A prison warden was preparing a man on death row for his execution scheduled for tomorrow. "You can have anything you want to eat for your last meal." "Anything at all?" "Yes, anything you want," "You promise?" "Yes. This is our policy." "I’ll have asparagus." "But asparagus won’t come in season for six months." "I’ll wait."

Simeon waited all his life in the temple to see the arrival of the Lord’s messiah. You could grow old, as they say, trusting the Lord’s promises. Many did; many died trusting and hoping but never seeing. Generations came; generations went. Many gave up hope. God’s Spirit promises Simeon he will not die before he sees the messiah. You’d think Simeon would wish for a long delay, the longer the delay the longer Simeon lives.

Then one day, Joseph and Mary bring their child for the purification sacrifice. They are being faithful to the Levitical Laws required of all Jewish parents. They have already circumcised the baby and named him Jesus, on his eighth day. After the birth of a male child, the mother was ceremonially unclean for seven days and underwent purification for 33 days. The period was twice as long if her child was a daughter. But this was a male child, so they come forty days after his birth. Then she is supposed to offer a lamb, or in this case two turtledoves, which shows us this was a poor couple.

The Holy Spirit guides Simeon, gnarly old patriarch, limping, long white beard, barely able to see at all. Bones creaking, Simeon bends down to pick up this child Jesus. Tears flowing from his eyes, Simeon looks at this baby, looks to God, and utters words he has waited all his life to say. "Now Lord, you can dismiss me. Now I can die, at last, in peace, for my eyes see your salvation. At long last, dear Lord, you are fulfilling your promise, you are preparing your salvation before everyone. Here is the promised light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."

Amazing! Incredible, that this tiny baby should receive the name Jesus, Joshua, the one who saves God’s people. For the Joshua they remember was the great warrior who led God’s people to victory in battle against their enemies. Does Simeon mean this baby will grow up to be just such a general, to bring salvation with the sword?

Simeon of course will not live to see God at work in this baby grown up, Emmanuel, God with us. Yet Simeon glimpses how God must be bringing some far different and far better version of salvation in this tiny Joshua than God was doing in that first Joshua. For as we know, this tiny baby holds the reins of the universe. The British writer G. K. Chesterton says, "On this day, the hands that made the son and stars, day and night, mountains and oceans; the hands that made all the birds and cattle, the same hands are too small to reach the heads of the sheep and oxen that sniff around this child, seeking to identify this human creature who invades their feeding stall."

How can this tiny baby be God’s light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to God’s people Israel? Amazement fills the faces of Joseph and Mary. God so loves the world that God is giving his only begotten son, sending Jesus unto the house of Joseph, tribe of Benjamin, house of David, so that this family obeys the laws of Israel, so that Jesus learns to obey them also. And Jesus will teach how from this household, the promises of God in God’s laws, in God’s covenant, will come to fulfillment. What promises? God has promised that from the descendants of Abraham shall come the blessing all creation and all people need for their salvation. After this little family finishes everything required by the law, they return to Nazareth in Galilee, and this child grows and becomes strong, filled with wisdom and God’s favor. Every parent sees in a new born child a blessed gift from God, but Simeon points out how this child is a gift that will keep on giving.

To Mary, Simeon says, "This child is destined for the rising and falling of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too." Simeon follows the leading of God’s Spirit looking ahead, to the anointing of Jesus at his baptism, to Jesus’ ministry and Jesus’ gift of himself in God’s love unto the whole human race. And Simeon sees what Mary will discover—how awful for any mother to watch her son die as a common criminal. This is indeed the gift that will keep on giving, so that today we gather to worship this gift and to learn better how to share this gift within and among ourselves.

