Holy Family

Readings: Genesis 15:1-6; 21:1-3; Hebrews 11:8, 11-12, 17-19; Luke 2:22-40

VIDEO

My son and his wife are awaiting the birth 
of their first child, any day now.
More importantly, 
my wife and I are awaiting the birth 
of our first grandchild, any day now.

Awaiting the birth of a child—
or a grandchild—
is a funny thing.
You know that this will be
a life-defining relationship:
this person you are waiting to meet
will be someone who, God willing,
you will know for the rest of your life;
this person will play a role in your life
unlike any other.
Your anticipation is so intense,
you feel as if you already know them.

In fact, however, you know very little
about this person you are awaiting.
What will they look like?
Will they be tall or short?
Slight or stout?
What will their personality be like?
Will they be quiet and bookish
or an extroverted thrill-seeker,
or—what is most likely—
will they possess a unique combination 
of interests and talents and quirks and traits
that combine to make them 
completely and utterly themselves?

You have some ideas, 
some guesses you can make
based on family traits and interests,
the lineage from which the child comes
and the environment in which they will grow.
But, to utter what may be 
the biggest understatement ever, 
children have a way of surprising you.
Their lives take paths unexpected 
as they become the person they will be,
paths that are not set for them
by their parent’s hopes and dreams.
And so you await a stranger
whom you must come to know,
someone who remains a mystery 
that must unfold itself in time.
This is why parenting
is one of life’s great adventures.

In today’s Gospel, 
Simeon and Anna also await a child.
The child they await is not their child,
nor even their grandchild,
but it is still a child of their family:
for they are Jews,
descendants of Abraham,
and the child to be born 
is to be the fulfillment 
of the promise made by God to Abraham
that through him and his offspring
all the families of the earth 
would be blessed;
the child they await will be 
the consolation and glory 
of the people of Israel.
Simeon and Anna 
have awaited this child
not for weeks or months
but for the whole of their lives;
the Jewish people
have awaited this child for centuries.
This child so long awaited 
is for the people of Israel 
a life-defining relationship,
he will play a role in their life 
like no other.
Their anticipation is so intense,
that they feel as if they already know him.
For this child is born of Abraham’s lineage;
he will grow and develop
within the stories and rituals and laws 
of the covenant God made with Abraham;
he will bring that covenant to fulfillment.

But Simeon and Anna also know 
that they await a stranger,
one whose unique existence
can in no way be anticipated,
can in no way be contained 
within their hopes and dreams.
Will he come as judge or a savior?
Will he defeat Israel’s enemies
or gather them into God’s covenant?
Will he restore David’s earthly kingdom
or transform the very fabric of the universe?
This child, like any child 
newly born into the world,
remains a mystery
that must unfold itself in time.
But even more so than other children, 
this child will burst the boundaries
set by any human expectation,
for the mystery his life will unfold in time,
is the mystery of the eternal God himself.

Simeon, filled by the Spirit 
with holy anticipation,
is able to truly welcome this child
because he embraces him as a mystery,
as one “destined for the fall and rise 
of many in Israel,”
as one who is “a sign 
that will be contradicted,”
as one through whom, 
“the thoughts of many hearts 
may be revealed.” 
Simeon embraces the child 
not as one who fits neatly 
into his hopes and dreams, 
but as the divine mystery 
who overturns his hopes,
so as to give to him a better hope,
a deeper grasp of the strangeness 
of a salvation that flows 
from God made present in the flesh,
and dwelling among us as a child.
Holding the very mystery of God in his arms,
Simeon prays, “Now, Master, 
you may let your servant go in peace,”
for he knows that, 
whoever this child turns out to be,
in him Simeon’s hopes and dreams 
have found their place of rest.

Though Jesus was born many centuries ago,
we too await his arrival in our lives.
Already born in us through baptism,
he also remains to us the stranger
whom we must come to know.
Though he is present to us
in his word, in his Church, in his poor,
in his sacramental signs,
we, like Simeon, embrace him as a mystery,
the one who will overturn our hopes
to give to us a better hope.
The life of each of us reborn in him
becomes part of the unfolding 
of God’s eternal mystery in time,
an unfolding whose outcome we await.
This is why the life of faith
is the ultimate adventure,
for it is a journey into 
the eternal mystery 
of God himself,
a journey in which we come to know
the one who has loved us into existence.
As we continue on that journey
let us pray that God who is merciful
will have mercy on us all.

