Hope in Desolation

 Sermon preached at Church of the Good Shepherd, Federal Way, WA
www.goodshepherdfw.org
by the Reverend Andrew Cooley
The Presentation of Our Lord, February  02, 2025
Malachi 3:1-4 ; Hebrews 2:14-18 ; Luke 2:22-40 ; Psalm 84

Lord Jesus Christ,

Live out in us, in all that we are and have yet to become, the full mystery of Your death and resurrection.

Help us to yield all by showing us and teaching us to welcome all, especially the dark guest in our soul.

Stretch and transform us by the power of Your love, that we may find ourselves and see ourselves in You, in Your beauty.

Amen.

Well, today is a special day in the calendar, you woke up this morning and discovered there is going to be six more weeks of snow! Today, February 2^nd is 40 days after Christmas, and s there is a special provision in our worship that whenever February 2^nd falls on a Sunday, we preempt the normal course of the lessons for Epiphany, and we read these lessons that we have today, that tell the story of the 40 day old infant brought by Mary and Joseph to the temple for two things. First of all, is Mary. As was the practice of the time, would come to be made ritually clean and pure with a sacrifice. Secondly is that Jesus, a baby who is the first born male, would have a special prayer said over Him. And so, we see their obedience on this day.

It has taken on a kind of significance over time, on this day the Feast of the Presentation, also known as the Purification of Mary, also known as Candlemas in some traditions, it would be a time where people would bring the candles that they would use at home, to bring them to church and be blessed. It’s also, curiously, one of those times, there were some very ancient traditions of celebrations or recognitions that happen halfway between a solstice and an equinox. That’s the case here, six weeks after the winter solstice, and halfway to the spring equinox. There would be a time where people would pay attention to the stars, and to the seasons, and to the weather, maybe even make predictions about when the right time to plant would be, hence the Groundhog Day tradition. Mayday is one of those midpoint days, as is Halloween and All Saint’s.

But at any rate, as we recognize that this has an interesting history, I think there is something for us that we need to lean into today. That is, I’m particularly drawn to the two prophets, Anna and Simeon, with the idea that maybe they have something to say to us right now, in this moment.

Simeon, the most famous piece of that is that we have his song, that he sings in recognition as he holds this 40-day old baby, that he sees something profound in this child. He sings this song, which we have, as part of our tradition on compline or evening prayer in the Episcopal church. Something that I was very familiar with, certainly going to seminary, clergy are called on to practice the offices, and so knowing this was certainly part of my life. But it took on a new meaning about 30 years ago, my father-in-law is also an episcopal priest, I married into a dynasty, he ended up moving to a place near where my wife and I were living, but then he contracted cancer.

There was a point in which he came to a doctor’s appointment in Denver, where we were living, not near his own town. It became apparent at this doctor’s appointment that it was really not right to go home, that he was not fit to go home. We were able to make arrangements rather quickly to turn part of our house into a home hospice setting, we had a big family room with a guest room, we put a hospital bed there, and Don came to be with us, as did Joan, my mother-in-law.

But a practice was that I would come home from work, and I would go down to be with him, and often would read the evening prayer. Early on, he was fully present and engaged and would read the responses and the lessons, and we would say that. As time would go on, his participation began to wane, but it still seemed important to do that. Then, finally, he was just not responsive at all. Still, I would find myself sitting by his bed, “Lord now let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen the Savior whom You have prepared for all the world to see. A light to enlighten the nations and the glory of your people Israel”. The idea of what does it mean to die in peace became very present to me as I think about those words, what does one see, to experience, to be able to let go, to trust as it were.

As I was preparing for today in particular, I was drawn to that one little phrase, about Simeon, and I really think it’s appropriate from a literary point of view to lump Simeon and Anna together, sharing the same longing, the same inspirations, it says that they were longing for the consolation of Israel. Consolation. That’s one of my favorite words. Consolation is related to the notion of Solus, the idea of the sun, the soul, but also the life that comes from being under the influence of the sun, to be in consolation with the sun, with the solus of the sun, that life happens. The opposite of consolation is desolation. Not just darkness, but a sense of lifelessness, or sense of barrenness that happens. So, I put myself in that position of Simeon and Anna, in a place of, if they’re longing for consolation, then their awareness is of desolation, I’m going to presume. I think of Anna and Simeon, what would they say to us, what was it that happened to them that they were able to see this amazing gift, but they were in a place of desolation.

