Catching Glimpses of God
based on Luke 2:22-40
Rev. Karen A. Goltz

            The overhead lights have been dimmed, the candles and the lights on the trees in the chancel area are shining brightly, the sound of the people singing 'Silent Night' quietly and reverently washes over you, and as the flame of the tiny white candle is passed to you and then on to the person sitting next to you, you feel as though you've shared more than just a tiny piece of fire with those around you.  You don't really understand it, but you feel a deep connection with everyone in the congregation, with the songs you've been singing, with the texts you've been hearing, with the event you've been celebrating.  All of a sudden you feel a deep peace, because you feel truly connected with God.

            Or maybe it was at the baptism of your first-born child, or grandchild.  You watch as the pastor pours water on the child three times, saying, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  You see the pastor make the sign of the cross on the child's forehead and say the child's name, followed by the words: Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.  And whether or not that child is aware of what's going on, whether that child is being cooperative and complacent or downright ornery, you suddenly know that you are not alone in guiding and shaping that child.  You suddenly know that there is someone who will watch over that child when you cannot, someone who will guide that child in ways that you never could, someone who loves that child with a love even deeper than yours, though you can't imagine that any love could be deeper than yours.  But you suddenly know that this is not some empty ritual that you're just expected to do.  Suddenly you know that this child is a child of God, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ, forever.

            Or maybe it was when you were receiving communion some Sunday just like any other Sunday.  The pastor comes to you, gives you a little piece of bread, and says, "This is the body of Christ, given for you."  And then you receive a little cup of wine and you hear the words, "This is the blood of Christ, shed for you."  And as you eat that bread and drink that wine you suddenly know--you know, that the body of Christ was given for you, Christ's blood was shed for you, and the intensity of that knowledge is almost overwhelming.

            Or maybe it happened far away from these four walls.  Maybe you were riding along one evening and you saw the sun setting, the colors in the sky changing, and the entire landscape being transformed.  However connected you do or don't feel at church, you suddenly know that life on earth is no cosmic accident.  You look at the sky and the landscape, the shapes and the colors, and the only thing you can do is give thanks for such a gift, praise God for making such intense beauty, be humbled by such majesty, and feel blessed by being allowed to witness the miracle of existence.

            There are thousands, millions of such spiritual moments.  They can happen anywhere, any time, to anyone, no matter how 'churched' or 'unchurched' they may be.  We may not understand what is happening, and later we may not acknowledge that God had anything to do with it, but at that time we feel a connection; we feel at peace.  We feel holy.

            And then life continues and the feelings fade.  We may still remember the event, and we may even remember that the event had a profound effect on us, but we can't get those feelings back.  All we can do is remember that we had them, and maybe wonder why.

            I like to think of those moments as glimpses of God's hiddenness being revealed.  I imagine that those brief moments are a little foretaste of what heaven's like, only in heaven those feelings never fade.  But in this life, on this earth, we only have very few of those divine moments to sustain us through our ordinary, everyday lives.

            Jesus, Son of God, was born to Mary, an ordinary human.  From the time Mary was told what would happen through the time of the infant's presentation in the Temple, I'd say that the glimpses of God's hiddenness being revealed were probably pretty numerous.  There was the experience of the annunciation when Mary was told what was to happen to her, then the conception, then the angels' appearance to the shepherds, followed by the shepherds' appearance at the stable.  And when Mary and Joseph went to dedicate the child in the Temple, a righteous and devout man named Simeon came and sang praises to God, thanking God for allowing him to see the salvation of Israel and of the world in this little child.  That same day, perhaps even while Simeon still held the infant Savior in his arms, a prophet named Anna came up to them.  We don't know exactly what she said, but we know that she, too, was praising God for the child, and connected that child to the salvation of Israel.