Like the energizer bunny, this gift has power to keep on going and giving unto each one of us. For when we open this gift we discover how the gift changes us as we welcome the value and effectiveness of the gift within ourselves. On one December day about three years ago, my wife, Pat, says to me. "Honey, I’m giving you this gift you need, if you promise to do it." Huh? How do you do a gift? I soon found out. Pat gives me a year’s membership at the Nautilus gym, at the YWCA. Sure, she bought the membership, but I have to go to the gym, change into shorts and shoes, and workout on the machines, doing the routine the trainer teaches me. And I have to do this every day. Find the time to do this. And you soon learn, "No pain, no gain." For a non-athletic person like me, with my sweating and sore muscles, does this gift mean Pat loves me or what?

Membership at the Nautilus gym is a gift that keeps on giving, if I take seriously my responsibility for the covenant I am invited to enter. Covenant. There’s that word. Do your workouts and you change for the better? Lower weight, better health, stronger immune system, fewer colds and no flu, so far. Longer, better life, and my doctor no longer grumbles and tongue-lashes me, but now smiles at me. A gift that keeps on giving.

Simeon sees the baby Jesus as God’s gift that keeps on giving, yet Jesus is a gift in covenant, an invitation to recognize and accept this gift as the savior God wants us to receive and not necessarily as the gift we already want. God knows what we need, what’s best for us, and not we ourselves. My human nature wants God’s gift to be already all there when I tear off the wrappings on Sunday morning. But this Jesus comes in weakness, small and powerless, humble and apparently insignificant, and it takes the patience and faith of a gnarly old curmudgeon like Simeon to recognize and point far down the pike to who this baby truly is and to what this baby means as God’s gift who will keep on giving unto his people. Trouble is, we want God to give, to do all the giving, and this gift shows us we must learn to work with God, when we are tempted to expect God to do all the work. This is a gift that expects us to do some giving in response, giving of ourselves.

We can learn this truth about this gift through the eyes and faith of the Apostle Paul, who never saw Jesus in the flesh but who meets Jesus in the Spirit when Jesus knocks Paul off his feet and comes in covenant to lead Paul in God’s Spirit step by step forward to share this light with the Gentiles and to show how Jesus becomes glory to God’s people Israel.

Paul knows our human weakness is to want the gift with no strings attached, all paid for and ready to use, like fast food on demand. But if you receive a new guitar on Christmas morning for the first time, you’ve got lots of fingering technique to learn before you can start your own rock band. This gift gives you opportunity to welcome and accept the hard work of practice and discipline that lies ahead.

Paul says we can think and act like slaves, who are controlled by their master, or we can think and act like children who never outgrow their selfish demands for instant gratification, or we can recognize that "when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children who are heirs of the eternal kingdom of our heavenly Father. Let us gladly and joyfully welcome and receive our inheritance as adopted children of God, Paul pleads with his readers in Galatia, who are tempted to settle for the rigid law instead of the gift of freedom that keeps on giving.

Because we are heirs of this kingdom God has sent the Spirit of his son into our hearts, crying "Abba, Father." Meaning because we are no longer slaves nor immature children, but heirs, we welcome this personal and intimate relationship with God in which we live close to God’s heart and reflect the gift of God’s love in ourselves, so that like God, our manner of thinking and living becomes giving God’s gift that keeps on giving.

This is a tough love, because while I love to receive, I need help to learn how to give this gift that keeps on giving. And we have help to learn how to practice our discipleship. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Even to love our enemies. Try this exercise. Who is an enemy you can practice loving, exactly when this is hard to do? For me, my worse enemy is a suicide bomber. But this is too easy, for a suicide bomber is thousands of miles away. Who is my enemy nearby and under my nose? Someone who turns me off, whom I despise, whom I distrust, whom I fear, whom I hate. How can I welcome Jesus’ words that I should forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven, when even one time seems impossible for me? Without the gift of God’s son, no doubt forever impossible, but with God’s Spirit living within me, among us, when we profess our faith as eyes, hands, feet, arms and legs of Christ’s body, surely not only possible, but necessary, and a blessed presence of this gift that keeps on giving.

