Nunc Dimittis
There came a moment that night when creation held its breath. A heron plunging towards a lake landing was held in mid-air its wings still outstretched; a shepherd’s hand stopped with the bread halfway between the stewpot and his mouth; a horse was frozen as it bowed its head to drink from a motionless stream.
Joseph knew what it meant and hurried back to the cave but before he’d taken five paces a baby’s cry broke the stillness and a world made new breathed again.
The heron landed, the shepherd made a joke as he filled his mouth, the horse began to drink whilst Joseph hurried back wishing he'd been able to find a midwife, hoping Mary wouldn’t need one now.
He didn't notice but there was another witness of that silence but she could no more make sense of what she had seen than explain why it caused her to follow Joseph.
Down the hillside, through the outskirts of the town a distant light guided his way and when he came to the shelter he saw it swaddled by a luminous cloud. It stopped him in his tracks, this was holy ground he was approaching, should he go in?
How long it would have taken him to nerve himself he didn’t know, but a voice behind him gave him no choice.
‘Your wife has had a baby. She needs someone with her.’
The speaker pushed him over the threshold and followed him into the cave.
To his surprise he recognised her. When they had come into town she had been sitting in the shade of a house with her head down. At that time she had given no response to their greeting, nor any answer to their questions about shelter, she hadn’t even raised her eyes to see who she was ignoring. Joseph had thought then she was the emptiest person he had ever seen, but why she was here now was a question for later. At this moment Mary had to be the heart of his attention.
He went over to his joyful, proud, frightened wife dipped a cloth in the water and wiped her forehead. And then he had no idea what else he could do.
He turned back to the woman, ‘Are you a midwife?’
She shook her head, ‘But I used to help my aunt.’
He looked to Mary, who nodded.
‘Can you help us?’
Her name was Abigail and even he, who had never been so close to a birth before, recognised she knew what she was doing. She helped Mary turn the baby to her breast, guessed what help Joseph was capable of giving and told him how to do it. Even so all the while she was helping them Joseph felt an absence in her.
Afterwards they both wanted to thank her - how would they have managed if she hadn’t been there? - but they didn’t see her again after that night. Perhaps she was an angel.
Days later when they came to the temple for their son’s presentation an old man saw them come in and knew them for the people who had restarted life in his daughter. He stared long into Jesus’ face and wondered. Was this truly the child for whom he had been waiting? If so he was very different from what Simeon had expected. He had imagined an easier hope, something more straight forward.
He thought of his wife who hadn’t lived to see this day, of the daughter whose life had turned to dust on the day when she lost both her husband and child. Then he remembered Abigail coming home from this child's birth weeping for the first time since death of her own hopes. He looked again at the baby and felt faith restored in him that there was still life for her.
Simeon took the child into his arms, ‘Now my eyes have seen God’s salvation; here is the light of the Gentiles and the consolation of Israel.’
He gave him back to Joseph and Mary and thought again of his Abigail. She had been one of the living dead for such a long time but now where she had been hollowed out something seemed to be growing. Even so if there was to be resurrection for her it would be hard won.
He looked at Mary looking at her baby and felt a sudden sympathy.
‘This child is destined for the falling and rising 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.’
Nick Benson - Christmas 2015
