Christmas isn’t over! Even though the presents are opened, the guests and family have gone home; the daily work has begun again. Christmas isn’t over! Even though we step into January with the forecast of snow and cold weather every year, with battleship grey clouds floating across the skies, with dirty old snow up against the gutters and circling the edges of our lives, it’s still Christmas!
Today’s Gospel story of Jesus is eight days after his birth when Jesus’ 
Mom and Dad brought him to the Temple for the ritual cleansing, according to Jewish custom, as the first-born boy to be dedicated to God.
This story also tells us about two old people: Simeon and Anna greeting this young couple with perplexing news and painful sayings. This is “the rest of the story” of the Christ Child’ beginings. Not only is it Good News, but it’s painful news, yet it’s still the sign of Hope for the world.
Simeon had been waiting his whole life for this message from God. We’re told Simeon was a spirit person, someone who was attuned to God’s presence in the ordinary and local living of his life. He was pressured by this spirit-sense within him to go to the Temple that particular day where he recognized this infant, this eight-day old Immanuel.
Listen to what Simeon had to say, “Now, Master, you are dismissing your servant in peace, just as you said. These eyes of mine have seen your salvation, which you have made ready in the presence of all peoples; a light for revelation to the nations, and glory for your people Israel.” Notice the news is not only for Israel but also for all the nations of the world!
Simeon wasn’t fading away in his old age. He was paying attention to life around him. Simeon was tuned in to the depths of life and not the surface hype, he listens to the heart of life not the mindless chatter which often fills people’s conversations. Simeon was looking beneath the surface because he was elderly and had seen a lot of life and gained some personal wisdom. He had known of the promise of Yahweh and was waiting for it to arrive.
The Master, the Lord, was letting Simeon go, not in the sense of giving up, but in the sense of completion, finishing his life’s work, which was recognizing the sign of God’s salvation in an infant who couldn’t talk yet but will speak volumes about hope and God’s involvement within humanity.
Simeon had such great news to share about Jesus with his parents, Jesus is the Anointed One, the Messiah, the One every person in Israel awaited. Simeon was also a realist and he spoke the dangerous news about how Jesus actions and words would affect the people of Israel and especially Mary and how she would struggle with a broken heart as any mother does when they lose their child. Simeon spoke of the implications and effects this child Jesus would have on the world community, not just Israel. Not just then, but well into the future and into today.
The Promise, which is the Gospel, is always an option we choose every Sunday. We embrace a different way to live our life when we experience communion, and we hope our choice helps to bring a new world for all people to live in. Our Hope trusts the reliability of God’s promise,
Christian hope is an invitation and a choice and when we begin to track the Gospel route for our life we make decisions that will impact the direction and style of our living. Simeon opened Mary and Joseph’s eyes when they left that Temple about the future of their Son’s life and their life!
Christmas isn’t over. An elderly woman named Anna comes into the story; she was married seven years and then became a widow, and at 77 years old and she spent all her time in the Temple, both day and night, praying and fasting. Anna also recognized Jesus when Mary and Joseph appeared in the Temple, and she spoke to everyone nearby the couple telling them Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise they had been looking for their whole lives. Anna praised God for Jesus that he was given for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Christmas isn’t over because we packed the ornaments away, took down the tree, tossed the wrapping paper to the sidewalk, and turned the Christmas music off. Christmas is the call to live in peace, the invitation to be hopeful, the choice to have one’s life transformed and made new and lived within the Spirit’s aura and the son’s perspective.
Pay attention to these two old people, this man and woman, Simeon and Anna, for they are people of hope who have news of great importance for how we live our lives in this world. They come to help us focus our attention on the one important thing of life, the person of Jesus born of Mary, raised in the Jewish community, a healer and wise man himself, as well as a spirit person. Jesus is a person who brought liberation from slavery and held up compassion and justice for all people and for all creatures and creation.
Today we must ask ourselves, do you and I have a HOPE that energizes us to go further into the next season of our life?
Jesus gives us the long view of hope, a hope that trusts the reliability of God’s promise. A Hope that causes us to move onwards in and through life to see for ourselves what we have yearned for as have people throughout the centuries. May we keep actively following our hope energized by the confident expectation of what God has promised and the strength of that promise we have seen in the Story of Jesus presentation in the Temple fulfilling the hopes of Simeon and Anna and all humanity.
The News that brings hope and is Good News for us all is this; Christmas isn’t over!” As Ann Weems writes in her poem, “How can Christmas be over?? The story of the gospel is just beginning. We who saw the Star now live in its light. We who saw and heard now believe. Christmas is not over. We’re just beginning to follow this One who calls us now to Live in the Light of Love (HOPE) Christmas is not over. It’s just beginning….”