December. Shiwasu. That’s the old Japanese name for the month. It means “priests run.” It is so named because at the end of the year the priests of the pagan religion(s) are busy making prayers and blessings. It conjures up mental pictures of men in flowing robes running to grab written prayers from people, running to place them, perhaps with incense, before pagan gods, quickly chanting a few words of memorized prayers, then running back to the people who gave them the prayers and giving them some sort of memorized and mechanical blessing, and then running to yet another person and grabbing yet another prayer wish. It all strikes me as desperate, hopeless, and sad—a people who, at the end of a year, want some meaning for the past year, some hope for the coming year, some redemption for what took place last year, some power for the next.
There is a contrast in my mind at the same time. I see two old people in a Temple, patiently praying—no hurry, no worry, just faith. There is desperation, to be sure, but the desperation is for the will of God, not for their circumstances, perhaps for the people around them, certainly not for themselves. One of them prays with absolute assurance, the other with absolute abandon: the one with the assurance that he will see the answer to his prayers before he dies, the other with the abandon of earth’s cares and concerns—fasting, denying herself until she sees God’s will fulfilled.
And then one day their prayers are answered. The patience is rewarded. And the scene changes. For the one, patience becomes absolute peace. He prays to depart in peace, ready to die, for his eyes have seen the fulfillment of all his prayers. For the other, patience becomes excitement, and here running occurs, but the running is not the running of the Japanese priests. This is not desperation. This is genuine, “in God” enthusiasm. She has to tell everybody that she has seen the answer to her prayers, she wants everybody to know, to experience her unbounded joy.
By now you know I am talking about Simeon and Anna. You can read of them in Luke 2.25-38. But what I am really talking about is the sadness of the world around us at this time of year compared to what ought to be the joy of us who are in Christ. What I am really talking about is the running about that the world does looking for fulfillment compared to the peace and patience we ought to exhibit. What I am talking about is the desperation that the world knows without God compared to the desperation we ought to have for God and for the people of this world. What I am talking about is the mechanical blessings they receive, at best, from their “priests” who run around spouting their religious (un)truths and the truth they ought to receive from us who ought to run around telling them about the Messiah/Christ Who has come. What I am talking about is the wishing they do and the praying we ought to do—praying with absolute assurance and abandon.
Got the picture?

– Pastor Jim