Holy Family

Readings: Genesis15:1-6, 21:1-3; Hebrews11:8, 11-12, 17-19; Luke 2:22-40

Abraham was already an old man when God called him.
At seventy-five, he probably thought himself
well past his sell-by date.
Yet God called him forth from his homeland
and promised that he and his wife Sarah,
who had been childless for many decades,
would have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.
It seemed an unlikely scenario,
but, as the letter to the Hebrews tells us,
“he thought that the one
who had made the promise was trustworthy.”
He had faith in God’s promise,
and from him and Sarah
came forth the nation
into which Jesus Christ was born.

Simeon also was an old man
who had received God’s promise:
in this case the promise
was that he would not die
before seeing God’s anointed,
the one who would fulfill the promise
that God made to Abraham and his descendants
that through them all the families of the world
would be blessed.
He lived in hope,
as he grew weary and weak with the years.
Yet his weariness did not prevent God’s Spirit
from leading him to the Temple in Jerusalem
on the day that Mary and Joseph brought Jesus there
to offer the sacrifice of redemption for their firstborn.
His weariness did not prevent the Spirit
from giving him eyes of faith,
with which to recognize in the Christ child
the one for whom he and his people
had waited for so many years.

Anna the prophetess had, like Simeon,
grown old in God’s service.
We might imagine the grief she felt
when she was widowed after only seven years of marriage,
grief that led her to seek solace and hope in God.
At eighty-four, Luke tells us,
she never left the Temple area,
but led a life of fasting and prayer.
With her prophet’s eyes, she too, like Simeon,
recognized in the child Jesus
the arrival of God’s salvation
and she too offered up
a prayer of thanks to God.

So what is it with all these old people
in our readings today?
Isn’t Christmas about baby Jesus?
Isn’t it about something new, not something old?
Isn’t it about life that is just beginning,
not about life that is nearing its end?
So much of our celebration of Christmas
is tied up with images of childhood—
often highly sentimentalized and unrealistic images
of innocent, cherub-like tots
nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of sugar-plums
dance in their heads.
So the presence on this feast of the Holy Family
of such emphatically old people
as Abraham and Simeon and Anna
can seem just a bit jarring.
This is particularly true in a culture like ours,
which seems to prize youth so highly
and to relegate the elderly to the margins,
seeing them as economically unproductive
and perhaps a discomfiting reminder of our own mortality.
Some even speak of those who are old and sick
as having “a duty to die”
so as not to drain resources
that could be used by the young
or burden them with their care.
And some elderly people internalize this way of thinking:
suffering from social isolation
imposed not only by their own infirmity,
but also by a culture that wants to hide them away,
they come to see their own lives as useless.

But this is not how God sees things.
God does not see age or weakness or infirmity,
but the potential of the human spirit
to be transformed and renewed by God’s Spirit
at every stage of life’s journey.
When God wanted to establish a people to be his own
he did not choose parents who were young and fertile,
but Abraham and Sarah:
old and barren—
as the letter to the Hebrews says, “as good as dead”—
yet fruitful in the hope of God’s promise of life.
When God wanted the Messiah’s arrival
heralded in God’s Temple
he did not choose fresh-faced prophets
who could relate to the young,
but Simeon and Anna:
sight failing with the passage of many years,
yet gifted with the eyes of faith
to recognize God’s salvation.
Where we may see only the infirmities of old age,
God sees disciples who are reborn in the Spirit
each and every day:
in God’s Spirit the eyes that have grown dim
can have the keenest of spiritual sight;
in God’s Spirit the body that is failing
can still show forth the glory of God,
even in its weakness.

The Holy Family of God’s people is, we might say,
a multi-generational family
in which young and old live together
within the household of the Church,
sharing with each other our unique gifts,
gifts that are bestowed on young and old alike.
When I think of my own parents,
of my elderly friends,
of parishioners here at Corpus Christi,
I think of the gifts of wisdom and experience
that age can bring.
But even more I think of the gift of the Spirit,
the Spirit that makes the young see visions
and the old dream dreams,
the Spirit whose love binds all of us—
young and old and in-between—
into one Holy Family of God.
May the prayers of Abraham and Sarah,
Simeon and Anna,
assist us as the Spirit works within us
to make us into a community
in which the gifts of all
are welcomed and valued.