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Tuesday, February 02, 2021

Consolation arriving in small packages

 Today is 40 days from Christmas Eve, so some historical Church traditions celebrate this as the day the infant Jesus entered the Temple. So many layers to that, as the Temple was the absolute centre of God's presence on earth, the geography of what was lost in the Garden, the glory and pride of the nation. Entering the Temple compound may have appeared to be a duty to sacrifice pigeons, poor people hedging their bets in a cruel world (that was about to turn genocidal). Or like pious pilgrims grateful for the not-to-be-taken-for-granted healthy delivery, like here in Uganda where new mothers are greeted with webale kwejuna, thanks for surviving, for helping yourself through that danger. Or maybe Mary was glad to finally get out of isolation (can we all hear the amens to that), having served the post-delivery 40 day purification time, ready to get back into the crowd and see friends. As always, the story can have multiple strata of colour and texture. But . . . 

Father Georges Saget


Only two elderly people recognised the full picture in all its irony: God's presence in the baby outshone God's presence in the Temple. Simeon lifted that small swaddled body, fragile, earthy, maybe damp with his mother's sweat from the climb up to the plaza, or damp with dribbled milk. As the multitudes gaped at the gold fixtures, the high walls, the ornate altars .. . . he recognised in the very ordinary body of this baby that a light had come that would explode out to the world. Perhaps the only other person who noticed was a woman my mom's age, Anna, who saw the baby, the parents, Simeon, and redemption. An old man, an old woman, a baby, and a couple displaced from the countryside trying to do the right thing. All around them the swirling crowd, unaware.

google image, from El Salvador, no artist credited


A far cry from Malachi 3: who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when he appears? A refiner's fire and a launderer's soap, a force, a terror, holiness and change and judgment melting away evil.  The prophecies prepared them for war. For a conquering hero to clash to the Temple with fury and determination. The reality arrived with a whimper, carried, wordless, powerless for now.


The NKJV bible uses the world "consolation" for what Simeon waited for. The actual word is paraklesis, a close companion comforting and encouraging alongside, an exhortation, urging, based on legal evidence that all shall be well. It sounds like the word for the Holy Spirit in John 14, an advocate, a lawyer, a helper. They were looking for a King who ruled by force; God sent a human who quietly appeared alongside us, taking our perspective, our case. For us. This is not without cost, for sure. Even then Simeon mentions the soul piercing grief Mary will experience, the no-neutral-ground tumult that will ensue. 


Thinking a lot about the kind of salvation we all wish for. So much of our politics has been about power. Who can stand when he appears . . . sounds good if we think we'll be the ones standing, and we assume those who disagree will be the ones scrubbed to righteousness. February is not just the Temple story, it is the beginning of Black History Month.  Jesus came back to that Temple as an adult and threw some tables. We need justice, and there are occasions when those enslaved need an army to bring it. Justice brings the space for real change to occur, and that is where we realise that the quiet along-side comfort of a friend who sees truth and goodness in us, who encourages the right choices, who persuades the better angels of our nature to rise, brings actual change. As satisfying as that other Temple-thrashing was, it did not conquer evil and death. Only the cross, the baby lifted in an old man's arms becoming the naked beaten body lifted on the cross, did that. The soul pierced, the body pierced, did that. 


Our world needs deep consolation in 2021, and we are certainly looking for it. Let us be like Simeon and Anna, let us recognise the power of powerlessness, the presence of the Spirit in hidden breaths. 






1 comment:

christine.harter said...

praying for consolation in your hard time