Luke 2: 22-40 Now I can die in peace; Now I can really live
One day I heard a conversation on CBC radio. It was with the author of a new book called: “How cycling can save the World”. His name was Peter Walker.It was right after I rediscovered the joy of cycling due to the Covid lock down, so I made a note and eventually bought the book. The title was a bit off putting or at least overly optimistic to my liking but I heard passion in his voice and passion is beautiful and attractive. So, I bought and read the book.
The book posits no less than that cycling could indeed save the world. It is simple, tried and tested and healthy. It could potentially offer a solution to obesity, heart disease, depression and even loneliness as people on bicycles see it each other at a low enough speed to connect momentarily, laying the foundation for more and deeper connections. Bicycling can solve problems of congestion and pollution. Interesting and the way he presents it doesn’t make these claims seem as far fetched as when I put it bluntly like I just did.
Hadn’t it been for the fact that what he says cycling could do, it is already doing in some places, I really wouldn’t have bought in on what he said. The Netherlands and Demark are two of the places where cycling really caught on. You will not only see middle aged men in Lycra (so called MAMILS) there but young and old, businessman and shift worker alike in ordinary day clothing on bicycles. The Dutch Prime Minister visited the King on an official visit. He went by bicycle! You will also see proper infrastructure for bicycles lake safe lanes, pumps stations and bike parking facilities. And cities around the world that follow suit, everybody reaps the benefits in various ways. They attract talented people, have less congestion and people are less of a drain on the medical system, to name but a few. In the Netherlands people between 80 and 100 do as much as 20 percent of all their trips on a bicycle…yes people between 80 and 100.
As a cyclist who recently started to do daily commutes with a bicycle all this delighted me, but I know not all of you might share my enthusiasm for bicycles. And its not bicycling I really want to talk to you about. To me the fascinating part is actually how a new idea, combined with a familiar concept, spreads. It always starts with fringe figures seen as the weirdo’s. When I cycle to my office my fellow-cyclists are mostly homeless folk. It makes myself kind of an odd ball when I cycle about with my collar (fortunately I am used to being an oddball by now-I even prefer to be one). Cycling hasn’t caught on yet in Surrey but there are encouraging signs that this is changing.
When something good comes it always involves to steps. It involves letting go of something familiar and comfortable and it involves embracing something new. Neither step is easy. There are always many that resist one of these steps or both of these steps. It is difficult to let go. It is also difficult to embrace what is new and unfamiliar. If cycling is to really take off and realize its full potential a lot of people will have to let go of their love for cars that has become so part and parcel of our lives. Many say that will simply never happen but when cars came people said the same about horses. They said: “People will never let go of horses as the tried and tested form of transport.” People will also need to embrace and get used to cycling. You don’t simply get on a bicycle after many years and like it straight away. It takes time. The fact that there is a revolution in e-bikes that bikes bicycling more accessible to the frail and unfit helps a lot but it will still take time.
Simon and Anna
Christianity, the believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Saviour of all that embrace Him in faith, is hardly a new idea. It has been around much, much longer than bicycles. It is an idea that when embraced changed thousands of lives for the better. Personal lives as well as those of communities. It seems to go through periods where it is all popular and well known and then other periods where it flies under the radar and is embraced by few even though it still brings life to this few and many others. But like the cycling revolution it is something that cannot be stopped.
How did it all start? “With Jesus being born” would be the best answer but if we want to answer from the human side of the equation, one will have to say the Shepherds and Magi. They were groups of people who seem to be the first to embrace and worship Jesus. But on an individual level we read of two elderly people, a man and a woman, who embraced this. One can think of them as the first evangelists and their separate reactions also represent the two steps, the letting go and the embracing involved in deep, world-wide change.
Simeon represents the let go part. His reaction to seeing Jesus and recognizing Him for who He is, is: “Now, I can die in peace”. A baby is born with clenched fists as if to say: “Mine, mine all is mine!”. An elderly person dies with open hands as if to say: “All is yours, including me”. Maturity involves a similar journey where you move from being a taker to becoming a giver. When Simeon encounters Jesus, we see a man whose hands opens. He can make peace with everything that is incomplete and unfinished in Him because he beholds the One who will finish what him and all humans are unable to do.
