Christian Pathway

What I am going to do today is tell you the missing part of the Christmas story. Where it fits in the story, Why it had to happen and what this does to bring us into the story today.

This story today is bit the angels and the shepherds and the guiding stars miss out. In most presentations there is a jump from the shepherds to the wise men, even though many months lay between those two visits. We turn now to the events that took place in between. Between the shepherds and the wise men , sit todays events.

This is the part of the story meant for those that understand what the Holy Spirit can do.

It’s only dramatic to those tho are excited by the Holy Spirit
These events occur in Jerusalem, only 6 miles from Bethlehem. So we change scene for this event, Then in our traditional Christmas narrative we change back to Bethlehem.
The story should be shepherds – Simeon and Anna – wise men. I think we lose this bit for a couple of reasons ONE, because unless your properly spiritual these events mean nothing, there’s no event as such, no angels no wise men following a star, no shepherds watching their flocks by night, just people who knew Jesus the moment they saw him. This is a spiritual event, unless you believe in the holy spirit as I say these events mean nothing.

Two, the event that’s happening here is the Brit Milah carried out by Jews to this day. The ceremony of circumcision puts Jesus properly as a Jew and under the whole law of Moses.
Jesus is at this point a jew, a first born son given to god and under the law of Moses.

However, it’s essential because he had to be put under the law so that he and , and he alone could lift that law from people’s shoulders – and the burdens the law’s precepts demanded – by getting under it and by being circumcised.
The other reason that this has to be part of our story is because Simeon and Anna both do better than all the other characters in the nativity. Better than either the shepherds or wise men, in recognising Jesus. Why because they never had a star , they never had an angel. They just saw a baby from a very unremarkable family doing something Jewish people routinely did with their first-born son. Giving him to God. Nothing else visible marked him out, no angel no star. Simeon and Anna were not guided by a star or an Angel but by the holy spirit.
However this makes it special to us here today
Why?
Because it brings us into the story, makes it relatable to us. And why is that?
Truth be told this is how most of us will meet him, in an unremarkable way, but somehow something immediately something that lights up something within us the moment, we know him.
Us here today in some way we have all had our Simeon and Anna moment and known him for what he is, may have happened long before you can remember, or maybe it was never even seen as an event, but the knowledge of who he is came to us in the same way in some place below language, some sort of understanding in our most basic and primitive essence.
Those that always knew him probably just can’t remember the moment. It happened before knowing, before the womb. Some of us forgot and then remembered. Like Columbus discovering America or satellites showing us a round world . It was always thus.
We just uncover some deep truth
These guys were so certain they both exclaimed excitedly the moment they saw him. They were both named as Prophets and they both saw their prophecies come true. The words they spoke were the words of the joy of that moment.
When we hear these words we know them , they are the nunc dimitis
Which stands for and they stand for “now you dismiss,”
Now he can go , he’s seen the best thing he is ever going to see in his life, he knows it’s peaked. These things do happen, people won’t go until a loved one arrives , until something dear to them has been seen, or some worry abated. Seen it myself a couple of times, Simeon had been promised to see the lord, and he knew him the moment he saw the baby.
Now he can depart in peace, knowing the promise had been kept.

Anna was 84, in the days where life expectancy was 29!
We think jesus died young, but in reality he died and a very average age for the time
But Anna, a person who had seen much tragedy, one of the few survivors from the house of Asher a tribe more or less obliterated by the assyrians. She had been a widow for a long long time p, and widows had it tough in those days if they didn’t remarry. Hence why she probably went to the temple each day living off donations and charity.
She saw him and knew what he was .
It’s what I love about the bible it’s just such a human book
But I think the question this asks, this spiritual part of the nativity story.
Where are you going to meet him today, because you can meet him wherever you are, whenever you want, he calls you friend and he wants you to go to him like your most beloved friend.
He is in our world and active but it’s down to you to say where his might be, how you meet home is down to how you were made

Jesus also says we can see him in the poor , the lost , the hurt,

in the homeless shelter, in a lonely person needing community? In the eucharist? I think because its personal to all of us, I have to leave the question for you to ponder.
Some meet him , in prayer,

Where will you meet Jesus and the holy spirit today Just like anna and Simeon.
Today in our lives today

Because we worship a living god not a dead one, he isn’t alive in a book he is alive.
Oh the only difference really here
He’s waiting for your as surely as Anna and Simeon waited for hin
He is Alive and active, not passive, so we can have many Anna and Simeon moments
That being the case,
Here’s the question I want to leave you with because only you can answer them
Where do you meet him,
What are you doing to meet him
If my sermon has a point it’s to ask yourself that

What are you doing to meet him
And how will you know when you do
If that’s at all unclear
what are you going to do about it.