I
know where you go when you die. Do you
want me to tell you? All right . . . Come
a little closer . . . When you die, you go nowhere. That’s right: nowhere. And how do I know
that? Because I’ve been dead myself, lo these
two-thousand odd years, and although my body
has shuffled off this mortal coil, my spirit
certainly hasn’t. It’s been flapping
around this world since the day I felt a tremendous pain in my chest, and
suddenly found myself looking down at what was left of the prophet Simeon. I looked pretty pitiful, I must admit . . . guards
came running, Hanna began wailing . . . She had no idea she would follow so
soon after, but she should have. It was
no coincidence that my . . . death (I
call it “my change” because that’s what I have experienced) it was no
coincidence that my change happened
so soon after that day, after the
visit by that family, bearing that child. And it was the same for her . . . Our whole
lives had been pointing to that coming, and
she should have known that they would end soon after.
I
swear I felt it when they came in the
outer courtyard, where I was sitting in the sun that cold March day. I may have simply imagined it, but as I got
older, I seemed to perceive the numinous, the delicately transcendent, more easily.
Or maybe that was imagination
too. I no longer know. Despite what that renegade Pharisee Paul has
written, I do not know much more now
than when my heart was beating. Maybe I
will when the kingdom is fulfilled . . .
Of
course I had been primed to expect something by the Holy Spirit, who had
poked and prodded me until I went to the Temple just to get it off my
back. Of course, the Spirit hadn’t told
me why, need to know and all that I suppose, but I swear that God took especial delight in keeping me in the
dark. So I’d gone to the temple, sat
down in the sun, and closed my eyes—just resting them, you understand—when
suddenly, there was that indescribable change in the air, and immediately upon
opening my eyes I spotted them, a man and a woman, and in the woman’s arm, a
babe . . . and I silently thanked the Lord that I had lived to see his
coming.
As
I sat there, I studied them for a moment.
They looked tired and bedraggled, exhausted after their long journey—these
days, Nazareth is barely two hours automobile, but back then it took five days
of hard walking. They also looked a
little lost, like they weren’t used to the scale
of the place, and for good reason: Nazareth at the time was not the city it is
today. Back then, it was just a sheep
town of 400 souls. The couple was
clearly out of heir element, openly gawking at the heroic Temple architecture.
It
was when I saw the small wooden cage that my heart went out to them. I knew that it contained two turtle doves, doubtless
purchased at ten prices from some shyster outside the wall, and it spoke
volumes about their circumstances. You
see, the law required that every first-born male be dedicated to God, and a
sacrifice be offered in propitiation.
Normally, that was a lamb, but for the poor, a pair of turtledoves would
suffice. This meant that they were not
well off, and that it may have taken all they had just to get to Jerusalem and
offer their child up to God. Their
faithfulness brought me tears; not for the first time I asked God why he would
ask impoverished people to undertake such a punishing requirement.
Well. I got my old bones up from where I’d been
sitting and walked toward them, and I admit in the excitement I was a little
unsteady, and two pairs of eyes fastened on me.
No, make that three pairs, because I could see the eyes of the babe,
regarding my solemnly. And as I got
closer, I could see more clearly what this royal couple was all about. The father was a slender young man with curly
dark hair and a fine Semitic nose. There
was an unmistakable air of kindness about him, which I knew would come in handy
in raising a little boy, even a holy one such as this. The mother was more slender still, and her
head came only to her man’s shoulders.
She had raven hair and huge, dark eyes which, at the moment were awash
with hope. I hoped what I had to say would not crush her spirit.
When
I got to them, I reached out my arms and the babe reached out to me, and
amazingly his mother let him into my arms, and an indescribable peace descended
over me, a feeling of rightness so
strong that I gasped in surprise. Dimly,
I realized what I had done: I had usurped the power of the Temple elite, I had
intercepted him before they had been able to consecrate him in the traditional
way. The priests would not be happy, but
what did I care? What could they do to
me, so near the end? Besides: I had a
feeling that with this child there’d
be a lot more prerogative-usurping before all was done, and that they would do
well to get used to it.
