I Shall Be Released

[Simeon took Jesus into his arms and blessed God]

God, you can now release your servant;
    release me in peace as you promised.
With my own eyes I’ve seen your salvation;
    it’s now out in the open for everyone to see:
A God-revealing light to the non-Jewish nations,
    and of glory for your people Israel.

[and to Mary]

This child marks both the failure and
    the recovery of many in Israel,
A figure misunderstood and contradicted—
    the pain of a sword-thrust through you—
But the rejection will force honesty,
    as God reveals who they really are.

―The Gospel of Luke

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Dear Kate,

Everyday I read the news in the morning.  Do you?

I want to know what I need to know to begin my day, to face a new day, a day ironically with conclusions often foregone as dictated by the news announcement.  So am I reading to know how to live, or to concede how I shall die into this very night?

This morning's headline: "Booze, candy canes among items in short supply across Canada."  Also, "B.C. COVID-19 testing reaches capacity, PCRs prioritized for those most at risk."  You know your booze and candy canes to know you are in trouble.  You don't need to know what PCR is to know the lack of it somehow speaks about the godforsaken state of our current affairs.  We are the stories we tell ourselves.

We hear Simeon's prayer and prophecy again just now.  What he said was: Here's the new reality that has always been the real reality.  Live into it and live out of it.  Die for it and die by it.  The News from God is so good that the worst is yet to come.  The storm is gathering and it shall carry you, the carrier of this Good News.  The world shall know you for the Child that is carrying you, for what you are carrying as He carries for you: the Cross, the Good News that goes from bad to worse and to downright ugly.

"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace," the first line of Simeon's prayer, in King James Version, a translation, I believe, that brings out the full force of the human longing satisfied.  I wish that's how I begin each day.  I wish that's how I die into each and every and especially my final night.

Some of us might feel obligated in Christmas to speak about the intellectual viability of Jesus' birth, the historical accuracy, the archaeological evidence (and there are plenty), and others, more of us, would like to express how emotionally rewarding and morally reassuring to subscribe to our particular conception of God.  Yet Jesus wasn't conceived by our intellect or emotion, though it would involve all these too in our giving birth to Him again and again everyday, in our every little endeavor.

How little?

This Christmas my brother and sister in law opened up their home to host friends and family (adhering to health guidelines) and provided us with a safe haven to work out our love for God and one another; I could hardly miss the obvious star that points me all the way back to the very magical manager, fabled and grew trite, but now made real again, Good News once more.

And way before December, many in our church, playwright and musicians, actors and crews, leaders and disciples, have engaged themselves in a long gestation, for months to bring upon the birth of Jesus that has always been difficult, pandemic or not, never a sure thing, prone to ridicule and vicissitude, and now, this weekend, with all the Christmas programs cancelled, their faith has failed them, or so it seems: if their own faith is what they have faith in, if their intellect is what they trust to have guided their way, if their emotion is with which they would let life ebb and flow.

This Child marks both the failure and the recovery of all of us.  I wish I had done a better job this Christmas meeting Him where He is, providing safe haven, that there is in me long obedience in the same direction.  "Any day now/any day now/I shall be released."

Yours, Alex