Bible reading: Luke 2:22-40.

The time came for Joseph and Mary to perform the ceremony of purification, as the Law of Moses commanded. So they took the child to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord: “Every first-born male is to be dedicated to the Lord.” They also went to offer a sacrifice of a pair of doves or two young pigeons, as required by the law of the Lord.

At that time there was a man named Simeon living in Jerusalem. He was a good, God-fearing man and was waiting for Israel to be saved. The Holy Spirit was with him and had assured him that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s promised Messiah. Led by the Spirit, Simeon went into the Temple. When the parents brought the child Jesus into the Temple to do for him what the Law required, Simeon took the child in his arms and gave thanks to God:

   “Now, Lord, you have kept your promise,
     and you may let your servant go in peace.
   With my own eyes I have seen your salvation,
     which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples:
   A light to reveal your will to the Gentiles
    and bring glory to your people Israel.”

The child’s father and mother were amazed at the things Simeon said about him. Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, “This child is chosen by God for the destruction and the salvation of many in Israel. He will be a sign from God which many people will speak against and so reveal their secret thoughts. And sorrow, like a sharp sword, will break your own heart.”

There was a very old prophet, a widow named Anna, daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She had been married for only seven years and was now eighty-four years old. She never left the Temple; day and night she worshiped God, fasting and praying. That very same hour she arrived and gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were waiting for God to set Jerusalem free.

When Joseph and Mary had finished doing all that was required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to their hometown of Nazareth in Galilee. The child grew and became strong; he was full of wisdom, and God’s blessings were upon him.

Message.

We often associate church bells with Christmas; but at the beginning of the Second World War they were silenced, to be rung only in the event of a German invasion. However they did ring out on 15^th November 1942 on the order of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. This was to mark the decisive battle of El Alamein when, for the first time, the tide appeared to be turning in the Allies’ favour and people even began to talk about the end of the war. Morale was rising, but Churchill warned against premature euphoria. “This is not the end”, he said. “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. Two more blood-filled years passed before victory was finally achieved.

The ceremony of Jesus’ naming in the Temple, when he was eight days old, ends Luke’s account of his birth. (However the Wise Men’s visit related by Matthew must have come later, possibly when Jesus was a toddler, as we know that the Holy Family fled to Egypt as soon as they had departed). This naming ceremony was a highly significant event: one the one hand the Old Testament prophets had predicted Christ’s coming, which finally took place at God’s chosen moment and place; on the other hand, Mary and Joseph had obeyed God by naming their son “Jesus” – admittedly a common name even though it means “Saviour”. But now this initial phase of the salvation story is at its end, and Jesus must take years preparing for his adult mission, which will finally take him to the Cross. He has no other destination.

We meet two interesting characters in the Temple, Simeon and Anna. Both appear to be elderly; both are deeply spiritual and perceptive; both have comments to make about the infant Jesus. Simeon in particular views the baby with a sense of satisfaction and thanksgiving, recognising that God’s deliverance has finally come to both Israel and the Gentile world. Of course, Christ’s work will only be completed some thirty or more years in the future; yet Simeon has no doubt at all that the divine plan will be accomplished. His striking, dare one say unwelcome and disturbing, words to Mary hint at the pain which Jesus will bring her as he carries out his task in obedience to God. That is inevitable.

Anna, it appears, has less to say than Simeon. Certainly we have no report of her words. But she, too, is thankful that her long life of piety has ended with a glimpse of the infant Messiah. Although she is well aware that she won’t live to see Jesus as an adult, she also knows that her waiting has not been in vain. Anna can go to her grave in peace, quietly confident that nothing will impede God from bringing his plan to completion. The broad outline of Jesus’ future is clear to her, although the precise details are still shrouded in mystery.