And as the babe came into my arms, a
song sprung up in my heart, a song that came to me whole and unasked for, that
like all of my prophecies was a curious mixture of me and not me, a blend of
Simeon the prophet and the one who resides within and without, everywhere and
at once, now and forever:
Now,
Lord, let your servant go in peace:
your word has been fulfilled.
My
own eyes have seen the salvation
which you have prepared in the sight of every people:
a
light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.
It was a song of praise and adoration, and though I thought it wasn’t bad, as such things go, I had no idea it would go as far as it has. It is sung in countless religious communities
just before retiring for the night. It
encourages them to examine the past day to see where and in whom Christ has
come to them . . . I am humbled and touched that it has survived. Even now, after all the centuries, my eyes
tear up as, my spirit fluttering near a church of an evening, I hear those
words again. Who knew spirits could
weep?
The eyes of the young parents were as big as saucers at
what I had said, and I laid my hands upon each one of them and offered my blessing as well as that of the Lord
God above. And then it was time, the final
prophecy of my life, and I quaked inside at what I had to say. I leaned close to Mary—for that was her
name—and spoke: “Behold! This child is destined for the falling and the rising
of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts
of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” And it was only years later, as my spirit
skittered around the disciples in an upstairs room, did I understand the
significance of that curious turn of phrase: falling and rising rather than
rising and falling. It spoke to the
falling and rising of that babe in my arms, who would say a seed must die and
fall to the ground before it can rise up again . . .
Well. You can
imagine how that line about a sword piercing her side affected Mary; I felt
like a sword pierced my own side as I
watched her face crumple. But then, her
fear was replaced by something else: a calm, sad acceptance, or perhaps even resolve. And I realized there was more to this woman
than meets the eye, which I should have known.
After all, she had been favored by God Almighty, chosen out of a multitude of others, to raise and
nurture the savior of the world.
I heard a rustling at my side, and I saw that the prophet
Hanna had appeared beside us. She was aged beyond even me, and spent all her
time at the Temple, praying and singing, like her namesake so long ago. (I do
not know why your English translations insist on translating her name as
“Anna”) As she came, her face had a
delighted glow, her eyes seemed lit from within, and with a glance at Mary—who
nodded her head—I held out the babe. Anna looked in wonderment first at me,
then at the mother, and slowly extended her gnarled hands, caressing the child,
but she didn’t take him from me. Instead,
she fell to her knees and began praising God, in wonderment and gratitude that,
like me, she had lived to see this child.
And today, two thousand years later, I do not know where Hannah
is, or whether her spirit still roams the earth as does mine, but I cannot help
but remember that the first evangelist was an 84-year-old woman, for she told
everyone who entered the Temple about the salvation that had come down upon us
from on high. Indeed: as I look at this
youth-obsessed culture, with its idolizations of the young, and it’s callous
disregard of anyone over sixty years of age, I wonder how it would be perceived
that the first to recognize the savior, the first to bless him and welcome him
for what he is, were two octogenarians like us?
The gospel writer you call Luke—not his real name, but
what does it matter anymore?—Luke compresses 30 years of life and development
into that sentence: “And the child grew and became strong and full of
wisdom,” and that is certainly true. And
I, in the form of this fluttering spirit, saw it all. And it amazed me then, as it amazes me now,
that God chose to become one of us, and
that through that choosing, through that incarnation, our salvation has
come. And in the two millennia I have looked
on, I have seen empires come and empires go, I’ve seen armies rise and fall,
and rulers and nations proclaim themselves “indispensable” and “eternal,” and
the greatest there ever was. But God did
not choose to become manifest in that way.
As Martin Luther put it, God became small for us. God came down, not as a mighty king or
president, not to crush Romans or vanquish enemies, but as an infant, the most
helpless thing imaginable. God came
down, not to a media-savvy consultant, or a middle-class engineer, or a
corporate CEO. God came down in
scandalous circumstance, to a couple so poor they couldn’t afford a lamb as an
offering to the Lord.
I remember the wonder and the amazement, as I held the incarnation in my hands, as I
cherished Jesus in my arms, for the briefest of moments before I died. I held him in my hands, but you hold him in
your hearts, and that’s the greatest thing of all. Amen.
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