Simeon & Anna:keeping a weather-eye
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Simeon & Anna: keeping a weather-eye
Presentation of Jesus in the Temple 30 January 2011 The Revd Jenny Wilkens
- Malachi 3:1-5
- Luke 2:22-40
http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons
One of the things I enjoyed seeing again in Munich last year was the Town Hall glockenspiel. We were there at 11am all looking high up the building to see the figures come out and dance around to the music-box tones filtering down through the noise of the crowd. Maybe it's my German ancestry but I've always liked things like glockenspiels, cuckoo-clocks and those little weather-houses where the man or woman pop in and out the door depending on whether you're heading for a fine day or a wet one - I could do with one of those in Wellington this summer!
I like to think of Simeon and Anna as two weather-house figures in Luke's gospel. They were older folk, senior saints, depicted as those who kept a weather eye on events around them, looking always for God's role in them. They are both devout, righteous people who long for the coming of God's Messiah, for God to suddenly return to his temple, as the prophet Malachi foretold. But even they were surprised in the way that God would do that!
I was interested to learn that Simeon and Anna may in fact be two figures at either end of a pendulum representing the Judaism of their time. While we know nothing of Simeon and Anna other than what Luke tells us here, what he does say is significant.
Simeon seems to be a native of Jerusalem, and in his song, our well-loved Nunc Dimittis, he will speak of the Christ-light going out from the temple and Jerusalem, as a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.
In the same way, Luke's gospel will have that pendulum swing, out from the temple at the beginning of the gospel, back to the temple in worship after the sending out of the ascension at the end.
Luke's sequel, Acts, will also start in Jerusalem with the gathering of Jews from all over the known world for the feast of Pentecost, and then the Holy Spirit will push the gospel bearing the light of Christ out from Jerusalem, through Asia, Europe, right to the centre of the Empire at Rome.
Anna, we are told, is the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, which originally had its territory in the Western hills of Galilee. It's an interesting idea that she's come down from the North, just as Joseph & Mary came south from Nazareth in Galilee for Jesus' birth, and then to the Jerusalem temple. It's thought then that just as Simeon represents the locals of Jerusalem, the Southerners if you like, so Anna represents the Northern tribes of Israel , who were deported and exiled at the time of the Assyrian invasion, back in the 8th century BCE, after which the northern kingdom of Israel was no more. see Richard Bauckham, Gospel Women, London: Continuum, 2002, pp. 98-99.
So Anna represents the diaspora Jews, the Jews of the dispersion, but one who has come back to Jerusalem to fast and pray for the redemption of her people, for their freeing from oppression and occupation. But this child she meets in the temple will bring a redemption far greater than even Anna could have dreamed of, a redemption from slavery to sin and death achieved at the cross, the sword that will pierce the soul of Mary.
I want to read now an imaginative reflection on Luke's story of Simeon and Anna, written by the Revd Dr Trevor Dennis, formerly Canon Residentiary at Chester Cathedral, and published in his book "The Christmas Stories" . It is called 'An old man waiting'.
An old man waiting. Waiting for his heart's desire, waiting for his God to move, to speak those ancient words again, 'let my people go!' waiting for him to clear the land of occupation, waiting for Rome to be put in its place, waiting for the time when they will not hurt or destroy on all his holy mountain, and the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.
An old man waiting for justice, for peace, for the consolation, the contentment of his people, waiting for the knowledge that all is well, that no longer will the fetid air sound to the beat of the helicopter and the crying beyond all bearing of the mothers and their children, nor the smooth-paved street to the wail of the ambulance, rushing to yet more pools of blood and bodies twitching in the grasp of death.
An old man waiting for his heart's desire, while the soldiers look down through the smoke of sacrifice upon the courts of the house of God, to make sure they are kept in good order and nothing gets out of hand.
An old man waiting. He has been so for a long time, waiting for his God to emerge from his hiding behind that heavy curtain, to shake off the dust of holiness, to walk out into the world and see.
He has been waiting all his life for the Messiah, has this old man Simeon,like the rest of us, waiting for a Messiah, waiting for hope to win the day,waiting for God to do something, waiting for a song to sing.
He has been waiting all his life and this very morning he has opened up his breaking heart for God to overhear:
'You told me, when my hair was black and my knees both worked, That I would not die before your fine Messiah came and hope was born anew. Well, my God, I wish you to know that the time now left to me is short - I can sense it in my bones. I have been waiting all these years, through famine, pest and plague, through settlement and wall of fear and buses blown to bits,and here I am, my God, but not for many weeks or days. Must I die a hopeless death, knowing that you do not keep your word? My eyes are failing fast, my God, so sooner than I care to say, I will not see him, if the Messiah comes. After all this time, I will not see! You have disappointed me too long, my God. Do yourself proud before I die! Let him come, your Messiah, let him come and bring you from your hiding place! Let me die with hope knowing it is not all a lie. Let me sing my song before it is too late, the music dried up in my throat.'
The curtain bends aside, enough for a girl from Nazareth to emerge carrying a child in her arms. What was she doing, for God's sake, in the Holy of Holies? Feeding him with the milk of her breast? She slips across the court, head bent down towards her child, to leave this temple and its self-importance for the hills of Galilee, for a place where she will not be noticed, and her child can play. She is almost out of the temple now, when she sees an old man waiting, and knows full well, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, that he is waiting for her, or rather for her child. He has waited all his life for this moment, for her, Mary of Nazareth, and her small child, held against the beating of her heart. How can she refuse him?
So now, this very moment, this most holy time, she stands before him, waiting for him to notice them.
His eyes are shut against the light; he cannot look into the sun. The breeze stirs Mary's skirts, but he does not catch the movement. She says nothing, and he cannot hear the fall of her breath. So she adds her waiting to his.
And then the child cries, and the old man opens his eyes and sees. 'You can sing your song now, old man, ' the young girl says. 'Sing him a lullaby and calm his fear. There is too much of it here.'
The old man has not been waiting all this time for such a small Messiah. But slowly, fighting the pain in his knees, he stands, straightens, stretches out his arms to receive the child. 'Oh Mary!' is all he finds to say. She smiles at him, not asking how he knows her name. Yet still in his enfolding arms, the child cries with fear. 'Sing him now your lullaby,' the young girl says. 'Let him ride home on the back of your song, to where we will be safe. Sing now, old man, you have been silent too long.'
So Simeon sings his song, sings of light and peace, salvation and glory, while the young girl turns her skirts and dances before him, Dark eyes flashing, bare feet curling, slowly, gently spinning. To her quiet rhythms the old man rocks the child, and all for that time is holy,
and an old woman's fasting days are done! Anna, exiled Anna, has come home to Jerusalem, hoping for her God. This day, this hour, this song, this dance she is not disappointed. For more years than she can tell, she has been bent towards the ground, and never could she sing, even as a girl. But now, but now she joins Mary in her rocking dance, faster, faster, till they are stamping out their glee and with the rest of their breath adding women's voices to the old man's song, while the child sleeps against his cheek. Such a day! Such a day!
And still, and still the dance goes on. Their song is never finished, nor will it ever end its Gloria.
[Trevor Dennis, The Christmas Stories, London: SPCK, 2007]
