Luke 2: 22-40
On a Friday morning in January, nearly four years ago, a young man carrying a violin case entered into one of the subway train stations in Washington, D.C. He found a spot for himself and his violin near the top of the subway station's escalators, where his "neighbors" were things like a trash can and a machine selling lottery tickets. This man opened his instrument case and took out his violin, threw in a couple of dollars and some change in his case as seed money, and for the next 43 minutes began to play as commuters passed by.(For more on the story...)
But this was no ordinary street musician, and this was no ordinary performance. This was really an experiment set up by a columnist for the Washington Post newspaper. And the musician was not a local performer looking for pocket money; this man was internationally acclaimed violinist and prodigy Joshua Bell.
For those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Bell, he is a recognized musician who three days before this little experiment for example, had played at Boston's Symphony Hall, where the "pretty good" seats sell for $100 each. Bell has played before royalty---literally. For a typical performance, his pay averages about $1,000 a minute. And the violin he carried with him? It was handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari reported to be worth up towards $3.5 million.
So why was Joshua Bell performing at a subway station on a cold Friday winter morning. Well as I said earlier, the Washington Post had set up this experiment to answer a simple question; can great artistry and beauty be identified and appreciated in an everyday context. Would people recognize greatness when it was found among the common?
Why do I bring up this experiment? I wonder if that is not the question that lies at the heart of this season --- Christmas--- and today's lesson. Simeon and Anna recognize Jesus --- the greatness that has come among the common. Simeon and Anna recognize who this little, baby boy happens to be whereas others milling about doing their business at the temple are completely oblivious.
I will come back to the Joshua Bell story later, but now let us review the Gospel. Luke presents Mary and Joseph fulfilling two Jewish regulations after the birth of Jesus --- the purification of the mother and the dedication of the firstborn male child. Mary and Joseph are faithful to keep the religious rituals of Jewish Law, which requires that every male child be circumcised eight days after birth and that a woman be ritually cleansed after giving birth.
While there at the Temple Luke also shares that two people are witnesses to the presence of God in this child. Luke tells us how Jesus is recognized and affirmed as God's agent of redemption by eminently reliable persons. First, Simeon testifies to the faithfulness of God and the sight of the child which stirs from within Simeon a song born in knowing that God will indeed bring glory to the people Israel, and provides "a light of revelation to the Gentiles."
In the same way, although Luke does not quote the words of Anna, she conveys who Jesus is. Anna, not Simeon, is the prophet. Yet, both have faithfully awaited the intrusion of a faithful God. Both now witness to the arrival of God's presence in this child.
Yet there is something that Luke does not present that I believe Luke presumes everyone will understand. The Temple was a busy place. Not only was there worship and prayers on the Sabbath, and during the week, but the temple was a constant drone of activity. Besides being in the center of the city of Jerusalem, and home to priests and their families, the Temple complex was like a huge mall during Christmas with shops and stores and the sound of animals being sold for sacrifice.
So what happened? What happened when this poor family with a baby boy came to this busy hum of activity in the center of Jerusalem? Would anybody recognize peace, hope and salvation in a small child?
Let me just for a moment return to the impromptu concert of world famous Joshua Bell. Over the course of 43 minutes, 1,070 people passed by. Before the event, the Washington Post staff was concerned that a massive crowd might gather. The word gets around, people text their friends, and 15 minutes later you have mass chaos at a Metro station during rush hour. Surely that was a distinct possibility!
And then of course it was the fact that a genius was playing. Bell began with a piece from J.S. Bach's Partita No. 2 in D Minor. Even if that means nothing to most of us, perhaps we should hear from the nineteenth century composer Johannes Brahms who said of this piece of music, "If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind." And that is how Bell began his public performance on that D.C. winter morning.
So what happened? The short answer is: almost nothing. Hidden cameras recorded the entire incident. Three minutes passed before anything happened. After 63 people passed by, the sixty-fourth person turned their head for a split second to notice Bell's performance but kept walking.
It was a full six minutes into this experiment before someone actually stopped and listened to this great musician. In short, during the forty-three minutes of this concert of the 1,070 people only seven stopped to take in the music for at least one minute and of the seven who stopped only two stood for longer than three minutes. One was a woman who happened to attend the concert in Washington DC three weeks before at the Library of Congress who recognized Mr. Bell. She was stunned to see him and stayed transfixed for seven minutes before shyly depositing a twenty in the violin case. And the other was little young boy who stopped to listen attentively and perhaps would have stayed longer if his mother would not have pulled him away. Slightly more --- twenty seven people --- tossed some money into Bell's violin case, totaling a whopping $52.17 ---including the twenty from the woman who recognized Mr. Bell. This is for a man who normally makes $1,000 a minute. Not once did anything even resembling a crowd come together.
After the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post article about the Joshua Bell experiment was published, people wrote to the newspaper writing how saddened they were that American culture and people have gotten to the point that artistic greatness was rejected that morning. Me? I am not sad. Perhaps because you and I are people of faith who recognize that greatness can come among the common. Too be honest, if I had been at that subway station I too probably would not have recognized Joshua Bell --- I hope I would have been able to stop and listen --- but I hope and pray that I would be like Anna and Simeon and that I would recognize Jesus Christ during a busy day.
During Christmas we learn that Jesus Christ brought so much more into this world at his birth. Divine greatness came into this world. Thankfully Simeon and Anna recognized what was happening that busy day in Jerusalem centuries before.
This is a New Year, a beginning in so many ways, perhaps you and I need to take a moment and wonder how we will respond to the miracle of the birth of God's Son in our daily life. Are our lives so busy and our schedules so booked that we have little time left over to take in the beautiful gift of God's grace that he has placed before us in Bethlehem's manger and Calvary's cross and Easter's empty tomb.
Did you notice that Anna and Simeon are characterized by faith? Faith and hope exist together. The Reformer John Calvin said, "Hope is the inseparable companion of faith." Faith believes in God, but hope waits for the moment when this truth is confirmed. Without hope, faith weakens and dies.
At this point you and I could consider the question if you and I recognize Christ around us this Christmas season. Are we hopeful we will see Christ in the common? But I want to consider a different direction. Just think. Not only was that Temple busy that day, but Anna and Simeon could have left Jerusalem long before and emigrated to one of the prosperous urban centers of the Roman Empire where others had settled. Or Anna and Simeon could have joined one of the religious communities seeking answers in the wilderness environments like the community at the Dead Sea. Or Anna and Simeon could have sought enlightenment through philosophic teaching or one of the "newer" religions spreading through the Mediterranean world. Yet they stayed in Jerusalem. They continued worshipping without wavering at the Temple. They remained where they had been called. They were steadfast in their hope.
The same is for you and me. Because of the Holy Spirit you and I have been drawn to this place at this time. It would be easy for us to go to one of those churches with all the programming and music and preaching. It would be easy for us to abandon the Christian faith and go to one of the many "newer" religions. Yet we are here faithful and hopeful that Christ is alive and at work in all that is around us.
The crowds may walk past without even a passing glance, the crowds might put in a token penny or quarter in the form of kind words or Christmas rituals, but the Holy Spirit has led us to realize that something greater than great happened during Christmas in a land half around the world and Holy Spirit find hope here. God became one of us so that by God's redeeming work we would be made at one again with God. "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." Savor it. Relish it. Live in it. On this New Year Day and forever. Amen.
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