Luke 2:22-38
There are very few stories in scripture about Jesus as a child. Today we read one of them. After Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, his parents wait eight days. Then they take him to the temple in Jerusalem, about six miles away, and make the prescribed sacrifice of two turtle doves because he is their first-born son and so belongs to God. The doves are an offering of joy and gratitude and also a ransom, allowing the family to keep this child. While they are in the Temple, two very holy elderly people independently see the baby and pronounce prophecy about his future greatness in the story of Israel.
During Advent in the run-up to Christmas we’ve already heard prophecy about this baby. Luke gives us the angel Gabriel announcing a special birth to Mary and hosts of angels declaring the birth of the Messiah to shepherds. Matthew has an angel persuade Joseph to keep his promises to Mary because her baby will be the savior. Next week we’ll read how the stars help sages find the child which is to be a king. Today’s stories reinforce what gospel writers want us to know: Jesus is the equivalent to the Emperor. He is the one who brings God’s reign to earth. He is savior of all his people, giving them a new kingdom. Even rulers from across the world recognized his significance. The holiest of those worshipping in the Temple saw him as the One to change the world.
We’ve learned that in the first century everyone expected these kinds of stories about the ruling emperor. They were a statement of a ruler’s significance, not a history of his infancy. But how amazing that they were told about Jesus by his early followers. Even more amazing when we realize that they were written down shortly after Rome destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE, murdered most of the people there and took the rest as slaves. Think of the audacity of the earliest followers of Jesus. Their leader was a peasant, never raised an army, was crucified by Rome as a way of ending his movement. They themselves were alternately ignored by Rome and persecuted. They were scattered across the Empire in small groups, not necessarily connected to each other. Yet they believe that Jesus has conquered the world and tell stories to report that everyone always knew he would do it. This against all evidence. Why?
That’s a question without a definitive answer, but it is useful to speculate a bit about it. It’s really the same question we could ask about Jesus himself: why did people follow him and believe in him during his lifetime? And it’s the question we ask ourselves: why do we follow him and believe in him today? Most of us would point to qualities we admire about him: he welcomed and accepted people; he healed people; he took people seriously even when others had given up on them; he respected people, even those who were poor or disabled; he fed people; he healed people; he LOVED people. Jesus also assumed that people could treat each other in the same way he treated them. He called for leaders to put their people’s needs before their own, for creating a reign based on God’s love rather than wealth or power. For building community. It’s the kind of world we would all like to be part of. It’s a vision that’s sparked hope and revolution across ages around the world. It was a better way of life for everyone, and they named it as God’s intention for creation.
I wonder if what we’re dealing with here is a distinct world view – a way of understanding how life works. Much of history tells us that those who are rich and powerful win. They end up owning the wealth of nations and often other people. They use and abuse power to grab benefits for themselves and to exploit others. It’s a grab-what-you-can world, often ending in wars for territory and resources. No one would describe it at God’s best way.
But woven through all of history is another story. It’s a story that says God spoke a word of creative love and brought forth life in abundance. Everything that was good was given for us to enjoy. People were meant to live in community. Resources were meant to be shared, On rare occasions societies have lived by this other vision and have thrived. There has been peace and cooperation and respect for earth. This is the story told by John of Jesus’ birth: The Word was first,
The Word present to God.
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
In readiness for God from day one.
Everything was created through him,
Nothing – not one thing! –
Came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
And the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness
The darkness couldn’t put it out.
The Life-Light was the real thing.
Every person entering Life
He brings into Light.
We was in the world,
The world ws threre through him,
And yet the world didn’t even notice.
He came to his own people,
But they didn’t want him.
But whoever did want him,
Who believed he was who he claimed
And would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
Their child-of-God selves.
The Word became flesh and blood,
And moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
The one-of-a-kind glory,
Like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
True from start to finish.
Across all ages there have been peoples and sometimes cultures who believed that life was born from the heart of God, that Earth was a gift to the people to be cherished, that each individual brought a gift to the community of great value. Maybe these were the eyes that Simeon and Anna brought to the Temple; eyes that could see a tiny infant and believe in the man who would become. Eyes that could look past the soldiers on crowd control around them and believe in a world of peace. Eyes that could acknowledge hunger and poverty and believe in a beloved community where everyone could thrive.
We live in a very different time, but one that’s also very similar. We too live with two ways of seeing the world. One feeds on power and the other on kindness. One grabs for wealth and the other practices generosity. One abuses others for personal gain and the other offers respect and dignity and compassion. We have more power to impact our world that those first followers of Jesus, but we haven’t yet found a way to transform the world by God’s vision, not completely.
But we stand in our moment in time with the promise of God that two things can be true at the same time. We can live in the power-hungry world and the world of peace simultaneously. We can be “in the world” society builds around us but “not of it.” We can be children of God’s holy reign. We can live by the values of Jesus. We can be signs of light and hope. We can feed and heal and teach and value those around us. We can believe that the reign of God is real, and because we believe we make it real, day by day. With each act of respect or kindness. With each word of understanding. With every smile and every song, we make the reign of God our reality. We can say each day, “Our eyes have seen your salvation!”