So, Simeon says: “Now I can die in peace”. Anna, even though she is also old (and let us remind ourselves that a male’s average life span at the time of Jesus was 26-so she was very old!) has a different reaction. It is like she is saying: “Now I can really live” upon her encounter with Baby Jesus. She becomes the first real evangelist. Evangelism is something that makes most people nervous nowadays. Christians and non-Christians alike. The modern-day connotation with evangelism is with manipulation and shoving convictions down other people’s throats. The way much evangelism has been done, makes us deserve this dubious connotation at least a little. It would be wise to go back to the basics, to the woman who first recognized Jesus as the Messiah and rediscover what evangelism is like people are rediscovering the bicycle and its potential.
What is evangelism?
Anna shows us that evangelism is all about lifting Jesus up. She doesn’t speak of herself neither about her religion. Even though she was devout and thoroughly invested in the temple service. She could have said much about herself. Even Luke couldn’t resist telling us some of the things of this remarkable woman. But she, she just goes on about Jesus.
I was told a beautiful story. Parents sent their six year old off to a Sunday School class for the first time. When he got back, they were eager to hear what he learned and how he experienced the class. They had to drag it out of them and made little progress. Finally, they asked him what he thinks of the teacher to get things going. “Well”, he said, “I think she is Jesus’s grandmother”. Baffled, they asked him why he thinks that. “Well, she holds up pictures of Jesus and brag about him to everyone who listens”. Isn’t this a wonderful description not only of how Anna acted but also our mission? I am always amazed about how politics and religion can shut people down but done humbly, a conversation about Jesus includes and open people up. With whom can you start such a conversation today? Even if it is your own children, it is evangelism. I have a friend who coached my son cricket in Fort McMurray. He is from Pakistan and a Muslim. On Christmas day he posted that he loves Jesus and revere him as a great prophet. I shared his post. Even though I think Jesus is much more than a great prophet, I also think that lifting Him up in any way is one step in the right direction. Where people open up to Jesus there is hope. When and where you open up to Jesus there is hope.
Secondly evangelism is about nudging not judging. You do not read that Anna scolded others for the fact that they were far less devout than she was. You do not read that she proclaims judgement and doom but rather salvation. She had an eye out for the hope that people had and nudged them to connect human hope with the source it has in Jesus. It means she had an eye out for how God was already at work in a person’s life and the good direction he took them in and then nudged them further toward it.
Thirdly evangelism is discipleship. She followed as she nudged and lead others. We tell the world most effectively about Jesus by following Him and worshipping Him with our whole heart ourselves. And not only when we succeed, but also when we fall, are honest about our failings and get back to it through His grace.
Fourth Anna shows us that evangelism needs to be sourced by story and song. When we hear the word temple we often think of sacrifices and indeed that happened at the temple but the two things that happened most and every day at the temple were not sacrifices. It was two things: Story and song. At the Temple the story of God and his people were told over and over. It was kept alive in the heart and minds of the people by this repetition. Secondly the psalms were recited. The temple was a treasure house not of propositions and PowerPoints but of story, song and images. If we read Anna was at the temple day and night, it means that she marinated her mind and heart in the stories and songs of God. She herself became a treasure house of God’s stories and songs. Us the church, should be treasure houses of stories and songs. My dream for our church is that it will be a place where we get to know the story of Jesus ever better and deeper so that we will trace his footsteps into our own lives and then also share those stories with one another. That we will sing heartily the old songs of people that shared our faith but also the new songs God puts in our hearts in times such as this.
In the catholic tradition the songs of Simeon and Anna is chanted in Latin to this day. It is known as Nunc Dimitis and Venile Adoramus). The wonderful thing is we don’t have to know Latin or Greek to echo them.
Close
The bicycle in its current form and simplicity has been with us for about a hundred years. Suddenly it is rediscovered as a way to health, wealth, clean air and human connection. The ones who wouldn’t let go and the ones who wouldn’t embrace say it will never happen just like the horse guys who wouldn’t let go and embrace used to say about cars. But you will see more and more daily cyclists trickle in year by year.
The Christian message is hardly new, but it somehow still becomes fresh and thirst quenching to all who come to faith. We are the vessels that gets to carry it into the world. Weirdo’s to the world. Too old, too this, too that. But if King Jesus could ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, He can carry a new flame of the gospel on through us. We can let go and die in peace because death is defeated but we can also really live a different and better life right here and now. And praise be to God that we do.
Go tell it on the mountains: Because of Jesus we can die to sin and live a new life abundantly.
Thank you, Simeon and Anna. God hides his good news in odd containers. That is why we should gladly wear masks and halt to protect the vulnerable. Cycling can make the world even better but Jesus can save it. He already has. Now grow into a grandmother or grandfather of Jesus. Uplift Him and tell people about Him in every way you possibly can.
Amen