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December 24, 2008
Dismiss Your Servants in Peace
Sixty-six years ago today, my parents were married. Christmas
Eve certainly wasn’t an ordinary wedding anniversary, but it did make it easy to
remember during their years together. It was a date of necessity, only because a
justice of the peace was available to marry a score of war-time couples in
Quantico, Virginia, shortly before the newly trained Marine officers were
shipped out to the South Pacific to fight in WWII.
Now that they are both gone, when I look at their young faces in their wedding
portrait, I imagine a hint of the impulsive decision that led to that wedding
just a week before my father left for 30 months. They had known each other for
over a year, had talked pretty seriously about a future together, but with my
mother starting a teaching job, and the war potentially impacting all young
men’s lives very directly, they had not set a date.
My father had to put his college education on hold to enlist, knowing that would
give him some options he wouldn’t have if drafted, so they went their separate
ways as he went to Virginia for his Marine officer training, and Mom started her
high school teaching career in a rural town in Eastern Washington. One day in
early December, he called her and said, “If we’re going to get married, it’ll
need to be before the end of the year. I’m shipping out the first week in
January.” Mom went to her high school principal, asked for a leave of absence
which was granted, told her astonished parents, bought a dress, and headed east
on the train with a friend who had received a similar call from her boyfriend.
This was a completely uncharacteristic thing for my ordinarily cautious mother
to do.
They were married in a brief civil ceremony with another couple as the
witnesses. They stayed in Virginia only a couple days and took the train back to
San Diego, and my father left. Just like that. Mom returned to her teaching
position and the first three years of their married life was all in letter
correspondence, with gaps of up to a month during certain island battles when no
mail could be delivered or posted.
As my mother's things are being moved following her death, their letters are now
in a box in my living room, stacked neatly and tied together. I have not yet
been ready to open them but will soon. What I will find there will be words
written by two young people who could not have foretold the struggles that lay
ahead for them after the war but depended on faith and trust to persevere
despite the unknowns. The War itself seemed struggle enough for the millions of
couples who endured the separation, the losses and grieving, as well as the
injuries–both physical and psychological. It did not seem possible that things
could go sour after they reunited following so many months of hardship to start
their “real” lives. The expectations of happiness and bliss must have been
overwhelming, and naturally, reality did not always deliver.
And so were the expectations in the barn on the first Christmas Eve. It must
have been frightening for the parents of this special Baby, knowing in their
minds but not completely understanding in their hearts what responsibility lay
in their arms. They had to find faith and trust, not just in God who had
determined what their future held, but in each other, to support one another
when things became very difficult. It didn’t take long for that to happen: there
was to be no room for them to stay in Bethlehem, she was a teenage girl enduring
her first labor and delivery in a stable with no assistance from anyone, and
later they became aware of a threat to the survival of their son requiring they
leave the country.
When Mary and Joseph go to the temple for the circumcision and consecration of
their son the following week, they allow a "righteous and devout man", Simeon,
to hold their baby as, moved by the Holy Spirit, he tells them the role this
child is to play in the world. He prays over Jesus, saying to the Lord, "As you
have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your
salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for
revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."
It must have been like looking into a crystal ball to hear Simeon speak, as
we’re told “the child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him.”
But Simeon didn’t whitewash what was to come. It would have been easy to do
so–just mention salvation, the light and the glory that will come to the people
due to this little baby, but leave out the part about how His existence would
cause division in Israel as well as personal rejection and anguish that He would
experience. Not only that, but anguish will be His mother’s to bear as well. I’m
sure that statement must have ended the sense of “marvel” they were feeling, and
replaced it instead with great sorrow and trepidation.
Christmas is a time of joy, celebration of new beginnings and new life when God
became man, humble, vulnerable and tender. But it also gives us a foretaste for
the profound sacrifice made in giving up this earthly life, not always so
gently. A baby in a manger is a lovely story to "treasure up" in our hearts but
once He became a bleeding Redeemer on a cross, it pierces those same living
beating hearts, just as Simeon foretold.
My parents, such young idealistic adults 66 years ago, are His servants
dismissed from this life in peace, as was Simeon, having beheld and known their
Savior. As I look at their serene faces in their wedding photo, I know those
same eyes now behold the light, the salvation and the glory~~the ultimate
Christmas~~today in heaven.