On this Sunday in particular, when we are all hopefully replete with good food, happy memories and Christmas cheer, it is easy even for Christians to look back and regard the Christmas story as a tale that is complete in itself: we know it, we’ve heard it once again, it’s finished. But thinking in this way totally fails to do the story justice: what we must realise that it is not a story that’s complete in itself, but merely the prologue to events that are yet to happen, the whole of Jesus’ life, in fact. There are many people, those who perhaps come to church only at Christmas, who fail to link the baby in the manger with the Saviour of Calvary. They never recognise that God’s giving of his Son to the world was only completed at Easter. The Christmas story without Easter is no more than a cosy folk-tale; conversely the Easter story needs Christmas to show us that Jesus was a real man, sent by God to live among us. As the poet Steve Turner reminds us, Christmas is lovely for children but the Easter story, with its whips, blood, nails, spear, allegations of body snatching and politics, is an entirely different matter.

So, as Anna and Simeon knew, Jesus couldn’t remain a child. He had to grow up, both physically and in wisdom; this process would involve a growing awareness of the task which lay ahead. We cannot possibly know how this sense of divine compulsion developed, although we know that Jesus certainly had some sense of his unique relationship with God by the time he visited the Temple when he was twelve years old. But we must not leave the story at that point, either; for Jesus has to become an adult, finally dying on the Cross and rising again, to fulfil the purpose for which he came. At the point we are at today, with Jesus still a baby, God’s plan of salvation has begun but still has to be fully realised.

On this strange Sunday, after Christmas but before the turn of the year, we can be like Anna and Simeon, looking both forward and back. The past year of 2023 will be remembered for many things, good and bad. It certainly gave us some grim statistics: the fifth-deadliest earthquake in history rocked Turkey and Syria, leaving 67,000 people dead; the ongoing civil war in Sudan killed more than 10,000 people and displaced 5.6m more – nearly 15% of the country’s population; in Asia, the Azerbaijani victory in Nagorno-Karabakh saw more than 100,000 Armenians fleeing. All that, of course, is before we’ve even mentioned Israel/Palestine and Ukraine. Global warming meant that last summer was the hottest ever; the year also witnessed extreme weather events such as Cyclone Freddy which led to over 1,400 deaths in Mozambique and Malawi; and Storm Daniel which caused catastrophic flooding in Libya which killed at least 11,000. Meanwhile the River Amazon and the Panama Canals struggled with low water levels.

In other news, 2023 saw King Charles’ Coronation, the cancellation of the northern leg of HS2 after billions of pounds had been spent, and the insidious but unstoppable rise of Artificial Intelligence. “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” filled cinemas; Britain came 25^th in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest with only Germany below us; and Wales amazingly reached the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup but were knocked out by South Africa. So it’s been quite a year! And, of course, those world events were all parallelled by the ups-and-downs of our own lives. Will 2024 be better? We can only hope, believing – although it’s tough at times – that God is still in charge.

Let’s go back to that scene in the Temple: an ordinary, day-to-day event that wouldn’t have excited much interest, yet was so important for those involved. For, when we look at a small child, we naturally think of all that lies before it. We hope that it will have a long, happy and healthy life. We hope that the potential lying within it will develop into fruitful maturity. We hope that it will enjoy lasting and loving relationships. We hope that it will overcome all the frustrations it will encounter and fulfil its dreams. When a child is born, it cannot do anything for itself, so good parents will do everything they can to support, nurture and (yes!) discipline and correct it as it grows.

But the birth or blessing of a child also invites us to look back, and I’m sure that Mary and Joseph did that. How have circumstances, many of which seem to happen by sheer chance, brought it into being? How have its parents met, found love (or so we hope), and come together? What discussions, decisions and plans have they made, possibly before the child has even been conceived? Every child has a future before it but, as Mary and Joseph were well aware, every child also has a past behind it (although one which rarely involves angelic visits or Roman censuses; sadly far too many families do have a history of enforced journeys).

Babies stand (well, they would if they could!) at the gateway to the rest of their lives, while we all stand at the gateway to the new year. We can look behind us and remember the events of 2023, although we might prefer to forget them; equally we might wish we had a crystal ball to see into 2024 although we might prefer not to look too far ahead. All we can be sure of is that we go forward into a year of uncertainty, a year of fears and hopes, sorrows and joys, sickness and health, disappointments and aspirations, failures and successes – because that’s what every year is like. As Christians, we believe that God has been with us up until now, and that he will continue to be with us, in everything.