Sermon-Seeing Through Eyes of Faith

"Seeing Through the Eyes of Faith"

Dr. James L. Mayfield
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

December 26, 1999

Text: Luke 2:22-40

I spent some time this past summer sorting through pictures that had belonged to my grandmother. I ran across a picture that had been taken just about 8 months before her death in May. The picture had 3 people in it...my grandmother, my sister, and her newborn baby. In the picture, my grandmother was sitting in her wheelchair holding the baby with my sister sitting next to her. As I looked at the picture I was struck by all the image contained... The 3 generations of my family that were represented...the look of joy and delight on my grandmother’s face as she held her great-grandchild for the first time. The tired look on my sisters face in those beginning days of parenthood with sleepless nights and endless questions and newness.

I imagine that the joy in my grandmother’s face was there for several reasons...her delight and pride in watching my sister be a loving parent, the knowledge that in this baby her family would continue into another generation, the blessing and wonder of new life that is present in the miracle and mystery of a newborn.

But, mostly what I sensed in the picture was the presence of hope...my grandmothers sense of hope and promise for the future of those she loved, but even beyond that to a hope for the future of the world. You see, my grandmother was a very faithful woman and she lived her life expecting to encounter Christ. The picture was literally just of 3 people gathered in a nursing home hallway, but for me, the image had much more to say about God’s hope and promise for the world.

We are reminded of this hope each time we participate in the baptism of a baby. It’s not just that we are grateful to God for the gift of life in this baby...although we are indeed grateful for that. We are also hopeful and feel expectant about the future that is represented by the baby as it begins its faith journey in the Christian family. In the Sacrament of Baptism, we are given reassurance that God’s goodness and grace will continue to be present in the world as this new new life becomes part of our church family.

I suspect this looking for hope, and awareness of our need for God’s grace becomes even more true as we go through life, growing older, and in our own unique ways experiencing some of the harsh realities of life's difficulties. The more we experience some of life’s suffering and pain the more we are aware of our need to participate in the sacrament of initiation into the community almost as much as the one who is baptized. We need a hopeful reminder that we are still connected to God’s goodness through the fellowship of those who by God’s grace know the life of faith. Baptism is a sacrament of renewal and rebirth that gives us hope for our future as well. Each Baptism is our individual and corporate invitation to be open, willing, and eager to face the future through the eyes of faith.

There aren’t many stories in the Bible about Jesus as a baby. The passage read this morning from Luke’s gospel is one glimpse we do have of his infancy. Following his birth, Mary and Joseph, as dictated by Jewish law, took him to the temple for a blessing. The Torah - Jewish law- stipulated that the first-born male belonged to God and must be bought back as a reminder of the death of all first-born Egyptian males at the time of Israel’s escape from Egypt.

It seems to me that Mary and Joseph, still a little bit overwhelmed by the events of the past several months, must have been surprised by the greeting they received at the temple from Simeon.

Luke does not tell us how old he was. Tradition says that he was an old man and I imagine him as someone who had probably experienced some of life’s difficulties. I’m not sure if it was grief, or loneliness, or disappointment, or hardship, or pain,. But, I think, if he was old, he had lived enough to know that life is not fair.

Yet, in the midst of whatever he had experienced, he lived with expectation about what God would do in the world. He lived his life, not out of the perception of his pain and his hardship, but out of the perception of hope and confidence. This hope and confidence was not rooted in a good past as much as it was in the trusting of God’s grace with the future.

And he believed that God had promised he would see the Messiah before he died. That before he died, he would at long last see hope for this world. And God knows, this man who had been through so much longed to see hope for the world before he died. And this belief of his was not just something he carried in his head; he really relied on it; he trusted it. He believed in it so strongly, his confidence was so great in this promise that he was open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and he came to see the babies being brought to the temple for any of the various rituals being observed by law-abiding Jews.

So what did Simeon see that day in the baby brought to the temple by Mary and Joseph that was different than what anybody else saw that day at the temple? To other people who saw what was going on, this was just another poor couple coming to bring their poverty offering to fulfill the rites and rituals of going into parenthood.

But Simeon saw the Messiah. He saw in that tiny bundle God’s promise being fulfilled. He saw the grace of God - the hope for the world - and, I believe, he saw because he was doing the kind of "seeing" that involves expecting to see...being open, willing, and eager to experience life through the eyes of faith.

Luke’s gospel is all about seeing...a young willing mother, a bewildered trusting husband, shepherds and wise men who saw stars and traveled great distances, warnings in dreams, and now this, Simeon in the temple. "Seeing" in Luke’s gospel involves being open, willing, and eager to see experience life through the eyes of faith. It involves living life expecting to see Jesus...expecting to experience God’s grace, and trusting that life, as God wills it, is good.

Some of you have heard me talk before about my friend Steve, our Tarrytown AIDS Care Team partner who we were blessed to serve for 3 years. Steve reminds me a little bit of Simeon. Steve had certainly experienced a number of hardships and difficulties in his life. He had been abused as a child, married and divorced, fathered a son he hadn’t seen in 18 years, and been living with the AIDS virus for 12 years. If ever a person had a right to be bitter about all the undeserved stuff that life had dealt him, Steve did. And yet, he was not bitter. He lived his life in the assurance of God’s love and forgiveness and with expectant hope "seeing the Messiah" all around him. David Smith, the executive director of Interfaith Care Alliance, our sponsoring organization, wrote this article about Steve in one of our newsletters:

"A couple of years ago, I joined the Tarrytown Care Team to celebrate the birthday of their care partner, Steve. He was admitted to the hospital at the time, but was not going to miss the special party planned by his care team, so on his insistence was given a special leave for them to pick him up and join all of us who love him dearly to celebrate his big day. I arrived a little late, and remember walking in and thinking he wasn’t looking very well. He had lost a lot of weight, and looked weak and pale. As the food was brought out, Steve asked to say a prayer before we ate together, and I will never forget what he said, it is engraved on my heart, "Lord, no matter what lies ahead for me, it has been so good, and I would not ask for anything better." I remember asking myself silently, HOW could this man who was feeling so terribly, losing so much of of his independence, be so thankful. My answer came when I opened my eyes and looked around the table at all those present. In many ways, Steve, with AIDS and all, was the luckiest man alive, because he had discovered and claimed the truth that we all long to know: that love is truly the greatest gift, and knowing from his care team that he was loved, Steve could be thankful."

