Angela Wiggins, seminarian> Scripture for the day
The town I grew up in was small - big enough to have a movie theatre, but the theatre had only one screen. Since it had to appeal to all audiences, the wait between G-rated movies was months long. So I never really got into the genre of children’s movies. Besides, I was skeptical of talking animals – if animals talked, wouldn’t they speak their own language instead of English?
Then there were musicals; I didn’t get that genre either. It seemed like every time something happened, somebody would burst into song and interrupt the whole movie. I just didn’t get it.
What finally won me over was the release of the movie musical “Grease.” Or maybe what won me over was the long summer of waiting for Grease to make it to our theatre. We could endure the wait only because one of our friends bought the soundtrack.
That was also the summer our youth minister scheduled an out-of-town trip each week for the middle-school kids. As our mothers drove us on these excursions, we played the “Grease” soundtrack over and over, hour after hour, week after week. By the 4th of July we had memorized all the songs, complete with hand motions, and we kept on singing all summer. It was a long summer of expectation.
When I hear those songs now, I can still see us riding upside-down in the backseat with our beach-soaked hair dangling onto the floorboard, our torsos on the seat, and our legs folded over the back of the seat. Who knows why we did that, but when I hear those songs, “You’re the One that I Want” or “We Go Together,” I sing along and remember the joy, laughter, and expectation of that summer.
When Grease finally made it to town, we sang along with the movie. We knew the plot from all those hours with the soundtrack. That freed us up to gaze dreamily at John Travolta. But as soon as another song came on, we’d jump right back in. We knew it was time to pay attention. That’s the advantage of a musical – you always get a clue when something big is about to happen. You don’t have to guess if the next scene is significant; if it has a song, it’s important. Expect something.
I wouldn’t go so far as to speculate that St. Luke was an early writer of musicals, but he does use song in much the same way, especially when he tells the story of Jesus’ infancy. Something really big is happening, so Luke doesn’t just narrate. He doesn’t write a speech or a dialogue. He puts it in song and we pay attention. We expect something. These beautiful songs convey more than narrative can contain. When we hear these songs, we know something beyond words is happening. We remember these beautiful songs and continue to sing them, even tonight. These songs shape our understanding and remembrance of the incarnation.
Our Gospel lesson is from the second chapter of Luke, but let’s back up and think about chapter one also. In these two chapters Luke tells the story of the infancy of Jesus and he fills this story with song and angels. What is happening – God coming to live among us as one of us - is beyond human imagination. There is no way to explain this; the only way to tell it is with song and with angels. Like Zechariah, like Mary, like the shepherds, when we see angels, we pay attention. No matter what we have been expecting, God is about to exceed our expectations.
One thing Luke makes clear about his characters is their piety and devotion. They are people who love and serve God, people who understand that God is at work. People like Simeon who wait in expectation to see salvation. Like Mary and Joseph who bundle up Jesus and take him to the temple, just as they were expected to do. People like Elizabeth and Anna who go about their daily work – at home and in the temple – while they wait for the fulfillment of God’s promises. They are expecting redemption; they are expecting God.
And God is up to something that day. Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple, and the Holy Spirit brings Simeon. Anna the prophet is already there, at prayer, just as usual. They’re doing ordinary things, the tasks expected of them, but God is doing something beyond their expectations. Their redemption is at hand in the most unexpected way. The distance between heaven and earth, between God and creation is gone. God is right there, right where they are. God is right here, right where we are.
Luke announces this in-breaking with angels. Nothing less would do. Gabriel appears to Zechariah and to Mary. A company of angels announces the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. The Holy Spirit prompts Elizabeth and then Simeon to recognize the fulfillment of God’s promises, to recognize the presence of the Lord. Zechariah, Mary, and Simeon respond with songs of praise. Like any good writer of a musical, Luke alerts us with these songs that something significant is happening. We know to look for God in the story.
Luke is a great storyteller; he doesn’t try to explain how all this could happen. Instead, he records the amazement of Zechariah and Mary and Simeon in song. These are songs of amazement, but not disbelief. Although this is not how they expected their hopes to be fulfilled, they recognize that God is doing something beyond expectation.
So they sing. They sing praise to God and proclaim God’s goodness that is beyond expectation. They had trusted God’s faithfulness, but God has surprised them. Simeon sings, “These eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see.” Tonight, as we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation, we join Simeon in this canticle of praise. In this song we celebrate the fulfillment of God’s promise and we remember. Just as favorite songs from our youth transport us back in time, in this ancient song we relive our redemption in Christ. We join in singing praise that the light of the world has been revealed to us.
We try to find precise words to explain what has happened. In my former work, tax accounting, we had tricky words that made no sense to anyone but us - and the IRS. One set of tricky adjectives was “realized” and “recognized.” For most people, these words have similar meanings, but not for tax accountants. A realized gain meant a profit has been made, yes, it’s happened, but you don’t have to do anything about it. Just sit tight. Everybody liked that kind of gain. A recognized gain, though, meant a profit has been made and you’ve got to do something about it; you’ve got to claim the income and pay the price. And, well, you know what that means.
While these words seemed like secret code to our clients, they understood the distinction between the words determined whether they had to share their profit with the IRS. It’s nice to know an investment has paid off, but most would rather not recognize the gain.
All too often, that’s our response to Christ. It’s nice to know Christ has happened, but we’d rather not do anything about it. We’d rather live as if the Light of the World wasn’t shining in the darkness.
Singing about light and salvation with Simeon is lovely, and remembering the joy of our salvation is important, but it’s not enough. For Simeon and for Anna, the recognition of Christ, our light and our salvation, was life changing. They were no longer expecting redemption; they were proclaiming redemption. Verse 38 says Anna “kept speaking about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” The encounter with Christ has given Anna new work and a new way of living.
Luke must have written the next verse, verse 39, with a sly grin. He says, “When they [Mary and Joseph] had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.” If we didn’t know what happened next, we might think they went back to life as usual. But we know the next chapter of the story – Jesus at the temple at age 12 – and we know how the story ends. We know they can’t go back to what life was before. Once we recognize the light of the world, life is no longer the same.
Let’s sing with Simeon and join in Anna’s praise. But let us also be open to being transformed by encounter with Christ. Let us live in the light of Christ.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment