New Year’s Eve, 2023, Brewer United Methodist Church and Shannon United Methodist Church
A reading from the Gospel of Luke —
When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
Luke 2:22-40
Surely, this text was made for New Year’s Eve – a time of dismissal and amazement. Let me explain:
Dismissal
First, it is a time of dismissal as we say farewell to 2023. For Simeon, it was a sign that he could be dismissed – that he could basically retire – from his years of waiting for the consolation, or redemption, of Israel. So there is a sense of melancholy here, but melancholy tempered by hope in the future.
Similar to Christmas, the New Year comes in at the darkest time of the year, with the shortest days and longest nights – what Christina Rossetti called “The Bleak Midwinter:”
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
The same sense of gloom and darkness can be found in Thomas Hardy’s poem, The Darkling Thrush:
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
Originally titled “By the Century's Deathbed”, it was written on New Year’s Eve at the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. The 19th century had seen it’s share of war and misery but Hardy was unlikely to have foreseen the destruction that lay ahead in the 20th. Maybe he felt some foreboding as his poem continued in a dismal tone –
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
Pretty depressing, huh?
Amazement
But now let’s turn to “amazement.”
The NRSV uses the word “amazed” in translating Joseph and Mary’s reaction to Simeon’s prophecy. I prefer the choice of “marveled” that some other translations use because of it’s sense of wonder and even miraculous, being derived from the Latin mirabilia “wonderful things”,
What “wonderful things” is Simeon referring to?
Let’s look back at the text again:
Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
What does this mean?
A new translation by David Bentley Hart renders the same passage from Luke’s Gospel this way:
And Symeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “Look: This one is appointed for the fall and the rise of many in Israel, and as a sign that will be spoken against — and your own soul a sword will also pierce — so that the considerations of many hearts may be revealed.”
First, as noted in the New Interpreter’s Bible commentary, the falling and rising doesn’t refer to a sequence of events like the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” or “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” – but to two different groups: one group that would receive the Messiah and another that would not.
The line about Mary’s soul being pierced is so obscure and so interrupts the flow of Simeon’s prophecy that in all translations it is set off with dashes. It is unlikely to refer to her agony at the Crucifixion (Luke’s Gospel doesn’t recall her suffering there) but to Ezekiel 14:17 – “Let a sword pass through the land.”
In other words, Jesus comes to save but also to judge — a judgment that will be revealed by the choices made by those who respond to the Word. The best we can say about the line’s inclusion of Mary is that she will share in the rejection of Jesus and the division of Israel.
Back before Christmas, I read an exchange on Facebook between some pastor friends about the song, “Mary Did You Know?”
It seems some people object to the song because we know from Luke’s Gospel that Mary had been informed by the angel, Gabriel, that she would bear Jesus, the Messiah, the son of God, so surely, she did know in advance about his miraculous ministry to come. The consensus of the majority of the participants in the Facebook colloquy seemed to be that the question in the song is rhetorical — it’s ultimately directed to us. But reading of Mary and Joseph’s amazement at Simeon’s oracle, it seems likely that Mary, like the disciples, knew and yet did not know. She knew, as the disciples ultimately did, that he was the chosen one, the anointed, the Messiah — but she might not have foreseen the manner in which the King of Kings would reign, despite her recognition that he was coming to change the world.
So, here Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph were “amazed” – that is they marveled and were filled with wonder at Simeon’s prophesy and that Mary would share both in the way that Jesus would be received . . . and be rejected. That he had been appointed – chosen – for the rise and the fall of many.
As we dismiss — or release — the year of 2023 we face with wonder and, yes, amazement, at what 2024 may bring, even though we don’t know – cannot know – the future.
Anna and The Darkling Thrush
Which brings us, finally, to Anna. Not for the first time, Luke portrays her in a manner that recalls Hannah from the book of 1 Samuel.
Let’s revisit Luke’s words about her –
There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Like the bird in Thomas Hardy’s poem, the aged Anna, sings out her praises for the redemption of Israel. Here’s Hardy’s poem again:
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
We don’t know what the future brings, but we hear the song of hope nonetheless because we have the assurance that Jesus is the Messiah – we know this just as Simeon and Anna did – through the gift of the Holy Spirit that leads and guides us in the same mysterious way as it did these prophets.
Thomas Hardy’s poem closes with these lines:
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
In Macolm Guite’s anthology, “Waiting on the Word,” (which if you haven’t read it, you should) he includes “The Darkling Thrush” and artwork that he commissioned from Linda Richardson, who wrote about how she approached her painting inspired by the poem. These words of hers struck home as I prepared this message:
I made a black and white photo transfer of a small bird in a tangle of twigs and painted the canvas with cold blues and violets. I enhanced the roughness of the surface by applying thread in an acrylic medium to the surface of the painting. Out of the grey coldness of the painting comes the idea of pure and beautiful bird song. If we try to make earth our heaven we will be terribly disappointed, but here, amid the stark grey of winter, comes a song of hope. Annie Dillard, the American writer and poet says, ‘You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary".
In the end, we choose. We choose to be among the rising or the falling — those who choose to accept the carpenter from Nazareth or those who don’t. In choosing the former, we join in Simeon’s hymn of praise and Anna’s song of joy, and proclaim that there is hope in this world and beyond.