Two Ways Into Joy

Luke 2:33-35

This text is the conclusion of Simeon’s blessing of the child Jesus when Mary and Joseph presented him at the temple. 

For Simeon, his hopes are realized. He has lived to see the arrival of the messiah. His trust in the promises of God is confirmed. He waited patiently and his wait is fulfilled. 

Which makes the dark overtones of his words somewhat at odds with our expectations of how one would react when one’s dreams come true. Simeon makes no bones about it—the messiah will be a suffering servant. Opposition will meet his work. Reformers tend to rile up the folks in need of reform. Seeing this outcome, Simeon also knows the parents of the child will also suffer. No parent wants to see their child an object of scorn. No parent wants to see a child become a victim. Simeon knows a sword will pierce Mary’s heart almost as certainly as a sword will pierce the child before him. 

One of the things that makes the narrative of Christianity unique is its emphasis on the suffering messiah. We worship a God who dies. In Judaism, the nation suffers, enters exile, but God remains firmly in place, constantly working for the reclamation of the nation no matter how often it falls to its own pride or the violence of the world. In Islam, Mohammed simply outlines the way of being that will lift the people to God. In Buddhism, Buddha achieves enlightenment, revealing the path out of suffering for all to follow. And he lives to a ripe old age, quietly passing into nirvana. Jesus dies. Therefore, Luke teaches, as he ends the Nativity narrative, that we need to temper the joy of Christmas with the reality of Easter. There will be joy, but it will come on the other side of darkness. 

Our theology must be honest. This note trips up any prosperity gospel. We cannot equate riches upon riches with actual salvation if we are true to the Christ at the center of our faith. No—resurrection comes only through the gate of death—salvation is the release from the finality of death, both our literal end and the living death of life in despair of any kind. We must accept the reality of suffering. We cannot sidestep it or deny it. Redemption is God with us even in the nadir of existence.

But that is also the depth of our joy. We can live with suffering because we know it has met its match. Jesus will suffer—i.e., God suffers with us. God enters the frailty and fallibility of being human. God is with us in any and every abyss. Therefore, we can affirm that no abyss holds any ultimate power over our lives. Our joy of Christmas becomes deeper and more profound because we realize it is the recollection of God’s entrance into the full experience of being human. There is no human experience that God does not know. Therefore, there is no context in which God is not. 

We find ourselves again at the summation of faith intoned by Julian of Norwich—“All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

But we cannot move beyond the actual experience of Mary and Joseph in this moment of revelation—they have no idea of the final outcomes; they hold their infant son; they hold only the bundle of possibility and potential that is any child. Imagine, then, their utter confusion at the words of Simeon. I imagine them, on the one hand, dismissing the old fool as talking out of his head.  But I also imagine them wondering about his words—he was a recognized prophet—a man so attuned to God as to have insight into the mind of God. Even as they want to, they cannot dismiss the words of such a man. They have to be taken seriously.

So, as we proceed through our own Advent, we need to take in the full experience of the prophet. Yes, there is joy. God keeps God’s promises. God remains faithful to God’s word. But...that is not an escape from the totality of life. There will be darkness with the light. There will be pain with the happiness. However, God is with us no matter where we find ourselves.

Psalm 13

This psalm speaks directly, bluntly, and completely humanly to our experience of faith. We trust God, but life continually offers reasons to abandon such trust. That hurts. We rebel. We reject God. We wallow in self-pity. But then we realize that someone—Someone—listens. We seek that benevolent presence. We come through with our faith miraculously intact.

THE CRY

The psalmist does not tell us exactly what is wrong, but it is grievous—at least, to them. The psalmist decries the unfairness. The psalmist complains that no one—i.e., God—cares. The psalmist complains that they are abandoned. They want an ear. They want a hand. they want them NOW!

When we suffer, it feels interminable. Nothing seems to last longer than hurting. It slows time down to a crawl. When we are hurting we want immediate release. We want immediate action. We do not want to wait. Even the most stolid adult becomes a toddler again. Tantrums are normal.

THE PETITION

The request seems odd. What the psalmist really wants is illumination. There are so many directions this request could enter. The psalmist may want an answer to the ancient koan—why am I suffering? The psalmist may want God to reveal God’s presence with them—grant them some sign and indication that God has not abandoned them. The psalmist may want to see actual vindication—an actual experience of redemption and the utter defeat of their enemies. 

Hyperbolically, the psalmist then reminds God of the stakes—if the psalmist does not see results, the psalmist will die. The enemies will rejoice. Basically, the psalmist reminds God that when a faithful and righteous person like themselves experiences the abject failure of their faith, then it is really God who gets the loss—i.e., this is worse for you than for me, so give me what I want! Again, a very human response/reaction to the whole mess.

THE FAITH

But in the end, faith—actual faith—trust in God to be God—takes the fore. 

“Steadfast love” is archetypal in the First Testament. It is the term for God’s abiding presence with God’s human children. God never forsakes any person. God never leaves us. Moreover, that presence is never purely objective. Instead, it is always an act of love. God is embodied compassion—a force of redeeming grace from which all that is flows. The psalmist, despite all claims to the contrary—even in their whining—knows this affirmation to be true. 

Therefore, there really is no lasting fear of the future. Once faith reminds the psalmist of the actuality of who and what God is, anxiety quiets and fear disperses. God will be true. Therefore, no matter the depth of any current tumult, there will come a moment of redemption—there will be a time of singing for joy.

The psalmist settles into waiting to see, fueled by hope.

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So, faith is trust, a trust deep enough to handle the questions, doubts, and wonderings brought by life itself. We can cry out to God in anger, sorrow, and hurt. God is here.

What do we glean as we take these two texts together?

1.

Faith is more than likely going to be some sort of “wait and see” practice. God rarely directly manifests in the human order—miracles are miracles because they are exceedingly rare (checking the gospels, one quickly sees that Jesus only performed a handful). So, instead, we are to take a position of deep seeing, deep listening, and waiting for any indication of a work of God. Hence, Simeon spends his whole life outside the temple, waiting and seeing. His patience gets him to a moment of revelation. God is always present, but that presence tends to be extremely subtle. Wait and see with deep perception.

2.

Faith is never a quick pass to easy street. Instead, faith is the assurance that we can find our way through the crises, conundrums, and chaos of life. Jesus saves, but Jesus saves through a cross. This is the only way to make sense of texts like Paul’s admonition to rejoice in all things—he makes that statement while in prison to a congregation facing extinction through persecution—he is not dismissing their collective suffering, but rather he sees the power of God as greater than the suffering faced. We can hold to joy because we know God knows us fully, even our most painful moments. God’s grace leads us through the abyss even if we die crossing it—that is the real and true power of resurrection—and it was for this outcome that Jesus came.

3.

It is all right to voice anger, disappointment, and sorrow to God. Our suffering is real. God knows that. God accepts us even as pain, darkness, and doubt cloud our vision. We can rage at God because God can handle it. God redeems it. The beauty of God’s grace is the allowance for questions—hard questions—and intense skepticism. That is part of the journey.

4.

In the end, faith comes down to trust. Do we trust God to be God? Do we trust the promises of God to be efficacious? Do we trust that Jesus actually is the way, the truth, and the life? As we answer these questions affirmatively, our faith deepens and grows. But we need to realize that our affirmation of the affirmative answers is a process. We have to grow into seeing that God is trustworthy by examining and reexamining our experiences through the practice of deep seeing. We go back through the archetypal moments, the ordinary days, and transitions looking again for the subtle signs of God’s presence. We look in each passing family for the face of the Christ child.