            I'm sure that most--if not all--of those experiences were moments of the divine hiddenness being revealed to Mary and Joseph.  Yet they were still just moments, just glimpses, in the midst of their ordinary, everyday lives.  I'm sure that Mary had a normal, ordinary pregnancy, complete with morning sickness, back pain, and just overall discomfort.  I'm sure she had labor pains and contractions, and during the actual birth of Jesus on that silent night, Mary probably wasn't so silent.  But the silence descended when she finally held her son in her arms, and she looked at him with the awe and the wonder that I've seen several new mothers look at their firstborn child with--the look that says, "I can't believe how much a part of me you are.  I can't believe you're really mine."  And the love battling the fear that comes with the weight of responsibility that falls on both parents, the responsibility for that child's entire future resting on their shoulders, in their hands.  The visit from the shepherds may have alleviated some of that fear or it may have added to it; how would you feel if strangers came to you and said that angels had told them that your child was the Messiah, the Savior that your people had been waiting for for centuries?  And then they left the stable and went home, and I believe that Jesus was a normal infant who dirtied diapers and cried for his 4AM feedings, and Mary and Joseph lived the lives of ordinary, sleep-deprived parents of a newborn.  Then at the Temple they had another glimpse, with the words of Simeon and Anna, and then they left the Temple and went home, and continued to live ordinary lives and raise their son the only way they knew how: the same, ordinary way in which they'd been raised, as ordinary children.

            What do these glimpses of God's hiddenness revealed have to do with ordinary life?  Well, for one thing they provide assurance of Immanuel, of God with us.  God is with us in ordinary life, hidden in the mundane, everyday things that we do.  Some of the founders of this country, guys like Thomas Jefferson, were what we call deists, who believed that God created the world and then just sat back and watched it run its course, with no divine intervention or involvement at all.  I believe that those glimpses show that idea to be false.  God is with us, involved in the everyday and the ordinary.  Not controlling us, or playing us like pieces on a chess board, but with us, experiencing things as we experience them.

            But what can these glimpses really do for us?  We're told on many occasions that "Mary treasured these things in her heart."  Perhaps she couldn't hold onto that divine bliss while she was up feeding her child at 4AM, or scrubbing dirty diapers the next day, but she could remember that she'd experienced that bliss, and that could be enough to keep her hope alive.  Even knowing that her son was destined for the falling and rising of many, and that he would be a sign that would be opposed, and even that a sword would pierce her own soul, too, even knowing all that, the memories she had treasured in her heart reminded her that her child was God's salvation for Israel, God's own Son as much as hers, and that God would watch over her child when she could not, that God would guide her child in ways that she never could, and that God loved her child with a love even deeper than her own.  Knowing that, she could be sure that her hopes for the salvation of herself, her nation, and, especially of her son, were in the hands of a loving God who was intimately involved in their ordinary, everyday lives.  A loving God who knew what was going on, and who had promised to clothe her people with salvation, and cover them with righteousness.

            And what about those of us who haven't received angelic proclamations that we have found favor with the Lord?  What about those of us who sometimes feel as though we're drowning in the ordinariness of our lives, and those brief glimpses of the hiddenness of God revealed are so few and far between that it's hard to draw hope from our memories of the feelings those moments invoked?

            Being one of those people, I look to Simeon.  He was looking forward to the consolation of Israel.  And if he was looking forward to that consolation, then that means that Israel was still in need of being consoled.  In other words, Simeon's life was just as messy and ambiguous as anyone else's, and he was looking forward to salvation.  As far as I know, he never experienced the fulfillment of that salvation in his lifetime.  The text tells us that the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord's Messiah.  That leads me to believe that he was an old man, who probably died not long after this Temple incident, but that's just my interpretation.  In any case, when he laid his eyes upon the infant Jesus, Simeon praised God saying, "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."  Simeon probably did not live to see Israel's salvation, but he did glimpse the source of that salvation.  He glimpsed Christ.  He glimpsed Immanuel, God with us, and he glimpsed God with us in the flesh.  That glimpse was all Simeon needed to feel that his own salvation was assured.  When or where or how that salvation would be completed he didn't know, but that one, brief glimpse of the hiddenness of God revealed was all he needed to bring the hope and assurance of his salvation back into his ordinary life.

            God has revealed his hiddenness to us in many and various ways.  He comes to us through the waters of baptism, through the bread and the wine of communion, through the hearing of the Word.  He comes to us at odd times in our ordinary lives, through his creation.  He comes to us through Christ, who is Immanuel, God with us.  Through Christ our salvation is assured, and with that assurance we can face our ordinary lives, the messiness and ambiguity that come with living in this sinful world, because it was into this sinful world that Christ was born, bringing the divine into the ordinary.