February 2, 2020
Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
Luke 2:22-40
My kids had Monday and Tuesday off school this past week for teacher work days, so I decided to take them skiing. None of us are very good, so we started off slow on the bunny trail. Once we graduated from that, we started trying out the different beginner trails.
One trail required us to ski across a long section of what looked at first like fairly flat land to get to the slope. As we were laboriously hauling ourselves across using our poles, we noticed people coming towards us were holding on to handles connected to a rope tow. We thought it looked like great fun - a way to move a little faster without all the effort. It seemed very unjust that the rope tow only moved in one direction, but we looked forward to trying it on our way back. We had finally mastered getting off the ski lift without landing in a tangled mess, so how hard could holding onto a rope be?
Well, it turned out to be a lot harder than it looked. My youngest, Maya, went first. She kept trying to grab a handle, but they kept slipping by. Finally she caught one, but it gave such a sudden tug that she fell over. It took a few minutes to get her standing up again, but when she did, she successfully reached out and caught a handle. And this time she knew to expect the tug, so she held on tight and started moving.
Next, it was Sophia’s turn. The same thing happened to her, but she got back on her feet more quickly and grasped a handle. Of course, just as she succeeded, Maya, now a little way ahead, got her skis crossed and fell again. She couldn’t get her body out of the way in time, so Sophia pretty much skied straight into her and fell too. It was such a ridiculous comedy of errors that I began hysterically laughing at them and was no help to anyone. Finally both girls managed to stand up and get reattached to the rope tow, and we all eventually made it up what hadn’t looked at all like a hill to us from the start.
The experience reminded me of a poem I love but haven’t ever really been sure I understood. It’s called “The Way it Is” by William Stafford:
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
This poem deeply resonates with me as having something to do with Hope, and we how we hold on to it. But Monday’s ski adventure gave me a new metaphor for how hard-fought holding on to that thread can be. Like our rope-tow experience, sometimes even grabbing hold of the thread of hope involves a lot of ridiculous failure. But once you’ve got it in your hands, it helps you start to move, even if just a little.
After my head went there, I started imagining other metaphors for how that thread can feel at different times.
Sometimes it’s like a zip line that offers a safe place to attach your harness as you careen dangerously over what feels like nothingness. You have to take a deep breath, close your eyes, and jump, hoping that the thread holds strong.
Other times, it’s more like a kite string, with something at the end that sometimes dances and soars -- wild and free, and sometimes can’t get off the ground no matter how fast you run.
Sometimes it’s like a fishing line, leading eventually to sustenance, but only after a lot of patient casting and a lot of wasted bait.
Sometimes it’s like a rope leading an explorer blindly through the murky darkness of a cave after his torch batteries have died.
And, maybe on the best of days, sometimes it’s like a rosary, holy and reassuring in your hands; or like yarn turning into some beautiful new creation between your knitting needles.
There’s no telling, really, what that thread will look or feel like on any given day. It is this intangible thing we do our best to hold on to without really knowing why or where it will lead. We hold on in lots of different ways and with varying degrees of determination.
We just keep holding on, hoping that eventually it leads us home.
And that is exactly where we find ourselves in our Gospel story today. Face to face with two people that have been holding on to the thread, and have finally been led home.
Meet Simeon.
Simeon, we are told, is “righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rests on him.” As his eyes fall upon Jesus, Simeon knows that that this child is somehow the one he’s been waiting for all of his life. He takes the baby in his arms and praises God, giving us the beautiful words that are a beloved part of Evening Prayer and Compline:
Lord, you now have set your servant free
to go in peace as you have promised.
For these eyes of mine 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.
Simeon is named the “the God-receiver” for his part in this story. Icons of this meeting show Simeon and the baby Jesus gazing into each other’s eyes, expressing the longing of God and humankind for each other. This is where the thread led Simeon.
My favorite, though perhaps apocryphal, story about Simeon comes from the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, which celebrates Simeon as one of the translators of the Old Testament scriptures into Greek in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. The story goes that Simeon was translating the book of Isaiah but hesitated when he got to Isaiah 7:14 ("Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son..."). He decided that couldn’t possibly be right, and was about to translate it instead as “Behold, a woman shall conceive and bear a son.” But just then, an angel appeared to Simeon and held back his hand, telling him that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah born of a virgin. This tradition would make Simeon something like 200 years old when he met Jesus. That is a very long time to hold the thread.
And now, meet Anna.
Anna is a prophet, long widowed. At 84, she has been alone longer than most people in her day have been alive. She has been worshipping with fasting and prayer at the temple night and day for decades, bringing to God her heartbreak for her own life and the world around her, and praying for God to set things right. And this day, she sees the child Jesus and knows immediately that this is the One she has been waiting for. This is the One who would redeem the nation. So Anna begins to praise God to all who will listen, and while her words are not remembered, her faithfulness has never been forgotten. Anna too had held on to that thread.
These two kept grasping to the thread. Patient and enduring, through good times and bad, times of community and loneliness, times of joy and grief, times of wonder and humdrum ordinary. Through it all, they kept holding out their hand for that thread through their expectant, faithful lives, never knowing exactly where it might lead them.
And that is the hardest part most of the time. Just sticking to it, showing up, waiting, not giving up on that longing for something more. Anticipating God’s presence even when we can’t see evidence of it. Even when our eyes can’t make out the light in the darkness. Sometimes it takes all we’ve got just to reach out once again for that elusive thread.
But there is another part that can be hard too. My skiing adventure taught me a little about this too.
We’d all finally managed to grasp onto that ridiculous rope lift and were making our way up the tiny little slope. We were getting closer to the end of the line. The rope had taken us where we needed to go and now we had to hop off and make room for other folks to grab on.
I have to admit that I was feeling fairly self-satisfied because while everyone else had fallen more than once trying to hold on the rope, I had grasped on and stayed upright.
There I was -- 20 feet away from the end, then 15, now 10, now 5. I let go and prepared myself for what it might feel like to suddenly not have the rope pulling me forward. But then I realized that the rope was still pulling me forward. The handle had somehow gotten caught under my jacket and I couldn’t get untangled.
Suddenly I was past the UNLOAD HERE sign.
Suddenly, I was knocking over the cone marking the end of the trail.
Suddenly I was careening towards the little shack at the end of the line and the patrol lady who was looking at me in horror.
Just in the nick of time, and definitely in a total panic, I finally managed to extricate myself by flinging my body to the side. Just as I fell on the ground, the patrol lady ran out screaming at me about how dangerous that was, thinking that for some reason I would have intentionally held on too long.
William Stafford’s poem doesn’t mention it, but I wonder if part of learning how to hold on to that thread is also learning how to gracefully let go and offer it to others.
In our Gospel story, Simeon and Anna have followed the thread -- longer than they ever might have imagined necessary. And they have had their hopes realized -- finally! They now know the Way by heart. But they don’t just receive this encounter with Jesus and hold it in their hearts. Instead, they become witnesses, inviting others to encounter the Light for themselves. Simeon and Anna share the good news with the crowd gathered around. They pass along the thread they’ve been holding onto so faithfully, and invite others to be part of this moment of wonder, to share the culmination of the hope that was within them for all those years. They become an embodiment of hope for the rest of us; no longer reaching for that thread, but part of it themselves.
I wonder what your experience of finding and holding on to the thread has been like? I wonder who in your life has made it easier for you to hold on along the way? And I wonder how you might be called to help others grab hold?
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