Set Free: The Song of Simeon

I'm still attending to the songs that Luke's narrative includes to focus and accent the story of Jesus being born and the world's response to that good news.  Mary and Joseph abided by the jewish law and 40 days after the birth of her firstborn son brought Jesus to the temple to be officially "presented" and from that point counted among the chosen people.  Kind of like our parents present their infant children for Holy Baptism. 

It happens that an old, faithful Jew named Simeon is also there that day and has his dream of meeting the Messiah fulfilled.   His song is a standard that capitalizes Luke's early chapters and allows for the story to shift farther into Jesus' life as an adolescent, which is the last of those moments that Mary "cherishes and ponders" what she has been called to do and become, theotokos - "God bearer."

Simeon's song, known to us by the Latin title, Nunc dimittis, is song at the close of that precious night-time prayer office known as Compline.  I'm reading compline EVERY night on my own throughout this ordinary time after the Epiphany.  You can read/pray it too.  It starts on page 127 in the Book of Common Prayer.  It's brief and can be completed in just a few minutes. 

The liturgical custom is to read Compline while standing in those minutes before one might climb the stairs to bed.  That's embedded in the name: Compline completes the day's prayers. 

Simeon's song works beautifully to speak a comforting release from the previous day's troubles that leads to freedom and peace because we know that Jesus is with us. 

Lord, you now have set your servant free * 

to go in peace as you have promised;

For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, * 

whom you have prepared for all the world to see:

A Light to enlighten the nations, * 

and the glory of your people Israel.

And with our candle clutched we go to our night's rest in silence so as not to disturb the ease of which we were just assured.  (The rubrics could prescribe a "sigh-like exhalation with a gently descending intonation" and it would seem automatic for many of us.)

But there's something that Luke's narrative also means to indicate to us.  Jesus' arrival is as much the start of something as it is the close.  Simeon is saying now the nations are caught up in the light of the Messiah's presence and the purpose of God's chosen people has been fulfilled and Israel can share in that glory.  

So let us do close our days with that sweet release and sigh that is a "day is done," "let it be," "resting in Jesus" spirit.  But let us also think ahead to how we might greet the morning with a similar comfort and confidence.  That's world for whom God's "light of Christ" is born.  That's world into which we have been set free.