I had two phone calls this last week that really struck me in an interesting juxtaposition, my “Simeon” and my “Anna”, actually one phone call and one visit with “Simeon”, I’ll call him, in a bar Thursday, a retired pastor, Presbyterian pastor, he and I go to grab a beer every week or so, and we talked.

He, like me, is called upon to preach from time to time. He was thinking of the situation, the circumstances that we’re in, finding it a real struggle, “what do I say”. On the one hand, he was wondering “do I have the voice”, he spoke of a woman, whose name I have since forgot, who wrote poetry while she was in Auschwitz, or one of the concentration camps, who took such joy and delight seeing a crocus come up through the snow on the other side of the fence, these little instances of beauty and grace in her place of desolation. Is it our call to point out this beauty and the grace that we’re surrounded by. Or is it also, as he was reflecting on the Bishop who, almost two weeks ago, was speaking about Christian unity, and the hallmarks of unity being dignity, and honesty, and humility, and in the course of that message also offered a plea for mercy, and how that has been so controversial, and how do we speak truth to power in a place where there is a lot of disrupting that is taking place. It was a hard place for him to be, what does one say?

The next day, I got a phone call from a friend, my “Anna”, who in a place of desolation was talking about phone calls that she is getting from friends of hers who are made vulnerable because they are dependent upon agencies, or staffing, or funding, or wondering about their immigration status, very upset, and yet she’s finding as she lives with someone who doesn’t share the anxieties about the administration she does, that she feels very isolated. How does she maintain hope?

I think of Anna and Simeon, maybe the day before this happened, where were they? What were they thinking? What was their life like? Then, something came into their life. They were in the temple. Mary and Joseph come in, bringing this 40-day old child. They see in this child something that changes them, such that Simeon begins this beautiful song, that “set thy servant free”, it is as though he had been imprisoned, and he is being released. The idea of now I can die in peace, I can be released because I see something that gives me hope. Anna talking about in this child is “all the redemption of Jerusalem”. What is it that they’re saying, they’re saying hope.

I think, “What is hope”? I read a book last summer that has influenced me significantly. It is a book by Brian McLaren, it is called “A Life After Doom”. It’s not an easy book to read. It starts with the premise that we are in hard times. The hard times that McLaren is talking about particularly are things like climate collapse, ecological overshoot, of massive inequities that are causing tremendous suffering of marginalized people especially, political polarization. What does hope look like? Well, Brian McLaren says that hope is complicated. I would say that, perhaps Simeon and Anna would say that as well to us. In McLaren’s book, he quotes a couple of voices that might be worth hearing, one is Vaklav Hovel, perhaps you remember a couple generations ago, the premier, I don’t know the word in Poland, but Vaklav Hovel says that “hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something is worth doing, regardless of how it turns out. This hope gives us the strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.

Or, the wonderful Episcopal mystic, Cynthia Bourgeault, contemplative, she says “our great mistake is that we tie hope to outcomes”. So, what would Anna, what would Simeon say to us, what would they give us in this moment? I think that the word that I’m going to use is “sacred imagination”. It says that the Holy Sprit was upon Simeon particularly, and I’m going to claim a gift of the Holy Spirit is that ability to see, even in the midst of our desolation, these glimpses of, even in a 40-day old infant, the transformation and inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. And yet, even for Simeon it would mean that this child would grow up to experience pain, he was saying to Mary “your own soul will be pierced, and it’s not going to come easy”. And then, Anna and Simeon are talking about the redemption of Jerusalem. Anna, particularly, is night and day in the temple, every day. Yet, within a couple generations, that very temple would have been destroyed, and a new thing would emerge. So, I pray that maybe this sacred imagination would give us the eyes to see.

One of the things that I’m really coming to see with increasing clarity is that two things can be true at the same time. Things can be hard. Desolation can be peoples’ real experiences. Yet, even in the midst of desolation we recognize that there is a God who is right here, right now. The Celtic saints talked about this phenomenon that they called “the resurrection eyes”, the ability to see the Risen Christ here and now. So, I pray that we do those things that encourage the sacred imagination, that open our eyes to let the Spirit reveal that, even in the midst of this moment, right here and right now, that God is here.

God is with us. God has not abandoned us. That we might share that.

Let us take a moment, just let ourselves be reminded of that gift of consolation.

Would you repeat Psalm 46, the words of the psalmist.

Be still and know that I am God.

[whole congregation: Be still and know that I am God.]

Be still and know that I Am.

[Whole congregation: Be still and know that I Am.]

Be still and know.

[whole congregation: Be still and know.]

Be still.

[whole congregation: Be still.]

Be.

[whole congregation: Be.]