God is With Us

There are a lot of mixed feelings swirling around this December, this Advent, and this Christmas season. It has been a heavy time. It has been a weird time. There have been so many cancelled plans, so many friends and family events postponed, and people falling ill. And in that heaviness, we find ourselves plopping into Christmas.

There’s something about Christmas that inherently urges us to be closer together. It’s a time where hope finds us, no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in.

This week I have been ruminating a lot on the Christmas lyric: “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices….”

Christmas is so connected to joy. What does that mean for us exactly in such a time as this? I understand that for many it is not joyful, it is a very hard time, an isolating time, a time that brings up family stuff and past harms. With all of that and given the current state of heavy and weird: Today, we are a weary world. Indeed, needing a thrill of hope.

While we look at time as linear - always moving forward - one of the remarkable things about the Christian church is our liturgical calendar that renews itself every year in a cycle. Every year at Christmas time we ask ourselves: What does it mean for Christ to come to earth now? How is Christmas encountering us this year? And I know we had a similar Christmas last year. Lately, hope has been lacking.

So today I ask the question: How does hope find us, in the midst of weariness, in a way that feels genuine and authentic? That doesn’t ignore the pain, the grief, and the weariness? In a way that makes hope and joy a continual practice of our faith.

Perhaps a way to start thinking through these questions is to acknowledge that these hard things are not necessarily separate from the Christmas spirit of joy and hope. This is a helpful reminder to me.

Earlier this week I found an article by modern theologian Meredith Miller who says:
Are you - “Weary? So was a girl pregnant amidst scandal, having to settle for truth without proof, at least at times. That’s the Christmas spirit.
Desperate? So was Israel, for the end of the Roman occupation. That’s the Christmas Spirit.
Unsure if God will ever really show up? So were so many people who must have wondered if God’s actions in the past might be just that –the past. That’s the Christmas Spirit.
Afraid of the way the powerful will act? So were the people of Jerusalem, knowing king Herod’s rage. That’s the Christmas Spirit.
Longing? So were Simeon and Anna. So was the world. That’s the Christmas Spirit.”

In all of that, there is, for me, hope. Hope that we don’t have to be anything different this year. God comes. God is with us.

Today, hope found me in the Scripture passage from the Gospel of Luke where we read about Jesus, the infant, going to temple with his parents for the first time and meeting the eldest generation there represented by Simeon and Anna.

Simeon and Anna have been going to the temple for many, many years. Scripture says Anna was a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. And it had been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. He was in the temple every day, looking forward to “the consolation of Israel.” Each of them was hoping to last until they saw the promise of salvation.

Though they were so committed to God’s promise and kept faith in that devotion for a very long time, Simeon and Anna were weary, too. This devotion didn’t come from the promise alone, but the urgency of the promise in a time of deep hardship. They had both lived long lives, unsure of what would come next. And we meet them in this passage at a time when Israel was fraught.

“Tensions in Judea with the Roman Empire had intensified. Taxation by the empire, with its associated extortion was ever present. Emperor Caligula had been tyrannical; some of his successors also problematic. The Zealots saw revolt as the best solution and advocated for a violent response. They hoped to gain control of their own state once again. Small clashes between Jews and Romans escalated into full scale revolt. There was death and destruction. Not all is well in their world.”

Then, on an ordinary day, while Simeon and Anna are praying, into the temple walks Joseph and Mary with their newborn baby.

Joseph and Mary had been through a treacherous, wearisome journey as well. At nine months pregnant, Mary had to travel with Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census and gave birth in a stable when her labor began because everyone turned them away.

Her new baby was born into a tumultuous world. As we heard in Mary’s song found in Luke 1: 46-55, Mary, too, was hoping for the consolation of Israel; she knew her baby would be the one to bring justice in a harmful time. And even when she didn't always have faith, she still had God's promise.

Mary’s hope met her in her desire to bring her baby up in her faith, as part of the next generation. So, after giving birth and bleeding for 33 days she traveled to the temple in Jerusalem for purification and to make an offering, two turtle doves, as she and Joseph were peasants and could only afford the smallest offering.

At the sight of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, Simeon and Anna breathed a sigh of relief for what it meant for them: that the promise that God made to them had been fulfilled.

They had clung to God’s promise, and waited, through all of the turmoil and strife, through all of the violence and isolation. There must have been times where they threw their hands up in the air, saying, “When? Why? What? How long?”

Simeon and Anna were waiting, longing for a sign of change, longing for hope.

How powerful is it that the same God, who in the beginning created humans and saw them good - and continued and made you in that same image and calls you good and claims us all as children of God - would come to earth, too, as a child. A vulnerable infant. When Simeon and Anna meet Jesus, he is only a few weeks old, at that point he could only do two things really, and yet they saw the possibility. They saw the hope of a new life in the continuation of their faith, they saw the next generation ready to take the baton and lead their people to liberation and freedom.

And I wonder if they were just as excited about that.

They knew, at the sight of this new life in the temple, this Savior born as a vulnerable baby of Judea’s new generation, that it was going to be okay. Salvation was recognized in Jesus - in the act of God coming to be among us.

On a routine day, the Christ child is held in Simeon’s arms. And they can rest. Hope has found them.

The story of Simeon and Anna reminds us that as much as there can be unexpected heaviness and hardship, there can be unexpected joy.

The stories of Simeon and Anna connect me to a joy beyond myself. As I reflect on their appearance in this passage, I think of how many people have waited and prayed and acted and kept the faith and devoted their life, their death and their whole self to
kindness, to love, to peace and justice.

It gives me joy to imagine and realize that we too can join in this sacred calling.

It is joyous and hopeful, to me, to look around this congregation and see your faces here today. It is hopeful, to me, to know that you who are watching at home are here with us today. It is hopeful, to me, to know together we care about the people in our community. It is hopeful, to me, to be singing when maybe we feel more like crying, and to hear our voices together taking claim of all we have in what God has given to us in Jesus the Christ. That’s hope.

The joy that we find in this season is grounded in the promise that God is with us. Hope will find us, no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in.

Right now, it is so hard. I’m with you on this. We are making tough decisions, we are tired, we are carrying so much, we are weary. And yet, in that weariness, these thrills of hope and joy mean so much.

Today, in the midst of the Christmas season, we can rejoice with the celebration that is Christmas and savor God’s gift of Jesus. My guess is that each of us needs the rest, pleasure, and gratitude that comes from staying in this moment. May we do that, today.

May we rejoice today at every thrill of hope; remembering that the God who made the world, came to us in our vulnerable state. In our weariness and in our joy, God is with us. Amen.