Steve lived with an incredible sense of hope. Not that there weren’t days when he wasn’t down and discouraged, but he lived as one who had seen the Messiah! He saw life through the eyes of faith...as one who knows that God’s love and grace is fulfilled all around him.

And this belief of his was not just something he carried in his head; he really relied on it; he trusted it. He believed in it so strongly, his confidence was so great in this promise that he was open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Steve lived not out of the perception of his pain and illness, but he lived out of the perception of hope and confidence. Not that Steve denied, or that we we deny, that at times life is hard and we struggle. There were moments when Steve was very much afraid of what was happening to him and moments when he questioned God and even moments when he moaned and complained and felt sorry for himself. But Steve didn’t live out of that place. "Lord, no matter what lies ahead of me, it has been so good, and I would not ask for anything better."

I am blessed in my work as a pastor to see so many signs of God’s goodness and hope. Every day I encounter people who live their life "seeing through the eyes of faith", expecting to encounter the Messiah.

*Expectation is present each time a parent brings their child to this altar for the sacrament of Holy Baptism

*Expectation was shown when a recently widowed woman, still deep in grief over the loss of her husband, got out of bed, put on her make-up and Sunday clothes and attended the funeral of another woman’s husband to show with her presence that life does go on and healing does happen.

*Expectant hope is shown through the love and time given by a school mentor, a Sunday school teacher, a person who prepares a meal or bakes cookies, someone who offers transportation for the elderly, kindness and concern expressed through a listening ear and heart, a person who prays for those in need.

These are all signs that we do live in the assurance that the Messiah has come and that we know and live in confident hope that God’s goodness and grace are born again in us this Christmas season.

In closing, I’ll come around to my grandmother again. Last May I had the privilege of going to Houston to baptize my nephew-the one I mentioned in the picture at the beginning of the sermon. At the time, my grandmother was very ill in a Houston nursing home and unable to attend the baptism. On my way out of town that Sunday afternoon, I stopped by the nursing home. I knew when I saw her it would probably be the last time I would see her. She was mumbling words I couldn’t understand as I entered the room and when she saw me, she became silent. In silence her eyes followed me as I pulled up a chair and sat down close to her bed. Then, as I took her hand, she shut her eyes and remained that way throughout my visit.

I told her all about the baptism; what we did, what everybody wore, what we ate for lunch, what presents the baby got...and then I found myself saying goodbye, telling my grandmother about those things she had given us that I would be thankful for for the rest of my life...for her kindness and sense of humor, for her long prayers at the dinner table and support of me going in the ministry when her own pastor renounced women in the pulpit. I thanked her for showing us with her life that God’s grace and goodness are alive and well. For showing us that in the midst of the loss and hardship in her life, that life is good and one can get through anything with Christ. Somehow it felt like a full circle that day...baptizing my nephew, this new generation of hope and faith, and telling my grandmother goodbye.

I came back to Austin and my grandmother died 2 days later. I will miss her, But I have a great sense of peace and gratitude for her life and for what we shared in her last moments. I am grateful to Steve, and to my grandmother, and to Simeon, and to many others who show me through their love and the way they live their life expecting to encounter Christ that indeed hope is born at Christmas time and we can live in the assurance that the Messiah has come!

Let us pray: God, may each one of us approach this Christmas season expecting to receive God’s grace and goodness into our world. May we find the strength and security to live as faithful people...Your people who are open, willing, and eager to experience life through the eyes of faith. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer:

Gracious and loving God, we come to you God, in prayer, offering what is on our heart today. You have blessed us in this Christmas season with many gifts. We pause in silent prayer to remember our joys and offer them to you with gratitude...

We also come today knowing so many people and circumstances in our lives and in the world who need Your sign of hope and healing and strength. We pray for those on our heart as well as for our own burdens and concerns.

We pray for all we know in this congregation and beyond who are experiencing the holiday’s for the first time without a loved one.

We ask for continued healing for those who have been released from the hospital, or are in the hospital.

God, remind us in this Christmas season that the Messiah has come and we have again been given a great gift. Help us to make room in our hearts to experience your love in new and powerful ways and to live in the assurance that no darkness we have to endure will be greater than the light of your love.

Help us to be truly joyful in this season ... not as a way to deny what we know is going on in our lives and in our world, but joyful in that we live with the expectant and confident hope that you have indeed blessed us with many gifts in both good and bad times.

God, we pray that all our living will reflect your Glory as we reach out in care and compassion to those around us. Make us sensitive to those who are in need. May we remember that the true gifts given in this season are gifts that build others up and celebrate what each one of us bring to the community.

In this Christmas season we pray for the tools to live in confident hope as we face the future with the strength and security we need to live as faithful people.

We pray in the name of the one who came to show us this great love ... "Our Father …"

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