it started off so badly and ended in such a strange way....... Oh, I'm one of the priests, by the way.. yes, that's right, a Levite....my name isn't important... but you can call me Amos if you like... Well, that day I was on duty and I was not very pleased to find that I had to deal with the purification sacrifices. It's not that I mind doing that job but I was working with Joel - and we are not the best of friends! You know how it is - the families come with their new babies - the rich ones with the year old lambs for the sacrifice and the poor ones with their two pigeons. Now I don't mind meeting the poor folk but when Joel is around I NEVER get the chance to see the families with the lambs. It's just pigeons, pigeons and more pigeons for me - and all those feathers make me sneeze! I hardly noticed this family at first - except that it was just a mother and father on their own with no family there. Well, I made the sacrifices for them - I had done so many that day that I wasn't paying much attention by that time - and then the strangest things began to happen. That old man , Simeon - you remember, a bit of a nuisance and in and out of the Temple, the one who had been saying for years that God had told him he wouldn't die until he had seen the Messiah, the Son of God (folk stopped believing THAT years ago!) - well, he was suddenly there beside them and he took that Baby right out of his mother's arms and started praying in such a loud voice (it's so embarrassing when people go on like that!) Joel started tut-tutting and giving me black looks as though it was MY fault! But I soon stopped being angry at Joel - and embarrassed at the same time - when I heard what Simeon was saying! There he was thanking God for letting him see this Child and going on to say things like this Child would be a light for the Gentiles and a glory for Israel. The Child's parents were as taken aback as I was but Simeon went right on blessing the Child - but I sure I saw tears in that old man's eyes when he turned to the mother and told her, so gently, that there was sorrow ahead for her because of her Son...... "A sword will pierce your own soul"..... I think those were the words he used. And, as if that wasn't enough, up comes Anna - that's right, the one who never leaves the temple, not even at night. Oh, don't get me wrong, she's a good woman - never stops praying and fasting and prophesying - it's just, she's there so much she gets treated like part of the furniture.... Well, up comes old Anna and she starts thanking God too and talking about the "redemption of Jerusalem"..... in fact, after that, she never did stop talking about that Child to anyone who would listen! You know, all the time that was going on, it was as though nothing else in the Temple mattered - it all sort of faded into the background - those four people and that Baby were the only things I could see. But God wouldn't let the Messiah be born to a poor family, would He? Everyone will know when He comes, won't they? I asked Joel afterwards what he thought but he said it was all nonsense and he hadn't seen or anything unusual - other than old Simeon creating a bit of a scene. He said I should learn to control people better, in fact. But I don't know..........it's bothered me ever since........... did I miss seeing the Messiah? Sometimes I think that I am the only person who remembers that day in the temple - apart from the Child's mother, that is.......
© copyright: Elizabeth Tolson 1999.
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