A Good Idea at the Time

(This is a Christmas related story I wrote a few years ago based on middle of Luke chapter 2)

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

The stone slaps a slow, tired rhythm against my flat feet. It sounds like the tired waves that fall to the shore on a too hot day that make you wonder if creation will have the energy to go on. Like the rocks along the shoreline, the stone beneath me that was once chiseled sharp and clean has been worn smooth by a thousand feet. But my path through it is the deepest. Time has worn me down as well. I'm not made of the stuff of stones. I should never have tried to play its part.

I was young then and full of life like a rutting ram. I didn't believe in old age then. Not my own, anyway. But I did believe in grander themes. I believed in a God who had made us a blessing. Not that we are such a prize. True, we are a proud, sturdy people. That's part of our problem. We are so proud that sometimes not even the very voice of God can call us away from our own plans.

But we are also a frightened people. Our fears are the fears of old men. We have built great cities and fought great battles, but the world has grown in and over us and we fear that silent time in the middle of the night when the wind comes and whispers in our ears, "Who are you? What will become of you now that your knees grow weak and your eyes have dried out?" Hard questions and uncomfortable for a practical people. We like our feet planted firmly on the ground. It's easier to push these questions aside and ask, "Where is our next meal to come from?" and pretend we are fearless.

I remember the day it all changed for me. I came to the temple as usual—well, perhaps not quite as usual. I was in a foul mood. I'd been cross with Ruth about some money that was missing. I accused her of being careless, but I found the money before I had left home. It was there where I'd put it and forgotten. Too stubborn to admit any fault, I didn't say anything to Ruth. I was still brooding, trying to find some way to avoid the blame. I went to the temple because it was the right thing to do—my father and all Israel's fathers had gone since we settled this land--but in my heart, I was not all that I could have been. I'm telling you all this so that there will be no mistake. What happened was not because I was such a good man.

If I had told anyone this back then, they would have laughed. I would have been accused of giving way to the vain visions of the young or worse, the visions of too much wine. Now, I've been here too long for anyone to laugh. All my friends have died and no one here remembers a day of their life when old Simeon wasn't shuffling around in the corner. There is no one left who knew me young.

That day my God sent his Spirit to me. There were no lights, the earth did not shake, but there was no mistaking the Spirit. It was like laying with a woman for the first time. The air was bright and alive like a cold, flowing stream. Each breath had to be bit off, swallowed and held down as if I had been plunged naked into that same stream. My heart threatened to burst my ribs. And there was a voice. It spoke in a whisper backed by the power of thunder. My people had been promised a day when God would visit us. On that day he would give us a new spirit. Our stubborn, rocky hearts would be worn away and we would be given a new heart that could rest with God and do what is right. It would be the beginning of a great peace. It would be good, and while we lived with hardship now, we all stretched out our necks out toward that day. The Spirit came to me and caressed me and promised. It promised that I would not taste death until that day came to pass.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was young and elastic. Now, my skin is stretched and flinty, my arms are thin and the wind taunts me with every step. It exposes my bony knees and picks at my dry eyes and laughs. It has been too long. Ruth is gone. The friends of my youth are all dust. In my youth, I would never have believed that there would come a day when I would long for, hurt for, that last, long sleep.

But just now, when my hope was as frail as my bones, I saw her. The whirlwind of people around the entrance to the temple parted for a moment and there she was. She clutched a small bundle of a child to her breast. Beside her was the husband carrying two doves. A sacrifice for the child, a consecration for the first born son. They weren't much to look at and I would have passed them by, but the wind pushed me forward. The mother looked up into my eyes from across the court. The voice of the wind whispered in my ear and I knew. This was the child.

I stumbled forward and caught the woman's arm. The husband moved to catch me, but she motioned him to wait. She unwrapped the child and held him before me and the world before me grew transparent like the ghostly vapors that play across the dessert in the late afternoon. I saw through the stones around me to what lay beyond. There was a whirlwind mounting that would strike my people. This was the child that would usher in everything that God had promised. It seemed too small a bundle to carry so much. When the whirlwind finally struck, it would raise many of the low and cause the high and proud to fall. That came as no surprise. When you have lived as long as I have, you realize that the world is in need of being turned upside down. But what I saw next made me want to crumble to the ground and hide my face and weep. This child was to be the glory of Israel, but Israel would speak against it. In the end reject it. But even though we would reject God's gift, God would not reject us. He would make a new Israel around this child with men and women from every nation. We would not be forgotten.

I realized that I had been standing, trembling before this young woman and her child like some senile old man. I put on a brave face and spoke words of blessing over the child. I described the good he would do before the bewildered parents. Surely they had to know that this was God's Son sent to save us from our pride and stubbornness and bring us back to God. But I wanted to spare them from the rest. Why bring tragedy to such an important day? Then for just a moment's time I saw her face as it would look that day when they broke her son. When God spoke the truth to my forefathers, he always spoke the whole truth. Nothing less would be honest. I spoke of her pain. Maybe it would lessen it a little if she were warned. But then I remembered that I had children of my own once. Nothing could have lessened my pain.

When I finished I felt as though the force of the earth bending my body down to the dust had been released. I almost believed I could fly. God had made a promise to me and he had kept it. My time was finished. There were tears of relief and joy in my eyes as I thanked the woman for her time. But there was awe at my last glimpse of the child's eyes. For the Spirit showed me one last thing. They were the eyes of a child and you could see the child behind them, but God was in there too.

I go away to die now. It's not a sad thing. There is no one left to say good-bye to. I'm tired and I want rest. I will see God soon. It really is comforting. Once it would have been frightening, but today I have had a preview. I've seen God's eyes and there is love there.