The Dreamers (Simeon, Anna, and the Other Christmas Story)

In Sunday school a couple of weeks back, we talked about the story of Simeon, a man who was promised he wouldn't die until he saw the Messiah. Before worship that week, I read again the companion story of Anna, the old prophetess who was also at the temple that day. Both stories are in Luke 2, between the Christmas story and the John the Baptist story we read in worship. On reading that story again, I discovered something that was nothing like what we said in Sunday school. I wanted to talk about this last week, but we never got to it, so I thought I'd post it here.

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Have you ever wanted something really really badly, but it just wouldn't happen? You try hard, you have the vision, you listen, you practice, you read, you watch, you pray, you do your very best, but it just doesn't come.

And have you ever had a dream come true, and then, way too soon, you saw it vanish?

Simeon and Anna are like that.

Simeon was an old man, a very old man. He'd been young once, though, and when he was young, he had a dream, the kind of dream that can fill your whole life. It wasn't just about him, either. It wasn't a dream that he'd be rich and famous, or that he'd be powerful , or sexy, or popular. Simeon's dream was that his country, and his God, would be free.

I don't think he spent a lot of time wondering about what, exactly, freedom meant, but details weren't a problem. They'd be worked out. He'd work them out. Simeon worked his whole life to bring freedom and unity to the people of Israel, the worshipers of the one true God.

Things didn't work that way, though. Year after year, decade after decade went by, and all Simeon's prayers went unanswered, all his work, all his learning and teaching, all of it seemed to go to waste. The Romans still ruled Israel, the temple in Jerusalem was jus a shell where God's name was taken in vain, used to enrich the powerful, and crosses rose day by day, month by month, year by year, decade by decade, torturing and killing Simeon's friends and fellow dreamers. All this time, God was silent.

Simeon would have given up, thrown the whole thing down the chute long ago if it wasn't for the fact that he knew, knew, that his dream would be fulfilled, that he'd see the Messiah, the one God would send to give raise up the real Israel, the real Israel: the poor, forgotten Jews who worked a the fisher's nets, shepherd's fold, the farmer's fields, the sick who begged at the gates, and that God would throw down the false Israel: the bullies and busybodies and false prophets. Simeon knew that he'd see his dream because God himself, through and angel, told him so. Simeon wouldn't die until God acted.

And then one day, while Simeon felt he should go to the temple. The very temple where the moneychangers cheated and the self-righteous snorted. And there, in the place dedicated to God but built to Herod's glory, there, of all places, it happened. And yet it was fitting. For there, in the very heart of the beast, the 8-day-old Messiah became a Jew.

And then, Simeon didn't only see his dream come true, he held his dream in his arms, and sang praises to God. God mad Simeon's life, which was nothing more than Simeon's dream, worth something.

And then, he turned to Mary and told her something very close to what I think the angel told him. Your dream will come with great pain, like a sword through the heart, but it will be worth it.

Anna was a dreamer too, but Anna, unlike Simeon, had seen her dream come true. She'd been married to a wonderful man when she was thirteen or fourteen (pretty common in those days) and she'd been a wife, and a wife to a good man. Then, seven years later, when Anna was twenty or twenty-one, the good man died, crushing Anna's dream to dust in a moment.

Anna was a widow, completely dependent on others for her very life. No man would marry her. Decade after decade went by and the dream's dust got harder and grittier each day, each year.

To make it worse, God spoke through Anna, and God's words are never easy for those in power, those who hold Anna's life.

Somehow, however, Anna managed to grow old. Not just old, but ancient. She was more than eighty in a time when healthy people died in their fifties and sixties. She hung out in the temple day and night. Where else was she to go? Sure, it was den of thieves, but it was dry and warm and many kind people came and gave her help, even if the ones in power did not.

And then, she saw Jesus, an 8-day-old baby crying his little heart out over the pain of circumcision, the pain of joining God's people, fresh from the arms of Simeon, the old dreamer. And Anna knew. God told her.

Anna felt the dry bones of her dream form flesh and rise up, just as her people's dry bones had risen up for Ezekiel. She felt something in her which six decades of bitterness had killed in her soul, killed dead. She felt hope, and she felt joy.

She started running around like a little girl, talking to everyone she saw: "Did you see him? That baby! He's the One, I tell you! The Messiah! The One who's going to save us all!"

There's reason to dream again!

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