breathe and wait.
The world into which God chose to arrive as one of us, a vulnerable child, a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes that also look strikingly like a funeral shroud, was a world full of the loss and fears of an occupied people. The child is just one among millions born into this world that seems hell-bent to destroy itself. When Luke wrote this account some 80 years after the child’s birth, Jerusalem and its Temple again lay in ruins, and factions of people were struggling, often against one another, to find a way forward. It seemed like the world had come to an end. Luke writes that forty days after the birth of this baby boy, the baby’s unwed young mother goes to the Temple in Jerusalem for her own traditional ritual purification by the priests, and to present this boy-child to God the giver of all good things. [i] She and the older gentleman with her no doubt saw nothing extraordinary in observing these generations-long rituals of their people. For her purification she is to offer a lamb for sacrifice. But for those who could not afford an unblemished lamb, a pair of turtle doves or pigeons would do. One imagines in the hard-times of the Roman military occupation which sought to extract all possible resources out of the country to send back home to Rome, the seat of Caesar’s Empire, that all most people could afford were the birds. No doubt Mary had hoped they could make their offering quickly and unnoticed so they might turn around and head right back home to Nazareth. It was not to be.
Enter the Old Ones. Simeon and Anna were unique among their septuagenarian peers. They had taken time out of life to stand and wait outside the Temple. Waiting to see what God might do this time. After all, their ancestors had escaped a life of slave-labor in Egypt, a forty-year testing period in the wilderness, and the destruction of the first temple followed by 40-plus years exile in Babylon. Each time the Lord had saved them from the fear and danger surrounding them on all sides. Simeon had avoided joining with the zealots who repeatedly tried to oust the Romans by violent force. He had stayed out of the debates between Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes as to what kind of life would evoke a response from the Almighty. Taking a path of non-violent resistance, Simeon had been visited by the same Holy Spirit who had announced that Mary would have a child. This Spirit had promised Simeon that he would not die before getting to see the Lord’s Anointed One. Ever since, Simeon had been waiting for a glimpse of a new and better future. The old woman, Anna, had been married, but has long been widowed. She too, like the old man, spent day and night at the Temple where she saw the endless stream of pilgrims come and go. She could see how some of the Temple priests would collaborate with the occupation and corrupt the life of their people. She had seen many babies, many such rituals, as she waited and prayed year after year after year to see what God might do.
Just one look at this child and Simeon and Anna knew they were looking at the future – and they somehow sensed that the future starts now! What did Mary think as the old man grabbed the child from her arms to get a better look and begin singing? Or, why her old man, Joseph did nothing. Then Anna begins to tell everyone that this child is the One to redeem Israel. What did Simeon and Anna see? They probably saw nothing - and everything! [ii] They saw a family of humble means and demeanor, a young and tender mother and her awkward aging old man – the essence of simplicity. They seemed the kind of people who sadly would ordinarily leave no lasting impression whatsoever. Simeon and Anna knew this was God’s next intervention.
Yes, Anna and Simeon had seen plenty of people come and go from the Temple. What they had not seen was the simple truth these ancient rituals of presentation and purification proclaimed. Until now. Looking at the infant Christ, it all comes together. Something like light emanates directly from him into them. And in its simplicity and plainness, this family represents all that it means to be human. As Sam Portaro writes, “They had neither the arrogance that pretends to greatness, nor the brooding hostility that hates the human condition. They were neither better or worse than any of God’s creatures, and they came to make an offering. Even they had no idea what an offering it would be…Simeon, who had seen all the world has to offer, and Anna who had seen all that the human soul seeks, took one look at the child and saw the truth…These eyes that had seen it all, for the first time saw all that God desired, and it was a little child.” [iii]
Simeon and Anna do not only see the future of the world. They see new meaning for their lives, and the lives of all people everywhere. They see love personified in a little child. Their hearts were filled with love! Their lives had been fulfilled. God’s promises to them had come true as they waited patiently upon the Lord. They could now leave this world in peace. They saw at the end of long and very full lives, in the blessedness of life’s wisdom and God’s grace, that God requires far less than we may think; only what we already are. [iv]
Pema Chodron, that beloved Buddhist nun, writes, “Things happen to us all the time that open up the space. This spaciousness, this wide-open, unbiased, unprejudiced space, is inexpressibly and fundamentally good and sound. It’s like the sky. Whenever you’re in a hot spot or feeling uncomfortable, whenever you’re caught up and don’t know what to do, you can find someplace where you can go and look at the sky and experience freshness, free of hope and fear, free of bias and prejudice, just completely open. And this is accessible to us all the time. Space permeates everything, every moment of our lives.” [v] That’s what happened that day in the Temple forty days after the Christ child’s birth. Look to the sky and we can see it, feel it and be it. Just take the time to stop everything and look up and remember the old man and the old woman. God requires far less than we may think; only what we already are. Amen.
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