What Child Is This?
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 12/30/2012
Based on Luke 2:
22-40
(This sermon is actually
being incorporated within the children’s time as part of a multi-generational worship experience.)
What
a great passage this morning’s scripture is, as it speaks about two people who
are very faithful believers of God. They
have spent their whole lives praying and waiting for God to answer one specific
prayer and promise of sending to the world a man who will provide salvation for
all. This last Monday evening at a
candle light service we celebrated the birth of that little baby, whose name is
Jesus. In this morning’s story, we continue
reading about the life of this little baby as we will do throughout the rest of
the church year.
I
would like to begin by showing you some pictures that some people have brought to
this morning’s worship. Can anyone guess
who this person is? What about that
person?
So,
when you grow up what would you like to be?
I would like to ask some of you out in the congregation the same
question, “When you were little, what did you want to become?” And as a second part of that question, “When
you grew up, what did you actually become?”
For myself, I discovered that “what I wanted to become” changed for me at
differant ages. For example: when I was very small I wanted to be a
fireman, like my dad who was a volunteer fireman, when I got older I wanted to
become a world famous surgeon. In Junior
High I discovered I loved designing houses, but when I learned I had to take
calculus to become an architect that killed that idea. In high school I wanted to become a
professional singer. Then I realized
that if I were going to support a family, being a professional singer wasn’t
the best choice, so I studied and became an accountant. Guess what – I had to take calculus anyway! Well, that wasn’t necessarily the best choice
for me, as I was too easily bored and I hated doing bookkeeping. Eventually, I started hearing more clearly a
call by God to become a minister, which was the one thing I really didn’t want to
do.
So
there are a couple of very important points that we can think about with this
morning’s story as it relates with Simeon and Anna. I find it amazing at how both Simeon and Anna
were able to recognize who Jesus was going to become when he was just a little
baby. Scripture gives us a clue to how
they were able to recognize who this little baby was. We read that both were being lead by the Holy
Spirit, because they prayed a lot.
Simeon,
when he saw Jesus, praised God, thanking God for answering the promise that had
been given to him many years earlier, that he would not die before seeing the
messiah not just of Israel but of the whole world. Have any of you ever been called a “blessing
to your parents or to someone else?”
What do you think that means? A
blessing in its simplest meaning means approval or hopefulness. So when Simeon and Anna saw the baby that
Joseph and Mary were bringing into the temple to receive the general blessing
that a child would receive when presented by his or her parents, Jesus actually
received a special blessing from Simeon and Anna went out sharing the news that
God’s most favored one had finally come, and that this baby Jesus was a blessing
upon Israel.
We
do a similar action when parents bring their baby to be baptized. Baptism is an act of Blessing. If you are an infant, what we do when we are
applying the water on your forehead, is making the sign of the cross, which
Christians use as the greatest symbol of blessing. Baptism is not an individual act. It is an action of the community of
believers. When you are being baptized,
the community of faith is committing to help support you in your faith journey
and give support as you develop your potential as a child of God.
When
a baby is born, one of the things that everyone see’s in the birth of a new
baby, is potential. Because of our being
human’s and too often caught up in our own interests, we often times project
onto the newborn baby our own dreams for that child. My mother for years dreamed that I would
become a doctor. Even though I was
interested in watching T.V. shows that showed childhood diseases and how
Doctors helped cure children, I never really saw myself as a Dr.
When
Mountain View was started in 1970, as a new church, it was in effect a baby as
well. A group of people who were
Presbyterian’s, United Methodis’ts, and United Church of Christ came and in
worship gave a blessing upon this new infant congregation. Within that blessing, we were given all the
hopes for bringing God’s promise to Aurora and in that blessing was given the
power of the Holy Spirit to help us become what God has in store for Mountain
View.
So the question
that we could ask ourselves this morning would be, “What did we want to be when
we grow up?” and now that we are 42 yrs old, “What have we become?” Have we come what we thought we wanted to
become or are we something different? I
suspect that we are different in many respects to what the original founders
had envisioned for us. So maybe the
better question would be, “Are we developing into the potential that we
possess?”
The reality about
life is that it is always in motion.
Nothing stays the same. Just like
I changed my ideas about what I wanted to be as I grew older, discovering my
talents and interests, in listening to the advice of people who saw special
gifts in me continue to grow into the best that I can be, so does Mountain
View. As a family of faith, we
constantly need to be asking:”Are we living up to our potential?” We have been giving the blessing of God to
work toward our potential and we have been given the power to achieve our
potential, through that original blessing, just as Simeon blessed Jesus as a baby. If we feel that we are not achieving our
potential, maybe we are not dreaming “big” enough.
I think whether as
young people growing up or as adults, the best practice that one could have is
to continually pray that God will guide us to develop the potential that each
of us is born with and then listen to how God speaks to us through people like
our parents, through our friends, through what we learn in school, by exploring
any interests or talents that we have to help us recognize where our potentials
lead us, so we can have the most satisfaction
about who we are and also contribute the best of who we are to the larger
communities that we live in. You are all
very special people, God’s blessing and gift to our world. Let God help you learn what your gifts are
and help you to share them with everyone that you meet. Amen
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