Like Falling in Love--January 3, 2023

Like Falling in Love--January 3, 2023

"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. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. 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, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God..." [Luke 2:25-28]

Sometimes, the difference Jesus' presence has made in somebody's life is obvious: the paralyzed man who gets up and walks... the woman who was hunched over for eighteen years who can stand up straight... the giving of eyesight to someone born blind... the dead body of Lazarus called to life again.  Those are obvious enough that anybody could clearly see the change in people's lives, and they could easily identify Jesus as the one who brought it about. Case closed, dust off your hands.

But then there are other times... occasions when Jesus changes somebody's life, but you can't quite pin down what has changed--only that it has.  There are times when the presence of Jesus makes a difference that cannot be dissected or demonstrated, but only experienced.  No heavens parting, no voice from a cloud, and no flash of light--but you yourself are not the same person you were anymore, just because of having been brought face to face with him.  Those times are important--vital, even--for our faith, even if you can't put into words what has happened in his presence.

That's what happens to Simeon.  He meets Jesus, even when the infant Messiah is only a month old, and everything is different for having met him... even though everything still looks the same. We don't know how he knows it (sometimes you "just know" these things, right?), but Simeon has been assured by no less than the very Spirit of God that he would get to see the long-awaited Anointed One of God before he breathed his last.  And that same inexpressible nudge of the Spirit told him to find the one he had been seeking in the Temple on the very day Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were there for his presentation ceremony.  And if that weren't enough, when Simeon lays eyes on the baby, he takes Jesus in his arms and knows that this is what he was waiting for... somehow.

What amazes me, though, about all of this is that there don't appear to be any visible signs, supernatural occurrences, or audible voices from heaven in the course of this whole scene.  There's no mention of an ethereal beam of light landing on infant Jesus' face like the sun shining through a break in the clouds.  There are no angel songs or heavenly messengers (even though Luke was perfectly happy to tell us stories about interrupting angels back when Jesus was born).  And as far as I can tell, there's no miraculous healing, curing of illnesses, or resuscitation of the dead.  There is no external evidence that some bystander would have caught to indicate to them, "This kid must be special, because I can see the halo."  And yet, for Simeon, everything is different, including himself.  This was what he was waiting for, even though he hasn't yet seen the Messiah-in-diapers DO anything very messianic yet.

What do we call those moments in life when an encounter looks perfectly ordinary to an outside observer, but becomes extraordinary in our lived experience of it?  What is it like to meet someone, and even though no heavenly chorus sings, you know that your life is changed from the meeting?  The skeptics within us might want to say, "Well, if nothing looks any different, then nothing has really changed--it's all in your head."  But then again, anyone who has ever fallen in love knows that you can have your whole world turned upside down after meeting someone who captivates your heart while nobody else around notices anything different.

I don't mean to get saccharinely sentimental, but maybe the closest comparison we really have for encountering Jesus is falling in love. It doesn't necessarily mean you walk six inches above the ground, have an illness cured, or have your water turned to wine--but you are different for having come to know him.  The world might not look different or notice the difference in you, but you know it: you are changed by having been brought into Jesus' presence.  

And now, all of a sudden, I can't help but hear those words of the love song from the Disney movie Tangled (the animated take on the Rapunzel story), "I See the Light," as a reflection on Simeon's face to face meeting with the infant Jesus.  As you may well know, the chorus of that song goes:

"And at last I see the light
And it's like the fog has lifted
And at last I see the light
And it's like the sky is new
And it's warm and real and bright
And the world has somehow shifted
All at once everything looks different
Now that I see you"

Simeon can't point to some piece of physical evidence or change in his body--no opened ears or eyes, and no removal of leprosy.  But he knows that somehow everything has shifted, because he has at last seen Jesus.  And if gleaning theology from animated fairy tale musicals doesn't do it for you, then maybe you can hear the same notion in this insight of the late Frederick Buechner, who says that in the end, we can't always point to some physical evidence to prove the reality of God, but we can point to how we are different because of Jesus.  Buechner says: 

"In the last analysis, you cannot pontificate but only point. A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, 'I can't prove a thing, but there's something about his eyes and his voice. There's something about the way he carries his head, his hands, the way he carries his cross—the way he carries me'."

It all sounds very much to me like falling in love--when you find yourself brought face to face with love, the rest of the world might not see anything differently--but you do.  You are changed, just by the encounter.  Maybe that's what happens to Simeon... and what happens to us as well in this life of faith; we find ourselves brought face to face with Love himself, and we are never the same.

So here's to never being the same, no matter how much the world thinks nothing is different, and how much we live out our lives of faith over the course of our ordinary routines.  We have been met by Love, and the world has somehow shifted.

May it be true for you today.

Lord Jesus, bring us face to face with your presence, and let it change us beyond the power of our words to explain it or our eyes to see it.