Day 77

Numbers 7:1-65, Luke 2:21-40, Psalm 35:1-10

You know that feeling when you get a present that you don’t really want, or something that you already have? The irreverent part of me can quite see Aaron saying “oh look, another bowl, let me guess – one hundred and thirty shekels?”

My irreverence though misses a major point in this reading. These gifts are not things that they can pull from the food store. Not a portion of flour that they already had, or the best sheep from a flock that was already there. These are things that have been made especially, as the altar was being set up, as the tabernacle was being set aside, these are the things that people have planned to give. I would imagine that they will have had designs on, things specific for each bowl offers by the different clans, designs that identified the bowl with the people who gave it. A lot of thought will have gone into these gifts.

In the Gospel we meet two of the characters that I really admire and whom we often skip over, Simeon the priest and Anna the prophetess. They play a very small part in the story of Jesus, almost just the one morning of contact, before Jesus was even a toddler and yet they were major signposts, similar to John the Baptist. The child Jesus had not yet done anything but everyone knew exactly who he was. This was the son of God! This is a life changing experience for Simeon, almost life ending. God had promised him that he would see the Messiah before he died, and now in his arms was that Christ child.  He realises that he can go now, but he will go happy and into glory with his Lord.

Just look at Simeon’s prayer though. “I have seen your salvation”. We sing these words in many of our songs and we know we are saved, In our hearts we have experienced the salvation of the Lord and we can come into his presence with this in mind.  In the midst of turmoil in our lives we can pray the Simeon prayers, we can come to rest (perhaps not the final rest like Simeon) knowing we have seen his salvation, the sight to behold all sights.