Today we have the joy of baptizing little Jobi Medeiros, and of celebrating with his parents Diane and Jay and his sisters Kayla and Danica, and with all of his extended family who are here this morning.

As often as we celebrate baptisms in this church, each one is special and unique, because each child is special and unique. While the prayers and liturgy and hymns and scriptures we say and sing today are standard and traditional, there is nothing routine or ordinary about what we do today. In fact, what we do today is actually God’s doing; it is God who brings little Jobi -- through his baptism -- into union with Christ, and with us, and with the Church of every time and place. Baptism is a sign and seal of our common discipleship, and baptism is God’s gift to us and our human response to that gift. Nothing routine and ordinary about that, to be sure!

And there is nothing routine or ordinary about Jesus’ presentation at the temple, which we read about in this morning’s Gospel lesson. Luke tells us that the Christ Child has already been circumcised, and it’s now time for the dedication of the firstborn son to God. And so Mary and Joseph bring their child to the temple in Jerusalem, to promise before God to bring up the child in the faith, just as Diane and Jay have promised to bring up Jobi.

Jesus’ presentation is as standard and traditional as could be – and yet, for those who recognize Mary and Joseph’s baby as the Messiah, nothing could be more uncommon and extraordinary. One of those people is the elderly Simeon who, guided by the Spirit, comes into the temple that day. Luke points outs to us that Simeon “was righteous and devout,” and “it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.”

When Simeon sees the Christ Child, he takes him in his arms. This child Simeon so lovingly cradles is the answer to his faithful prayers, for he knows he is embracing the long-awaited Messiah. What a vision of hope the baby Jesus is for the old man, the fulfillment of God’s promise. We can imagine Simeon gazing in wonder at the bundle in his arms, perhaps tears of joy streaming down his face.

And he prayerfully proclaims: “…my eyes have seen your salvation.” Simeon says that’s all he needs; having seen the Messiah, he can now die in peace.

In our faith tradition, the “Song of Simeon” is part of our funeral liturgy, and I say it at every graveside committal service, including Dot Stone’s on Friday and Margie Barley’s yesterday. Many faith traditions know it as the “Nunc Dimittis,” and these words have been sung by Christian communities since the 4th Century. We usually think of the Song of Simeon as words of resignation from an old man ready to die. “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace.” But rather than being a solemn prayer at life’s end, Simeon’s words overflow with joy and hope.

He proclaims that his eyes have seen God’s salvation. But what has Simeon seen, really? Whatever salvation this baby might work in the lives of faithful individuals will not be revealed for three decades. By that time, Simeon will be long dead, Joseph as well, perhaps too the shepherds and magi, who came to see him as a newborn in a manger.

But every child, like Jesus, is a vessel of promise and possibility; every child, like Jesus, has the potential for teaching us about life and love. And sometimes, like Jesus, a little child can lead us to salvation.

A clergy colleague of mine named Sally¹ tells the story of just such a unique and special little child, a girl, through whom she watched salvation happen. Little Erica, who was then three, stole the baby Jesus right out of the manger the day of the first rehearsal for the Christmas pageant. It was the kind of rehearsal where there was so much confusion and so many wound-up children running around that no one noticed what any one child was doing. But Rev. Sally saw little Erica scurry down the center aisle to the back of the church, a tiny thief not much bigger than the doll she tenderly carried.

No one noticed the missing Jesus until later when her mother found the doll carefully harnessed into Erica’s car seat. Rev. Sally tried to reassure Erica’s embarrassed mother with these words: “Look at it this way. Erica is right, we are all supposed to want to take the baby Jesus home with us, and we’d all be better off if we tried harder to do it!” Rev. Sally admits that when she had started her sentence, her only intent was to reassure Erica’s mother, but God’s Truth flowed through her words, courtesy of a little child. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “…and a little child shall lead them.”

At little Erica’s church there was a woman named Grace who, if the truth be known, did not really live up to her name. She had a sharp tongue and was the one you could always count on to mention if a baby cried during the worship service or if a teenager left something out of place in the kitchen. Grace said it was just terrible that little Erica had stolen the baby Jesus, don’t parents teach their children any discipline these days? And “she probably got him dirty too,” Grace added with a “harrumph!” as she folded communion linens with Deacon Muriel. Muriel, as it happened, was the coordinator for the local Toys for Tots drive, and she said gently to Grace, “You know, it’s possible that little Erica has no doll of her own. I don’t think that family has any extra money, though they are much too proud to let it show.”

Rev. Sally is not quite sure what happened next, but on the day of the pageant, it was discovered that there were two infants in the manger, one of them a brand new baby doll in a lace-trimmed red velvet dress, the kind you simply could not go out and buy, and it had a tag on it which said, “For Erica – Merry Christmas!”

Now, we do not know for sure that it was Grace who bought the doll and made the dress, but it was true that Grace, who never had quite lived up to her name, it was true that Grace did sew – in fact, she had won awards at local fairs for fancy linens and handmade lace.

And: Grace had a son, with whom she had not spoken for several years, because of things that were said and things which had been left undone, when her son married a girl Grace did not like. Earlier that year, the young couple – Grace’s son and daughter-in-law – had a baby, Grace’s first grandchild. Grace had not seen the baby. But just a couple of days after the Pageant -- a couple of days after, it is thought, she gave the doll to little Erica -- Grace called her son. We’re not sure what was said in that telephone conversation, but Grace spent that Christmas with her son and daughter-in-law and the new baby. And although Grace’s tongue was not much softened, and she could still be counted on to express all the necessary disapproval of the behavior of the children and youth in church and their parents’ failures at discipline, Grace has spent every Christmas since with her son and her daughter-in-law, and their now-three children, along with Grace’s other sons, and daughters-in-law and five other grandchildren. It is, no doubt, exactly the kind of noisy, messy, unpredictable and out of control chaos that Grace deplores.

And: sometime after the Pageant, when the subject of children and grandchildren came up in conversation at a church social, Rev. Sally saw Grace smile at little Erica, who at that very moment was using a white linen tablecloth to wipe off the chocolate frosting she had smeared all over her little face. Salvation.

On this Sunday after Christmas, we might think that the story of Jesus’ birth is all over. But it isn’t; it lives on in us. In the quiet of these moments, as we recover from Christmas and as the New Year begins, let us all take a look around and see how Simeon’s story, and Erica’s story, and Grace’s story, can also be our story, how Christ can be born over and over again in our hearts. Let us take this time to prayerfully consider how we can share in Christ’s Good News and take the Baby Jesus home to live in our hearts forever.

Amen.

¹My thanks to my colleague, Rev. Sally McLean, for her words and stories.

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