Christmas 1 B

Praise be to Christ, indeed.

One of my favorite family traditions growing up was the Christmas Day journey to my Uncle Dan & Aunt Sylvia’s house. It wasn’t because of presents, really, since most of that had already happened the night before. It wasn’t because I could even show off my presents from the night before, because my brother and I were always the only kids — the rest of the cousins were gone or grown up. I’m not actually sure why I loved it so much as a kid, but I know now that my most cherished memories of those trips to my Uncle Dan’s is that before eating, we always sang the Doxology. (You know… “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”) My entire family, most whom I never heard sing, would lift their voices in praise.

Well, there is a lot of praising in today’s scriptures… in the Old Testament reading, in the psalm, in the New Testament reading, and in the Gospel.

Praises come as Jesus, still a baby, is brought to the temple in Jerusalem for a ritual presentation. Some of what is described in the Gospel was regular Jewish tradition, but the actual presentation of Jesus was a little unusual. It follows in the footsteps of Hannah presenting Samuel to the Lord in the Old Testament. Jesus is presented to the Lord, and because we know the story well, we understand that there is something very special about Jesus.

But there are others who already know, as well.

There’s a man named Simeon living in Jerusalem. He’s living in a kind of perpetual Advent, he believes that he will see the Messiah with his own eyes before he dies. And besides Simeon, there is a woman of God named Anna, 84 years of age. She does nothing but pray and pay attention to God — it’s her full time job. Each of them, upon beholding the infant Jesus know instantly that this is what they’ve been waiting for. Each of them can’t help but launch into praises to God… having spent their whole lives waiting, they’ll spend the rest of their lives praising.

Simeon sings:

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, [or, now, Lord, you let your servant go 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.” (Luke 2.28–32 NRSV)

Even before Jesus could walk or talk, he had inspired hope — not just for his family, or his clan, and not just for the people of his Jewish faith — he had inspired hope for all the world; a light to the Gentiles and glory to the people of Israel.

All Simeon can do is praise God.

Likewise, Anna can only praise God at the sight of Jesus. And not only is Anna in tune with God, but she is in tune with other people around her: as she praises God, she speaks about the child Jesus to ‘all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.’ In other words, Anna shares and recognizes the hopes and dreams of others around her who are also waiting for God to break into the world to bring justice and mercy.

And all she can do is praise because she has found it in the baby Jesus.

It seems crazy to do all this praising over an infant who hasn’t actually done anything yet. When he was brought into the temple, I would bet that Jesus was either sleeping or crying. Like any baby at his age, Jesus would have needed others to do everything for him. And yet, I think we can understand it, too. There’s something about babies that makes us hopeful about the future and all the potential that lies in each person. And we certainly understand praise for the newborn Jesus — it’s the whole basis of our Christmas celebration. Maybe, in the newborn Jesus, each of us can find hope for being children of God.

But even though we sing, “praise God from whom all blessings flow,” it’s not always so easy to do so.

There’s always a let down after Christmas Eve, I think. As we all organize our receipts to return gifts that we didn’t want, and as I watch the kids on my block playing with new plastic toys that will all be broken by New Year’s… I get the feeling that it’s not always easy to praise God at the end of the year.

As the holidays wrap up, temporary family truces come to an end. Out of town relatives go back to being out of town. Bad habits come back, or maybe got worse over the holidays. Praising God might seem out of place on your New Year’s resolution list.

In fact, it may even feel inappropriate to praise God. Should we praise God even while children in our community go to bed hungry? While violence goes on around us? Should we praise God knowing that friends and loved ones are suffering from chronic diseases? Is it right to praise even when we feel out of touch with God?

Well, look at the praise going on in scripture today.

The psalm we read, Psalm 148, sings praises with just about everything. Joined in praise are all kinds of things living and non-living.

Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!

Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the earth!

Joined in praise are not only nice things, but dangerous things, and repulsive things. Not only the sun, stars, and moon, but fire, hail, snow and frost, sea monsters and even creeping things.

The psalm suggests that all things belong to God, not just things that we like, or things that seem holy.

And remember that Anna was praising God for the redemption of the world, before anything visible had happened yet. She was telling all these folks who were nobly and desperately waiting for God to fix their broken world that she had placed all her trust in a defenseless baby. And still she praised.

And remember Simeon’s words, though full of praise, don’t exactly sound like good news either; he tells 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.” (Luke 2.34–35 NRSV)

I can’t imagine that’s news that any mother ever wanted to receive.

And yet, Simeon praises God.

And yet, we praise God. Like Anna & Simeon, we praise God even before all things are revealed. We praise God even though we still live in a world with difficulty and sadness. We may even praise God when we have a hard time meaning it.

We praise God because our hope goes beyond what we can see. We praise God because our hope is also in the sight of a newborn child who will join all of us as children of God.

As my family gathered around Christmas dinner this year, we sang the Doxology once again. We praised God even though this was the first Christmas since my Uncle Dan died. We missed hearing his voice in the song. But his voice was not missing from the praise, because Jesus, Child of God, is born. And he has gathered every voice, Jew & Gentile, Anna’s & Simeon’s, Dan’s, yours and mine in praise as children of God.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.