“The Women of Christmas: Joy of Every Longing Heart” Luke 2: 21-40

The Sunday after Christmas. The presents have been unwrapped. The Christmas dinner eaten. The relatives are on their way home. And it would seem like there is nothing left to say or celebrate - the candles have been lit, Christmas hymns sung, and now we just get back to life as normal.

But that isn’t true at all for those of us in the Christian faith. The celebration doesn’t end after Christmas day. In fact, some of my favorite narratives surrounding the birth of Jesus are yet to come. They are just often forgotten in the Christmas hustle and bustle.

There are certain folks we talk about every year with the Christmas story - Mary, Jospeh, the shepherds, the angels, the Wise Man. These are the folks that fit into our nativities and Christmas pageants. They are staples. There are others that we talk about frequently, folks like Elizabeth and Zachariah, those who lead us into the Christmas story. But other folks, well, we don’t talk about them as much. People like Anna and Simeon. People who are a continuation of the story of the Christ child in profound ways. 

Just as John (the Baptist) was presented by his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth in the temple eight days after his birth for his circumcision and naming, so was Jesus taken to the temple eight days after his birth. He was given the name Jesus, just as the angel foretold, when Mary was told that the Holy Spirit would come over her and that she would give birth. 

But several weeks after that time in the temple, forty days after Mary gave birth, the family had to go back again. This time, about a month after the circumcision, it is for Mary to be ritually cleaned. She needed to do so before she would be allowed to worship in the sanctuary or handle sacred things, other than ironically, the holy son of God that she is cradling in her arms. At the same time a sacrifice would have been made for Jesus since he was the first born son - turtle doves if you had money, pigeons if you didn’t. It was here that the family encountered Simeon. 

Outside of this scripture, we don’t hear much about Simeon. We are told that he was righteous and devout, similar to the terms used a chapter earlier for Zechariah and Elizabeth. He was getting on in years, but the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would meet the Messiah, the one that would save him, save his people, save Israel, before he died. For centuries God’s people had been waiting for their salvation to come, and for a Messiah to come and rescue them. Simeon had been promised by the Holy Spirit that the time would come before he died. 

How exactly did the Holy Spirit reveal this to Simeon? We don’t know. We aren’t told in Scripture. But we do know that Simeon so deeply believed this revelation that he staked his life upon it. We also know that he trusted the Spirit’s continually leading in his life, because it was the Spirit that led him to the temple that day. 

Everyone else saw Joseph and Mary coming to present their offering and become clean and didn’t think anything of it. This is just another young family coming to perform their religious duty. But Simeon saw them, through the eyes of the heart of the Holy Spirit, and knew, knew deep within him that the prophecy had been fulfilled. This was the time. Salvation had arrived. 

Now maybe by this point Mary was just used to odd things happening with her child. It wouldn’t have been too long ago that a whole gang of shepherds came in from the fields to worship her child and said that angels led them there. But here is an old man, a complete stranger, who took her child scooped her child into his arms and started to praise God. And Mary and Jospeh were absolutely amazed. 

A few years ago Todd Agnew released what is to this day still my favorite Christmas album entitled Do You See What I See? It’s a collection of songs written from different perspectives of characters in this growing Christmas narrative. The one based on Simeon has the following lyrics: A young couple walks through the temple door

“Carrying of salvation in their arms, A sight for old eyes, Redemption draws nigh. In the eyes of this little baby boy… You can take these eyes, For I have seen Your salvation Oh, You can take this breath, And bring me at last into Your Peace. Oh and You can take these hands.I have held the light of the nations And the glory of your people Israel.”

It would be shocking, would it not, to hear such words being proclaimed over your child, even if you knew all that Mary and Jospeh knew. Their son, who no one else seemed to notice was deeply seen and recognized by this man. 

But it didn’t stop there. There was also a prophetess, Anna, who lived in the temple, day and night. The moment she saw the child, she also knew that Salvation had come and she started to praise the Lord. She would talk to anyone she could about encountering the redemption of Israel - she could not contain the joy spilling over from her heart. Could Mary have imagined that her encounter with the angel would lead to this? To this day in the temple.

Friends, it wasn’t Anna or Simeon’s goodness or piety that allowed them to see the Christ child - it was the Holy Spirit. And it was the Holy Spirit that allowed them to go forth from that place to proclaim that they had see God’s Word in the flesh. Are we so emboldened and led by the Holy Spirit that we can not help but proclaim this as well?

During the season of Advent we talked about what it means to wait. To wait for that which we cannot quite grasp, but know is to come. To wait with accountability, love, and challenge. But we also wait, my friends for the Holy Spirit’s leading. Men and women who are lead by the Holy Spirit to be in our lives for a purpose, that we may or may not understand.

The question is - are we willing to open ourselves to the work of the Spirit? Are we willing to stick it out and see what emerges from the seasons of waiting? And are we willing to be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit, so through community, we can be the Simeons and Annas in other people’s lives - speaking words of hope and promise at just the right times and places? Amen.