THE PRACTICE OF THE PROPHET
Luke 2:22-38

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
November 27, 2005 / 1st Sunday of Advent

I would like to dedicate this sermon to Mr. and Mrs. Frank Day, Ms. Terry Logan, Mrs. E. B. Post, Miss Rita Beckley, Miss Mary Dykes and her parents, Mrs. Edna Erling, and Miss Edna Erling, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Palmateer, the Rev. Randall Mason, Mrs. Ruth Mason, and others whose names have unfortunately melted into the distant recesses of my memory.

All of these were faithful members of the First Congregational Church of Paterson, New Jersey, where I was nurtured in my high school years, among the twenty-five or so weekly attendees. And all before the Church finally closed and was torn down in 1973.

They were the people who taught me about Simeon and Anna, even though I can't remember if the pastor ever preached on this text.

Simeon and Anna is an odd text for the first Sunday in Advent, for it is actually a Christmas text. Mary and Joseph are taking the baby Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem to be dedicated. There they meet Simeon and Anna. It is a Christmas text. It celebrates a Jesus already born.

Therefore it is an odd text for Advent, when we stress waiting, and watching, and looking, and longing for that which is to come. How did I get my seasons so mixed up?

Well permit me, if you will, to engage in a little Hollywood like story telling. One of the new techniques of Hollywood block buster movies is to produce what they are now calling a "prequel." In the past movies had sequels: Jaws II, Jaws III. But when the Star Wars series got put together they were all out of order. We learn the middle or the end, then go back to the beginning. Take a popular genre and they go on to tell us what came before.

So Luke 2 - in the Christmas story is the only place we run into Simeon and Anna. But lets use a little imagination. Let's go back to try to figure out what came before. Just like all of our Christmases have had an Advent, a waiting time before they came, so Simeon and Anna's Christmas had an Advent before it as well. What was life like for Simeon and Anna before Christmas? What was life like for Simeon and Anna before they met Mary and Joseph? What happened before?

Actually our texts are quite helpful in giving us a sense of what came before.

Simeon was a man who was righteous and devout. He was looking forward to the consolation of Israel: that means he had hope for the future. The Holy Spirit rested on him. The text also tells us that the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not taste death until he had seen the Lord's Messiah, and that he was led by God to come into the Temple on this particular day at this particular time. Here we have a very religious man. He prays, he worships, he hopes. He sees visions. He has such an intimacy with God in his life that he responds to the Holy Spirit.

Anna is a prophet. Notice that first. Women can be prophets. Women can hold spiritual office. The Bible will not sit easily with those who seek to exclude women. Anna is a prophet. She is also very old. Our translation says she was married seven years, and then widowed, and is now eighty-four. The Greek, however, is somewhat confusing, and some translations say she has lived eighty-four years since her husband died. That would make her something like a hundred and eleven. She is old and she is a prophet. But she lives out her prophecy in a very modest way. She hangs around the Temple and worships night and day. Worship is the quality of her life. She fasts and she prays. She is like those women you see in a Catholic Church doing their rosary. She fasts and prays: a modest form of prophecy.

Here is the prequel. What happened before the coming of the Messiah? What happened in their Advent? They fasted and prayed. They hung around the Temple. They were righteous and devout. They followed the lead of the Holy Spirit. That's it. That's all you get to know about their lives. They worshipped and prayed. That's how they lived out their Advent.

One wonders why the Bible pays such attention to two such gentle and devout people? Now Simeon does get to write a tiny short poem that is later well thought of in the Latin Liturgy, the Nunc Dimittus, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace…" A scrap of memory.

Yet even as they get written into a Christmas story, what did they actually see? Did they see the salvation of Israel? Well, they got to see the baby Jesus. But in the eyes of the world that is not much. They got to see a baby. And they believed something about the future. That's it. Then they died. Herod did not get overthrown. The occupying armies did not pull out. Caesar Augustus and the Roman Empire did not come to an end, did not repent, did not turn around. What kind of a salvation did they see? A baby and his parents. That's it. They said that was enough to give them hope. Would you have felt the same?

And for that matter, this Temple they hung around in so much, this place - special to them where they worshipped, would be torn down in just a few generations, wiped off the face of the earth. They built no lasting building, they left no legacy, they did not achieve much in the eyes of the world.

How then, did they even get into the Bible? I think they gave Mary and Joseph some hope, and Mary remembered. Anna praised God and told everyone. Simeon told Mary great things would come from her son. Parents need some Simeons and Annas. You may inspire even when you are eighty-four or a hundred and eleven. Mary and Joseph needed some positive prophecy. Simeon and Anna gave it.

So that's why I have dedicated this sermon to all those old people in Paterson who were my Simeon and Anna. The Church is gone. The building has been torn down. They did not leave a huge legacy. They lack stone monuments. They did not build a lasting institution.

But the Bible isn't all that keen on buildings anyway. David doesn't get to build one. Samson takes advantage of them. Belshazzar's feast tells us not to take too much stock in them. And Jesus teaches us that stone temples will be replaced by living temples. Do you not know that you are the Temple of God?

So when I think of my Simeons and Annas in Paterson, there is no monument. But I remember when I was seven years old that one of them told me they thought I would be a minister some day. When I think of them, I know I am a sign of what they have given. My spirit is meant to carry their spirit. If you were to meet their spirit, I hope you can meet some of it in me. If you were to hear their prophecy, I would hope you could hear it through me.

For you see, spirit is the only way we can prepare for the coming of God. Devotion, righteous living, prayer and fasting; some words of hope to poor distraught young couples with children.

That's the prequel. That's how we are expected to live. That's the style of Advent, the practice of the prophet. Our legacy is our spirit.

Even so, come Lord Jesus. Maranantha.

Amen.