Today’s reading tells the wonderful story of two people, at an age when you might have expected them to have long retired from public life, but they are still active in the worship of the Temple and eagerly alert to the leading of God’s Spirit. All their longing is directed at awaiting the arrival of God’s Saviour and, unexpectedly they see God’s hand in the tiny child brought to them the future Saviour of the World.

It is a remarkable story in that it takes place in a place we would not associate with new beginnings. It reminds me of the words of the poet Kahil Gilbran:

‘The difference between my youth which was my spring, and these forty years, and they are my autumn, is the very difference that exists between flower and fruit.

A flower is forever swayed with the wind and knows not why and wherefore.

But the fruit overladen with the honey of summer knows that it is one of life’s home-comings, as a poet when his song is sung knows sweet content,’

This poem hints at a free spirit resisting the constraints of convention and social expectation. At the end of the poem Kahil Gibran suggests that we should, maybe, nurture this freedom earlier in life, indeed somehow balance the responsibilities of adulthood with the free spirit of a child.

That same balance of youth and age, experience and innocence, love and tenderness is caught in the beautiful portrait of ‘A Grandson with his Grandfather’ by Domenico Ghirlandaio 1494. The gnarled face of the grandfather speaks of a life lived suffering but still fresh with love for the young boy who looks so tenderly at the old man’s face.

Simeon and Anna

In the life of the two elderly people at the centre of this story, we find a harmonious balance between Spirit and Law, freedom and ritual, and establishment and dissent.

The Temple was at the heart of Israel’s national life, a bastion of the establishment, a place of tradition and law, but it here that a child, the son of a carpenter is first publically proclaimed as the Saviour of the World.

It is a remarkable story because it foretells the destiny of this child, how though rejected, he fulfills the demands of the Mosaic laws and is the means through which God’s grace is extended to the Nations.

It is remarkable too because it speaks to us today of the same God of surprises who reveals Himself through unexpected people in unexpected places and in unexpected ways.

Unexpected people: Consider what it meant for Simeon and Anna.

Luke gives us a portrait of both:

Simeon: ‘It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” Luke 2:26

Simeon is a man led by the Spirit, and it is to the Temple that the Spirit of God leads him. Just as the Magi had been surprised to be led to a stable, I expect Simeon was surprised to be led to the Temple which the prophets said God had abandoned.

Anna: ‘She did not depart from the Temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day’ Luke 2: 37

Anna passed her whole life in the confines of the Temple, caught up in the rituals and routines of daily worship but she too was open to God’s leading.

They were both old and had waited many years but had refused to give up on the promise of God made to them that they would not die before they had seen the Messiah. As Paul says:

‘Love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres’ 1 Cor. 13: 7.

Love is the secret of staying open and alert to God into old age. Love enables us to see beyond the disappointment and pain that life brings to the promise of God.

Unexpected places: Consider for a moment how unexpected it was that this fateful meeting of Mary and Joseph should coincide with the service rota of these two faithful servants of God in the Temple. Clearly, God’s hand was at work!

Mary and Joseph had come to present their child to God. This followed an ancient ritual in which the firstborn male child was to be offered to God, just as Samuel had been given to God by Hannah. However, the law of Moses dictated that the child could be ‘Redeemed’ or bought back from God with an offering, in the case of the poor:

‘A pair of turtle doves or two pigeons’ Luke 24.

This ancient ritual becomes the means by which God's plan of Salvation is foretold, for Jesus is himself offered to God as the sacrifice and becomes the means of Redemption not for himself but for the world.

The voices of the prophets had long ago been silenced and the Glory of God had departed, but Simeon and Anna waited and watched and discovered in the ancient rituals of the Temple God’s plan of Salvation. In so doing Simeon prophetically proclaims the death and resurrection of the Christ.

Today God still promises to meet with us amongst His people, the Church, for though we fail and forsake Him, though the Church often falls short of its calling, He remains faithful to His promises.

Unexpected means: Consider for a moment how God chooses to reveal Himself to Anna and Simeon, through a baby child. Here is the secret of God’s love for He does not impose or seek to dominate us, but appears amongst us as a frail human being seeking our love.

In Jesus Christ, we see God’s love for us shining out through his life, death, and resurrection.

His ‘love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs’ 1Cor 13: 4.

Unexpected people, unexpected places, and in unexpected ways, we can so easily miss the love of God. We can miss it because we allow pain or disappointment to dull our faith. We can miss it because we allow anger, bitterness, or resentment to cloud our light. Or we can miss it because we fail to see God’s love revealed in the ordinary and everyday routines of life. The Spirit of God is at work in humble ways and with humble people but only to those who allow God’s love to keep them young.

Anna and Simeon may have been old but they had been practicing the art of staying young throughout their lives, young in spirit and open to the new and unexpected just like a child.