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| Fra Angelico (1395-1455), Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (1440-1442) |
First Sunday After Christmas/ 28th December 2014
“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 people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for
glory to your people Israel.”
“For
my eyes have seen your salvation…”
My eyes, my heart are drawn to this portion of the text, to these
words. That’s what Simeon says when he sees the baby Jesus in the Temple. He
lifts Jesus up in his arms and praises God for what he had seen.
It’s a curious turn of phrase “seeing
salvation.” How does one see
salvation? Obviously, Simeon’s talking about Jesus, but what caused him
to offer such extraordinary praise to a human being? What does he see?
It’s important to note how this
exchange in the Temple is marvelously incarnational: he’s lifting up the baby
Jesus, holding him in his arms, touching him, feeling his weight in his arms,
looking at his face. There’s emotional affect in
Simeon. It’s a fleshly experience. It’s a reminder to us
that salvation is more than a concept or idea or the state of one’s soul;
instead, it’s an experience,
something real, phenomenal.
Simeon isn’t holding a religious
idea or a theological concept in his arms, but an embodied soul, a real person
he not only feels, but also sees. It’s an experience of
salvation that we have here—it’s real. You can reach out to touch
it, feel it, be moved by it. It’s an experience encountered,
not in some afterlife, but in this life, here and now. It’s an experience assuring
the promise and presence of God.
For the last couple of years, experience
has come to mean a lot to me on my own journey, specifically the importance of
religious experience, encounters with the Holy. Theologically
speaking, we Protestants (indeed, most Christians I have found) get nervous
when we put too much emphasis upon experience. We would rather try
to sum up God in our creeds and confessions, thinking we have thus defined God;
we would rather talk about God rather
than talk about our experience of God—or lack of experience. We’re
more inclined to reduce God (along with everything else in Christianity) to an
idea or a concept, to argue and debate and fight over getting belief right, as
if belief can be a substitute for an experience of God’s salvation. There
are plenty who say they believe in God, as an intellectual exercise, but what
about experiencing God? There are plenty of Christians who think
they are “saved” because they can affirm certain beliefs about Jesus, accept
him as Lord and Savior, but what about an experience of encountering Jesus, of
knowing what it feels like to be
saved, of what salvation looks like?
Over and over again throughout
scripture, lives are changed through encounters with the Living God, not by
intellectual assent or subscribing to theological ideas Encounters with God in
the flesh, directly relating with the Personhood of God, that’s what
transforms. Believe me, I’m not being critical of rigorous
theological thought. We need more
rigorous thinking in the Church today, not less. As Presbyterians, we know that theology
matters. How we think informs our life. But, sometimes, I
suspect our Presbyterian penchant for theological engagement is a defense
against actually encountering the One we’re trying to talk about. For, when we
try to really talk about this God we eventually discover the limit of our
thought. We can’t think our way toward
salvation. Salvation is an experience that comes upon us and our
lives are changed as a result.
Jesus
is how we usually render the Hebrew word Yeshua
or Joshua. It means,
“Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is my salvation.” The word for salvation in
Hebrew yasha, meaning,
“to bring out into a wide open space.” It doesn’t mean being saved
from the burning fires of hell or escaping judgment, it doesn’t mean a state of
life known only after we die. Salvation is an experience we have
when we are brought out into a wide-open space and allowed to stand there freely,
safely.
Imagine: You’re in a fortress, a castle perched high
on a hill and from the castle you look down on the plain below, you look out in
every direction. You can clearly see
that there isn’t a threat in sight. No one is trying to attack you. You’re safe there, secure. That
feeling, security within a spacious freedom—that’s salvation. Salvation is the free space we’re given to
live in. Yasha, salvation, means living within a wide-open
space. It’s the opposite of trying to live in a tight, cramped space. It’s a wide-open space. This means that yasha,
salvation, becomes the foundation of hope and a future. Salvation means
we’re given a place to live, to breathe, and to hope.
The motto of the Royal Burgh of St.
Andrews, Scotland is Dum spiro spero. “While I breathe I
hope.” That’s what Simeon encountered in the face of this baby—a fuller reason
to live with hope, offering a promising future for Israel and for
Gentiles. In seeing salvation Simeon
sees a wide-open space to live, to breathe—to be human. He can breathe deeply
and allow his lungs to expand with air. That’s
what salvation feels like, looks like.
Henrich Suso (c.1295-1366) once saw
salvation. It was an evening in 1328, the story goes, when German mystic
and Dominican monk, Henrich Suso had a vision. An angel of the Lord
approached him “brightly,” he wrote, “and said that God had sent him down to
him, to bring him heavenly joys amid his sufferings; adding that he must cast
off all his sorrows from his mind and bear them company, and that he must also
dance with them, [the other angels,] in heavenly fashion. Then they
drew [Suso] by the hand into the dance, and the youth began a joyous song about
the infant Jesus.” When the vision ended Suso wrote down the joyous
song of the angels. He called it In dulci jubilo, in
sweetest jubilation; it’s the melody for “Good Christian Friends Rejoice.”[1]
It’s fitting for us to sing this
morning:
I
danced in the morning when the world was begun,
and I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,
and I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth.
At Bethlehem I had my birth.
Dance, then, wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
and I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be,
and I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.[2]
As we bring the calendar year to an
end this week, and as we emerge from Advent into a new liturgical year, what if
we turned our attention toward experiences of God in our
lives? Periodically, I like to ask the Elders at a Session meeting: Where
have you seen God at work in this church over the last couple of
months? Where have you experienced God? Where have you
seen the spirit of Christ among us and within us? Where have you seen
resurrection? Where have you seen signs
of new birth? It’s a helpful spiritual discipline to follow at the
end of each day or after a particular season in our lives.
The more we ask these questions,
looking, anticipating answers, the more our outlook and attitude and
perspective begin to change. There are experiences of God all around
us, sightings of Jesus’ love and grace, holy moments when we know the Spirit is
among us and within us. Where have you seen salvation?
Just recently, I saw salvation at
our Blue Christmas Service during Advent. We had about six people in attendance
this year. We never have a huge crowd,
but the energy and power in this space for these services is always amazing. John
Calvin (1509-1564) once said, “God is known where humanity is cared
for.” God’s Spirit was present as we cared for and provided a space
for grief and hurt and sorrow and pain, and prayed together and provided hope. Each person at that service thanked me for
offering such a space. I’m always struck
by the way the Spirit is present in these services.
Where have you seen salvation this
Advent and Christmas?
Where have you seen signs of
Christ’s love?
Where have you been given space to
hope, to breath, to live?
Where is God inviting you to
rejoice?
Where is God drawing you into the
dance of heaven here on earth?
Where is God inviting you to dance?
