Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

for those of us here who have lived through

a few more New Year’s Days than others …

but think about it for a minute anyway.

Have you ever caught yourself thinking,

if only I live till

thus-and-such a thing happens,

then I can die in peace?

Maybe we’ve made it a goal to be sure

to live to see our first grandchild.

Or great-grandchild.

Perhaps we’ll feel free to die in peace

if we finally got to make that grand tour of Europe,

or if we’ve outlived an old enemy.

For folks who are seriously ill,

sometimes the wish is just

to make it to the next birthday,

or the next Christmas,

or long enough to say goodbye to

everyone they want to say goodbye to.

Simeon, in our story today,

also had a specific thing in mind

that he was waiting for.

Of course, he also had an unfair advantage:

God told him it was coming.

Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit

that he would not die

until he had seen the Messiah.

Seems it was also the Spirit who nudged him

to be in the right place at the right time.

Simeon comes to the temple

on the day that Mary and Joseph come,

bringing the baby Jesus with them.

He sees the child, and instantly he knows:

This is the one.

And then he says,

Lord, now you can let me die in peace.

I have seen with my own eyes

the fulfillment of your promise.

The story doesn’t tell us whether

Simeon did indeed pass away

fairly soon after this …

But he was ready.

I wonder, though,

what Simeon might have thought and said,

if he had been around thirty years later

and seen what his people did to Jesus.

I wonder, if he were living today,

would he be tempted to take back his words?

It seems like our world, taken as a whole,

does not appear to have seen God’s salvation.

Some days it seems that we haven’t made much progress

since Simeon’s day.

Here it is, just a week after Christmas,

but people haven’t stopped killing one another

in Iraq, or Israel / Palestine.

The poor and the hungry

may have benefited from our holiday-time generosity,

but they will still be poor and hungry in this new year.

People who are addicted to drugs or alcohol

will still be hooked.

Children in abusive families

will still get hurt.

Europe will still be in the midst of

a murderous cold snap …

who ever heard of two feet of snow on the ground in Florence?

New Orleans will still be years of time and billions of dollars

away from wholeness.

Where is God’s salvation to be seen?

In what way has Christ’s coming

made any difference at all?

Is there anything that our eyes have seen,

that would cause us to burst forth in praise, as Simeon did:

Lord, now you can let me die in peace,

because my own eyes have seen

the salvation you promised …?

More like a fantasy than reality, isn’t it?

I think the hardest thing about Christmas

is not the frantic pace of preparation …

It’s not choosing the right gifts,

or cleaning the house for the family to come visit …

It’s not even spending time with family members

that you’d really rather avoid.

The hardest thing about Christmas

is what comes after.

And I don’t mean the cleaning up, or the weight gain,

or paying off the credit card bills!

I mean this:

December 24 and 25, we celebrate:

Christ is born!

December 26, we wake up and get out of bed,

and the world hasn’t changed.

Our eyes may have seen,

or at least caught a glimpse of,

the salvation God has prepared

for all the world.

But it doesn’t appear that the world as a whole

was paying much attention.

And I’m not even talking about people of other faiths,

and that whole question.

I mean, even us Christians;

those of us who celebrate Christ’s birth

at this time of year,

not just an excuse for excessive spending and partying.

Our eyes have seen,

our ears have heard,

our lives have felt,

the coming of God.

But we have also seen, and felt, and heard

God’s absence in so many places in our world.

Sometimes that frustrates us, or angers us;

sometimes we feel hurt by it;

sometimes we’re indifferent to it.

But what we have to recognize is that

it is, at least in part, our own fault.

If we live in a world – and we do –

where it seems that God is not seen or heard

or even known …

we have to ask ourselves,

what have I done about that?

Who have I told, lately, about God?

Have I been sharing with others

what my eyes have seen and my ears have heard?

What do my actions say?

Do my actions look like they belong to

someone who belongs to God,

or to someone who considers God

only a couple of hours a week, like maybe Sunday morning?

When was the last time I really

made a sacrifice for someone else?

When did I stand up for what I believed was right,

even if other people thought I was weird?

When did I make a decision

that I knew was God’s choice for me,

even if something else looked better on paper?

Did I share with anyone else

why I made the decision I did?

Time out:

I’m not saying that Christians ought to

legislate behavior for everyone else.

For example, I think it’s probably a good thing

when merchants wish us a "Happy Holiday"

instead of a "Merry Christmas" …

Even those of us who do celebrate Christmas

need to be reminded that the December orgy of spending

has nothing to do with the coming of the Messiah.

I don’t think it’s any of the Christian Coalition’s business

what movies any of us decide to see,

or what we watch on television.

Although I do think it probably is necessary

to control what’s on at certain times of day

when children are watching,

and to put limits on advertising that’s directed at children.

Now, they do have the responsibility, just as any of us has,

to decide for themselves what they will and will not watch,

between themselves and God,

and to bear witness about why

they made the decision they did.

What have they seen and heard about God,

that leads them to choose a particular way?

Likewise, what have we seen and heard about God,

that leads us to make different choices?

It’s not that they pay attention to God and we don’t,

though some of them would like to claim that.

It’s that we seem to have seen and heard

genuinely different things from God

about the proper choices to make in our lives.

Not just about watching television,

but about relationships and roles of men and women.

About marriage and divorce …

and about whether marriage is only for one man and one woman.

About money … about sexuality, and how we express it, or don’t!

What have we seen and heard of God

that leads us to make the decisions we make

and to avoid the things we avoid?

How do our actions reflect our faith,

and how do they bear witness to other about our faith?

We are the people to whom Christ has come.

We’re not the only ones,

but we are among the ones.

Our eyes have seen God’s salvation,

or at least, hints and glimpses of it.

We know that the world has come from God,

and will return to God.

We know that Christ has come for the whole world,

not just for us.

As Simeon said it, "a light to lighten the Gentiles,

and for glory to your people Israel."

His eyes saw,

and our eyes have seen.

Are our mouths telling?

Are our hands reaching out?

If, like Simeon,

our time for death were approaching,

would we be satisfied that we’ve done what we can?

We don’t have to do everything,

and we don’t have to do what God has called someone else to do.

But we do have to respond to

what our eyes have seen,

what our ears have heard,

what our hearts have felt.

God’s messiah has come into the world.

Now our job begins as well.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

© 2006 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)