The gift of Old age – Simeon and Anna
As a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang.
Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Herman, I just
heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on 280. Please be
careful!"
"Heck," said Herman, "It's not just one car. It's hundreds of
them!"
George
Burns once said, "Tennis is a game for young people. Until age 25, you can
play singles. From there until age 35, you should play doubles. I won't tell
you my age, but when I played, there were 28 people on the court -- just on my
side of the net.
Every age has its good and bad. The greatest growing age group in our
society and our churches is over 60s.
There are many positive things about getting older. The General Synod brought out a report on
ageing a few years back where they noted that in getting older perhaps there is
more time to do several creative things: to make sense of the past and plan the
future. To face important questions:
who am I? What's happening to me? Spiritually age can focus us on what really
matters. Time to care for our own
health. To take up new interests and
continue to learn. Form new
friendships. Make changes. Take up a voluntary activity. Develop relationships with family members. And for Christians, time to encourage the
life of the Christian community.
But some of you know better than I do the problems
that old age can bring. A loss of
social role in work, in a society which measures people’s value by their
productivity, old age becomes superficially at least less of an asset. Negative stereotypes such as what's his name
from one foot in the grave. Loss of
health, activity and energy. Depression
and loneliness through bereavement.
Loss of independence.
So every age can be a gift or a burden and sometimes
both at the same time. In a society,
and perhaps even in a church where elderly people can feel sidelined, it is
good to read in Luke that two very elderly people were the first to recognise
the presence of the Messiah in the world-Simeon and Anna. Here we have a model of the kind of gift
that old age can bring to the world and to the church. Wisdom is not guaranteed by old age. Just as wine can mature and become better as
it gets older so can we. But this
depends on having good grapes to start with and for the wine to mature in the
right conditions. I would like to
mature to be like a Simeon or an Anna.
I read this about Simeon: with a spiritual sight born
of his closeness to God Simeon at once recognises the child. Simeon had spiritual sight-one of the gifts
of his age was his accumulated experience and wisdom. Children touring a retirement home were asked by a resident if they had
any questions. "Yes," one girl said. "How old are you?"
"I'm
98," she replied proudly.
Clearly
impressed, the child's eyes grew wide with wonder. "Did you start at
one?"
This accumulated wisdom can be a gift with which old folk can bless the young-encouraging them, giving them the benefit of their knowledge. It can be enormously affirming to teenagers, young parents, even middle-aged folk going through their crises, if elderly people are able to listen and gently restore some spiritual perspective.
Simeon's
spiritual sight was born of his closeness to God. Simeon had time for prayer.
He had time to listen, to know the Scriptures. He was aware of his mortality, but he did not fear it. “Lord now let your servant depart in
peace”. Paul wrote that Christ came to
free those who were held in slavery to the fear of death. Through this child Simeon had no fear-his
trust in God was total for life and death.
Paul writes again that though outwardly we are wasting away inwardly we
are being renewed day by day. Spiritual
sight, born of closeness to God.
And
because of his spiritual sight born of his closeness to God Simeon at once
recognised the child. Gandhi once said,
"if you can't see God in the first person you meet, then stop
looking." Simeon recognised the
presence of the Messiah and declared it to others. A lot of the time we fail to see the work of God in our
lives. It can be a gift of the elderly
to point out where God is moving, where the child is at work.
Simeon
had spiritual side born of his closeness to God and at once recognised the
child. The whole of his life was a preparation
for this great work and role in the history of our faith. And for all of us the potential for our
lives to acquire greater meaning the older we get remains.
History
records that many people made some of their greatest contributions to society
after the age of 65. The Earl of Halsburg, for example, was 90 when he began
preparing a 20- volume revision of English law. Goethe wrote Faust at 82.
Galileo made his greatest discovery when he was 73. At 69, Hudson Taylor was
still vigorously working on the mission field, opening up new territories in
Indochina. And when Caleb was 85, he took the stronghold of the giants .
God
never intends for us to retire from spiritual activity. The Bible says we can
"still bring forth fruit in old age." Even as Jesus kept the
"best wine" for the last at the wedding in Cana, so He seeks to
gather the most luscious clusters of the fruit of the Spirit from the fully
ripened harvest of our lives.
A vicar called the other day
and told a lady that at her age she should start thinking about the hereafter.
"Oh, I do, I do," she told him. "No matter where I am, I ask
myself, 'What am I here after?'"
Whatever age we are, that question is still for us.