Reflection on Simeon looking into the eyes of the Christ child

A Reflection on the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus        All Saints Church, Southern Shores, NC February 2, 2013                     Thomas E Wilson, Rector

Malachi 3:1-4 Hebrews 2:14-18 Luke 2:22-40 Psalm 84

When I was an acolyte, the collection of the Alms and Oblations was a big deal in the Episcopal Church. The Priest would say a few words of scripture, and then, with the acolytes’ help, set up the altar from the Credence Table. Meantime the ushers would come forward and shake the people down for money while the choir sang an anthem. Then as part of my job, I would draw the Altar Rail closed to keep the riffraff out of the Holy Space. When the Anthem was over, everybody would sing another hymn, or in the church I attended, in order to underscore that we were patriotic and hated Communism in those Red Scare days, one of the acolytes would lift up the American Flag and everybody would sing the last verse of America while the ushers brought forth the plates. I, or one of the acolytes, would get the collection plates from the ushers and take them up the steps to the Priest who would raise them up and we would all recite part of 1st Chronicles 20:14; “All things come from Thee, O Lord and of thine own have we given thee.” Then the Communion would start.

When the 1979 Prayer Book was adopted they streamlined all that stuff and had representatives of the people bring up the Bread  and Wine and the offerings and the communion would begin without another hymn or the verse from 1st Chronicles. Sometimes you will see me sneak that verse back in –likely because I have fallen through the Swiss cheese of my memory and regressed to being a small child in the presence of mystery. “All things come from Thee, O Lord and of thine own have we given thee.”

That passage from 1st Chronicles is when David is looking over all that has been collected for the building of the Temple and blesses it while handing the plans for the Temple over to Solomon. The Temple was the place where the people acknowledged that all things were gifts from God and where they came to give thanks for all they had received. In the case of Mary and Joseph in today’s lesson the family has come for two reasons. 1) For the purification of Mary forty days after the birth of the child. The spilling of blood during the delivery required that she come and go through the purification rite, and  2) Presenting an offering of thanksgiving for the new child. In the ancient understanding blood was the sign of life and all life was precious so whenever blood was shed, there needed to be an acknowledgement of that life. All life belonged to God and the first born son, like the first born livestock, or like the first fruits of the harvest, was meant to be offered back to God or an offering made in its place. “All things come from Thee, O Lord and of thine own have we given thee.”

But the author of Luke goes forward in his retelling of this event and he remembers the two characters Simeon and Anna, who are touched by the Holy Spirit and are able to see in this child the fullness of God. There are hundreds of people in the Temple that day, giving money, doing religious activities but only Anna and Simeon are open enough to be able to see deeper than just the outward appearance of this child. They have heard no stories of his birth by the shepherds or the Magi. They have heard no eye witnesses of what Jesus does in Miracles. They have heard no stories of his death and resurrection. They have no facts at all except the child they hold in their arms. Their only witness is the Holy Spirit coming into their hearts, minds and imagination. They see this child as a blessing from God and they give a blessing in return. Simeon sings:

Lord, you now have set your servant free *
    to go in peace as you have promised;
For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, *
    whom you have prepared for all the world to see:
A Light to enlighten the nations, *
    and the glory of your people Israel.

A blessing is received and given; “All things come from Thee, O Lord and of thine own have we given thee.”

This story is a conversion story and is the core of all the other conversion stories in scripture; we are not converted by what we were taught to believe growing up. We are not converted by attendance at religious activities, by giving money for religious establishments or by saying recited creeds of scriptures. We are converted when we allow God's life giving Spirit to change our way of seeing and to see with God's eyes and then to respond and do God's will by giving up our very selves to God. “All things come from Thee, O Lord and of thine own have we given thee.”

Every week we enter into an act of imagination and faith and see the Holy in a piece of bread and in a cup of wine. We see the Holy and enact the taking in of the Holy into ourselves, so that we might be reminded that all children are Holy to God. Every week as I give out the bread, I grab a poor child from the arms of a parent and I hold the child, and not just because I have a grandparent withdrawal but, like Simeon and Anna, I might see the presence of the Holy in that child. I want you to see the child as you take the Holy into yourself. I am not deluded to think this child is a perfect child but I am aware that God's Holy Spirit dwells in every living being and our task is too see it in ourselves and others. Christ came into the world to reconcile all of God's children to God and to cure us of our spiritual blindness when we refuse to see the Holy in our neighbor. If we could only see the Holy in the other then we can give the holy in us to the other and back to God. “All things come from Thee, O Lord and of thine own have we given thee.”

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said:

"Everyone, everyone, without exception, everyone, even the most unlikely, even the most undeserving -- the down-and-outs, the derelicts, the louts, the drug addicts, the substance abusers, the prostitutes, the pimps -- if we had but the eyes to see, we would discern even in dark conditions, that they were God-carriers, precious in the sight of God, with a value that cannot be computed. But where we might have felt we needed to recoil, we should, in fact, genuflect, kneeling before them as Saint Francis knelt before the beggar"

“All things come from Thee, O Lord and of thine own have we given thee.”