“THE DANGER OF SAYING YES TO YESTERDAY”
LUKE 2:21-35
21 After eight days had passed, it
was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
22 When the time came for their purification
according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord
23 (as it is written in the law of
the Lord, "Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"),
24 and they offered a sacrifice according
to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation
of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested
on him.
26 It had been revealed to him by
the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah.
27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came
into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law,
28 Simeon took him in his arms and
praised God, saying,
29 "Master, now you are dismissing
your servant in peace, according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the
presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel."
33 And the child's father and mother
were amazed at what was being said about him.
34 Then Simeon blessed them and said
to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the
The sun’ll come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar
that tomorrow there’ll be sun!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow, you’re only
a day away!
That song of course comes from the Broadway musical Annie. It’s a cheerful, chipper song that captures the optimism that little orphan
Annie always seemed to exude.
Some
people are like that. It doesn’t matter what happens. They always look on the bright side. If something bad happens
they just take those lemons and make them into lemonade. That was certainly true
for the husband who knew exactly what to say to his wife shortly after they got back from their honeymoon. One morning the wife decided to iron her husband’s brand new pants.
Unfortunately she got the iron too hot and burned a big hole in them. When
she realized what she had done she started to cry. Her husband immediately ran
into the room and asked what was wrong. Unable to speak the wife showed him the
hole in the pants. Instead of getting angry the husband just smiled and gave
her a hug. “Honey, don’t cry,” he said. “Let’s
just be thankful my leg wasn’t in those pants.”
An optimist
is always convinced that tomorrow will be a better day. How about you? As you
stand at the threshold of another year what are you thinking? Are you more cheerful or fearful? How you answer that question depends in part on where you’re living these days. Now I’m not
talking about the street address that you put on your Christmas cards. I’m
talking about where you’re living these days in your head.
You
see some people can’t get excited about the future because they’re living in the past. They do that by holding on to a grudge or a broken dream or a regret that is still with them even though
it happened many years ago.
Simeon
wasn’t like that by the way. He wasn’t one to live in the past. That’s obvious when you look at what happened that day in the Temple. Luke says that Simeon was a man who
was looking forward to the consolation of Israel. In other words he was looking forward to the future.
He was optimistic about the future. He was convinced that God was about to do something wonderful for them. He didn’t know if it was going to happened tomorrow or a year from tomorrow. He just knew it was going to happen.
That
attitude was very different from what many of the people were thinking back then. You
see many of the people back then were living in the past. They longed for the good old days when David was king and they were
free. They longed for the good old days when Solomon was king and built their glorious Temple.
They longed for the good old days when there was plenty of peace and prosperity. Now
they were a downtrodden people. Roman soldiers were everywhere, taxes were high
and life was tough.
That’s
why they were longing for the good old days. Simeon wasn’t living in the
past though. He was looking ahead. He
was looking forward to the consolation of Israel. You can also see that Simeon wasn’t living in the past by what he said when
he held the infant Jesus in his arms. Simeon declared that the child was going
to be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” and bring “glory to (God’s) people Israel.”
Most
Jews would have found that statement shocking. Why? Because as far as they were
concerned the messiah wasn’t for the Gentiles. The messiah was for them
and only them.
Simeon
wasn’t locked into the old ways of thinking.
Sometimes the past is what stands between you and God
and there are lots of ways that people live in the past. Some people live in the past because they can’t let go of the good old days. Others live in the past because they play the “if only” game.
If only I’d done this my life would be a lot better of today. If
only I’d done that I’d be happy today. Guilt is something else that
keeps some people living in the past. You did something long ago and you still
can’t forgive yourself for it. Instead of taking the guilt to God you keep
punishing yourself. Then there’s anger.
Some people live in the past because they’re still bitter about something that happened years ago.
I think
that a danger for all of us. That tendency to hold a grudge is the reason why
it’s so easy to identify with the elderly lady who went to park her car one day.
Before she pulled her car into the parking spot though, a young man in a sports car zoomed in and took it from her. The elderly woman rolled her window down and complained a little. “Why did you
do that when you knew I was going to park there?” she asked. The young
man just laughed and said, “Because I’m young and I’m fast.”
With that he disappeared into the store. The young man wasn’t smiling
though when he came out and found the elderly woman ramming his little sports car with her big old sedan. “Wait,” he shouted. “Why are you doing that?” The elderly woman just laughed and said, “Because I’m old and I’m
rich.”
There
are lots of reasons why people live in the past. Simeon was able to recognize
Jesus as the messiah that day because he wasn’t living in the past. He
was looking forward. He was looking forward to the consolation of Israel. The
lesson that we see in Simeon then is simple. Let go of the past. Forgive if that’s what you need to do. Forget if that’s
what you need to do. Say you’re sorry if that’s what you need to
do. Let go of the past.
Emily Perl Kingsley learned
that lesson in the years following her son’s birth. “I am often asked,”
she wrote, “to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not
shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s
like this…
“When you’re
going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books
and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum.
The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in
Italian. It’s all very exciting.
“After months of eager
anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several
hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, ‘Welcome
to Holland.’
“‘Holland?!?’ you say. ‘What
do you mean Holland??
I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”
“But there’s
been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.
“The important
thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.
“So you must go out
and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
“It’s just
a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy,
less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…and you
being to notice that Holland has windmills…and Holland
has tulips. Holland
even has Rembrandts.
“But everyone you know
is busy coming and going from Italy…and
they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for
the rest of your life, you will say ‘Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go.
That’s what I had planned.’
“And the pain
of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away…because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.
“But…if you spend
your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may
never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things…about Holland.”
(Welcome
To Holland, Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987)
Yes,
my friends. Listen to Emily. Listen
to Simeon…because the truth is simple. If you refuse to let go of those broken dreams and those wounds that never healed
you might end up like all those people in the Temple who walked
right by Jesus and never even knew the messiah was there. You see, God isn’t waiting for you in the past. God is waiting for you in the future. God is waiting for you
in all that is yet to come.
Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes
January 1, 2006
