Here’s a meditation for the festival of Candlemas, a day on which the Church traditionally remembers the presentation of the infant Jesus in the temple at Jerusalem. It’s taken from my book No Ordinary Man.
I really felt I’d missed it
Reading
There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. Luke 2:36-38
The meditation of Anna
I really felt I’d missed it,
truthfully.
I mean, I wasn’t just old,
I was ancient!
And still there was no sign of the Messiah,
no hint of his coming.
I began to wonder whether all those years of praying and fasting
had been worth it,
or simply one almighty waste of time.
I doubted everything,
questioned everything,
despite my outward piety.
Why hadn’t God answered my prayers?
Why hadn’t he rewarded my faithfulness?
Why believe when it didn’t seem to make a scrap of difference?
I still kept up the facade mind you –
spoke excitedly of the future,
of all that God would do –
but I didn’t have much faith in it,
not after so many disappointments.
Until that day when,
hobbling back through the temple after yet more prayers,
suddenly I saw him,
God’s promised Messiah.
Don’t ask me how I knew,
I just did,
without any shadow of a doubt,
and it was the most wonderful moment of my life,
a privilege beyond words.
It taught me something, that experience.
It taught me never to give up,
never to let go,
never to lose heart.
It taught me there is always reason to hope
no matter how futile it seems.
It taught me to go on expecting
despite all the blows life may dish out.
It taught me God has never finished
however much it may feel like it.
I nearly lost sight of all that.
I was right on the edge,
teetering on the brink,
fearing God had passed me by.
But he’d saved the best till last,
and I know now, even though the waiting is over,
that there’s more to come,
more to expect,
more to celebrate.
For though my life is nearly at an end,
it has only just begun!
Prayer
Loving God,
as the years go by and life drifts on,
sometimes we too, like Anna,
find it hard to keep faith alive.
As we face life’s repeated disappointments,
as prayer after prayer seems to go unanswered,
so faith falters,
the dreams of youth dulled by the reality of experience.
Yet you tell us through Jesus
never to stop looking forward,
never to stop believing in the future.
Lord Jesus Christ, help us to go on
trusting in the victory of your love
and the coming of your kingdom
despite everything that seems to deny it.
Amen.