Sunday 2 February 2014

LECTIONARY PRESENTATION OF CHRIST: Into hands and hearts (Luke 2:22-40)

So,You,This tiny baby,

Barely alive and yet born to bear so much,

So much talk of swords piercing souls,

All these words whispered to you by strangers,

Parent’s stood nearby,

Taking it all in or as much as they can,

Did they really understand the cost your cross would cost as you wore it and bared it on your back and in your future,

What was the walk home like?

Were your parents delighted by your potential or blighted with worry?

Did they dream of getting you out of sight and safe?

Did they wonder to each other on the wander home whether there really would be no hope without this sword in the soul?

And did they see in the eyes of the temple’s strangers fear or delight at the prospect of one who would bring into the world light,

Light that had been forgotten,

Perhaps people were so beyond believing in actual freedom that they ignored and didn’t hear or heed a single world of this story of old, coming to fruition,

Maybe they didn’t know what to believe,

Alternatives to Roman rule too hard to conceive,

Or believe,

Or truly understand,

Yet there you were,

In Anna’s prayer palace, in Simeon’s place of prophecy,

And you, so unaware,“Just” an infant holding on to nothing but being held,

Held by the words of soothsayers of God,

Held by parent’s held in awe and wonder and fear,

And held by a stranger who promises the world at a cost beyond the beyond.

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