I received this story from Rick Francke. This is a report from Carlos C. Huerta, Jewish Chaplain in Mosul, Iraq. These are Rabbi Huerta’s words. "Today some terrorists decided to kill some Iraqi citizens, good Muslims, in order to discourage them from voting. These terrorists call themselves Muslims and claim what they did was for Allah. I was at the hospital as the wounded, including five children were delivered. I noticed the children, two in particular who had severe head trauma. I followed them into the ER and watched our physicians struggle to stabilize them. After the physicians did what they could, the children were taken to the ICU. I had a serious conversation with God and pleaded with him to take care of these kids, kids who should be playing soccer, or doing their homework, or helping their parents get ready for supper.

Both of these children had skulls so badly shattered that their heads needed to be bandaged to keep their brains in. The nurses gave them pint after pint of blood and their head bandages turned from white to red. I held the youngest one’s hands, reassuring him to the extent I could.

I heard the nurse say they were running low on O Positive, the universal donor, and that this child would need more. I asked what blood type he was, and both children were B Positive, my own blood type. I asked if I could donate blood for the youngest child and they quickly hooked me up and took a pint. After giving it, I went back to see him; he already had my blood hooked up to him and surging in his veins.

I held his tiny hand and watched as the monitors told the story: His heart was in trouble owing to the brain trauma. I watched as he fought for his life, fighting to breathe. But I knew he was dying and there was nothing I could do. This innocent Muslim child, was now dying despite the fact that my blood was moving through his veins, despite the fact that I pleaded with God to do what I thought was right, to keep him alive. But God had other plans.

I didn’t want this boy to die hearing the strange sounds of a hospital and a foreign language. I wanted him to be comforted by the last sounds he heard, by words that were close to his heart, words that spoke of home and faith. I started to recite the Holy Koran to him.

My close friend who was the Imam for the United States Military Academy had helped me learn Surahs of the Holy Koran, and I chanted these out to the boy in Arabic. As I chanted, I heard the monitor go flatline. I held his little hand, as my blood moved through his tiny pure heart that could no longer bear the evil of this world.

I held his hand and cried—cried for a boy whose name I didn’t know, for an innocent Muslim child who gave his life for his God, Allah, for his country. He was the true face of Muslim martyrdom. With tears streaming down my face, I looked down and noticed blood on my uniform. His blood, my blood, our blood had dripped from his open head wound unto my uniform.

And hour or so later I walked away into the waiting area as they prepared his body for transport. There I met Chaplain Mark Greschel, a Catholic priest. He looked at me and knew that I was in trouble. He sat with me, somehow knowing that the pain we felt was best not mixed with words. He quietly put his arms around me, and we both sat there in silence. I thought to myself, isn’t this the kind of world we are fighting for—a world where an Imam teaches a Rabbi words from the Holy Koran to comfort a young Muslim boy, and that rabbi himself is comforted by a Christian, a Catholic priest!

There are many Americans who ask why we’re here. Why are we sacrificing so many American lives and placing so many in harm’s way? What is the purpose of it all? Well, I don’t really know the big picture. But from my small sector of the battlefield, the reason I am here is to give "the least of these," (Notice how this rabbi quotes Jesus’ words.) my children over here a shot at "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"—just like my other children living in America.

I didn’t give birth to him, but on this day I lost a son, someone who had my blood coursing through his body. And for him, I choose not to hate, I choose to follow the path that a great Muslim followed when he said, ‘Love is my faith and my religion and wherever its caravans take me, that is where I shall follow, for love is my religion and faith.’ Let us join hands with our Muslim brothers and sisters and let this be the message of Ramadan that we carry in our hearts and take with us. God has a new Muslim angel in Paradise. I hope to tell you his name one day when I meet him again."

Thank you, Rick for sharing this story with me, so I can share it today. The Apostle Paul says, now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we shall see face to face. This story helps me to understand a bit more of what Simeon means when he sees in tiny baby Jesus "a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." Tiny baby Jesus, this gift that keeps on giving, to this day, and surely in this world far beyond this day to that blessed day when Christ Jesus shall be all things to all people.