19^th January 2010

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley (16 December 2009)

Christmas Service of Holy Communion for Older Members

Lesson -- Luke 2:25-40

It may be surprising to learn that, apart from Jesus, there are no children in the nativity stories. Only adults! Some are hostile. Others are astonished. Two -- Simeon and Anna -- are very old and frail. Although they never figure in Christmas plays, they play a key role in Luke's Christmas story.

Nowadays the story of an old man waiting for death and an 84-year-old widow at prayer are thought to be irrelevant in our youth-centred society.
These two old folk are 'out of touch' with reality. They aren't interested in instant action, but spend time on 'impractical activities'.

Unlike a lot of old people, however, Simeon and Anna aren't simply 'waiting to die'. They have a deep appreciation of (past) history and a lively sense of (future) hope. After more than 200 years of appalling persecution, they were looking for 'the consolation of Israel' (v25) and 'the redemption of Jerusalem' (v28) that would also be 'a light for revelation to the Gentiles' (v32). They hunger and thirst for righteousness for a world where human evil causes terrible suffering. They look back to the promises of God for the nations and to the future when God will bring history to glorious completion.

Yet they are not fanatical, frenetic or impatient. They're not agitating for a Crusade or Holy Jihad. They don't insist on their 'individual rights'. Neither do they live in the past, becoming despondent or apathetic. They simply 'wait' on God with deep joy, knowing that the whole of human life and history (Jewish and Greek) is significant because God's love is to be embodied in the 'real world' in the 'Christ-child'.

At the same time, their joy is tempered by a keen awareness that his ministry will provoke terrible conflict and opposition, causing distress to Mary and other disciples (v35).

Simeon and Anna are models of faith. They represent the faith, goodness and hope that is God's purpose for the whole human family. They invite us to wait patiently and gladly for the future that God has already promised 'in Christ'. They warn us (church) against despair. And they encourage us in worship, prayer and 'righteous living'. They should be an encouragement in a congregation like ours which is 'ageing'. The age of members should not be a barrier to faith, hope and love.

They invite us to be beacons of hope in a society where so many people have lost touch with their (ultimate) destiny and purpose (in God): where some 'young people' are easily beguiled by the attractions of 'popular culture', relevance and satisfaction of needs and where some 'old people'
are easily tempted to apathy, nostalgia and despair.

Simeon and Anna are beacons of hope in that they represent quiet, patient, joyful devotion to God that runs counter to our helter-skelter world in which no-one thinks it a virtue to 'wait in hope' -- where worship is thought to be impractical, and 'righteousness' a dangerous obstacle to self-realisation.

In such a society we mustn't dismay but take a cue from these two old folk who, long ago, rejoiced in the hope that was enfleshed in Jesus, despite the conflict they knew would come to him and his disciples!

* Between 1920-1989 in the Soviet Union, while countless churches were destroyed and millions of fellow citizens, priests and laymen died in the gulags, a few old women continued to pray in Orthodox Churches. Thought by authorities to be irrelevant to the success of Communism, they kept hope alive in the midst of unspeakable evil.

* In the Wodonga Parish there was an old woman named Mary Turner whose serious lung condition prevented her leaving her small flat. Sometimes she was depressed. But always she would say that there was something she could do. She could pray!

The Simeons and Annas of Church history keep hope alive long -- long after tyranny and fascination with the latest fads have passed. As disciples of the crucified and risen Jesus -- who became incarnate in the 'Christ- child' out of love of our sinful and suffering world -- they continue to worship, to pray and to bear witness to the goodness and mercy of God who judges evil and calls us to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Why then should we at St John's despair in a society that is consumer driven, youth-centred and intolerant of anything that gets in the way of satisfying our immediate needs?

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Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.

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