Christmas has come and gone! I have to say, I’ve never had a Christmas quite like this one.  Thank God for Ginnie.  She’s the one who made it happen as far as this church is concerned.  I was able to be here Christmas Eve for both services to simply worship with my family, and that’s exactly what the doctor ordered.  But now, Christ has been born and the excitement has pretty much all settled down.  Liturgically speaking, the kings are still out there somewhere on their camels and it will still be a good week before they arrive at the manger, but that’s just a Twelfth Night/Epiphany formality that nobody except lectionary preachers really pays much attention to. Popular culture mixes their story in with the shepherds and angels and any celebrations other than New Year’s Eve seem pretty anticlimactic after the Christmas rush. 

            But this morning we have another important story that’s mostly overlooked. Its Luke’s story of the “presentation” of the baby Jesus in the Jerusalem temple, as was required by the Law of Moses for every first-born male.  Luke tells us that there was a wise man by the name of Simeon in Jerusalem, a “righteous and devout” man of hope and prayer, whom “the Holy Spirit rested upon.”  Simeon was praying for the “consolation” of Israel, and had received a vision that he was not to see death until he’d seen the Lord’s Messiah, the Christ who would bring that comfort.  In this morning’s passage we read Simeon’s famous prayer (called the Nunc Dimittis, from the Latin) in which he thanks God that now he can die and go to heaven, for his “eyes have seen the Lord’s salvation.” 

            The “consolation of Israel,” and “God’s salvation,” are power packed terms with a lot of history and meaning, but I’m taking them in a more personal direction this morning.  Comfort and salvation can be defined as healing, as a restoration to unity and wholeness of that which has been separated or broken, and that’s how I’m using them this morning.  Simeon was praying for the comfort and restoration of the people of Israel with their covenant God, but each and every one of us prays for comfort and reconciliation, for healing and completion in the significant relationships of our own personal lives. 

            You all know that I’ve spent a lot of time with my folks in the last several weeks, so when I read this story of Simeon’s prayer, I read it through the filter of my personal relationship with my dad.  Let me tell you about my dad.

            Dad’s childhood was broken.  His own father was a carpenter who was killed when dad was only six months old.  Dad grew up in the house his father built, but his mom remarried and dad was never particularly happy in that home.  He spent much of his time at his grandmother’s house.  He quit high school and joined the Merchant Marines.  After making two trips to Japan on a Norwegian ship he came back and married my mother.  They’d been in the old Epworth League together at Pioneer Methodist Church.  She was 18 and he was 21.  Not long after that he was drafted into World War II.  My older sister, Genne, was born while he was overseas, and I was born a year after he returned. 

            My dad is very affectionate with my mom.  I have early memories of them hugging and kissing in the kitchen, and even now they still hold hands a lot.  Unfortunately, that show of affection for mom didn’t translate very well to us two older kids. We never had any doubt that he loved us, but he wasn’t a hugger and I don’t remember him ever telling me he loved me.  My older sister and I were talking last week and she told me that she was an adult before she ever got a hug from dad, and she had to ask for that. As far as his relationship with his only son goes, he was proud of me, but a good firm handshake, in which he used to just about break my knuckles, was as expressive as he got.  To dad I was always Mike.  I think Michael sounded too soft for his tastes.

            But, dad changed.  After my older sister and I were out of the house, dad changed jobs, they moved from Portland to Salem, and his whole lifestyle, and to some extent his personality changed. He’d changed from the lunch pail lugging working class guy to a more white collar job, started socializing with other men, running and doing volunteer work, and I think my other sister, Kathy, who is ten years younger, grew up knowing a more gentle dad.  Also, grandkids have a way of changing people, and I saw dad softening up with his grandkids.  In fact, I’d hear him talking on the phone with them and signing off saying, “I love you, too.”  Now, that made me a little jealous, but I realized that it would make him uncomfortable to hear me say that I loved him because in his world men just didn’t talk to other men that way.  But, overcoming my fear of rejection, some time back I began trying it out, slipping a casual, seemingly innocent and offhanded, “I love ya, dad” into our farewells.  He’d respond with something like, “Yeah, you bet.” 

            After one of dad’s hospitalizations last week the doctor said he could either insert a feeding tube or we could bring dad home to die. So, in accordance with dad’s own wishes, we brought him home, and one night he was lying on the sofa, very weak and nearly unconscious.  I was sitting on the floor holding his hand, which I’d never done before, talking to him and asking him questions, just to hear him talk.  I could tell he wasn’t always connecting, so I figured it was now or never.  I said, “I love you, dad.”  And he said, “I love you too, Mike.”  That was a salvation moment for me!  It was like when Simeon prayed to God, saying:  “Now I can die and go to heaven.  I have experienced the comfort of the Lord.”

            The next day it happened again, but if you think I tricked it out of him the first time, the second is even more shameless.  He was lying on the bed, pretty much out of it, and I laid down next to him and put my arm around him.  That’s when he said, “I love you with all my heart.”  Now, I knew the second he said it that he thought I was mom snuggling up to him, but at that point I didn’t care.  I was taking it!

            I suppose I shouldn’t feel too bad, because I never heard dad say he loved God either.  I wish, if only for my mom’s sake, that dad had been a little more religious.  He’s always attended church, but more because my mom wanted him to than for any spiritual need for God or Christ. Even when we went to the Holy Land I know my mom was a little disappointed that he was probably more interested in talking with construction workers in Jerusalem than he was in visiting sacred sites.  My dad just wasn’t comfortable with religious language and, although he was proud of me, I always knew that he’d have preferred that I have a “real” job instead of going into the ministry.  All his life my dad has been a nuts and bolts kind of guy who understands things by seeing and touching them.  He’s more like the disciple, Thomas, who said he couldn’t believe until he touched the wounds of Christ. 

I may never have heard my dad say he loved God, but I heard him say many times that he loved my mom, and I take comfort in the fourth chapter of the First Letter of John where we read these words of promise:  “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God . . . No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us . . . God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”  

That’s the kind of love you can see.  That’s the kind of love you can touch. Those are words of salvation, and they were written for guys like my dad.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.