Simeon, having left the temple, put his affairs in order, ate a hearty if bittersweet supper, and went to bed. He was surprised, waking early the next morning, to find the feather of a dove clinging to his pillow.

At first, he thought that it must have come home on his clothes, which led to the other reason for his surprise: Simeon had not expected to wake up that morning at all. He had, after all, completed all that was required of him, had blessed the child and its parents, had prophesied weal and woe, sung his swansong. It was almost embarrassing to awaken to the sunlight striping his bed, the sounds of the marketplace, louder and more cacophonous than ever, and the soft, white dove’s feather.

The feather. Now, Simeon began to remember.

Simeon, a man full of the Spirit of God, had been told by that same Spirit that he would live to see the face of God. What more could a man want? Yet who could see God and live?

But when he held the child, Simeon also saw something else. He saw, so clearly that he almost dropped the child, swords flashing. He heard the cries of infants and the screams of their mothers. He shook his head; it was as though he could hear them still. When he held the child, he saw a cloud draped over the holy city like a mourning cloth. Even when he looked into the eyes of the young mother before him, still he saw such scenes reflected in the infinite wells of her pupils.

They seemed so vulnerable, this young and fragile family, to carry the salvation of the world in their weary arms.

As he remembered, Simeon’s hands were moving absent-mindedly, and now he noticed how they were playing with the sunbeam, turning this way and that, cupping and reflecting its light, as yesterday he had wanted to inhale the essence of the child, keep the lightness of his little body as a talisman, his aroma as armour against the horrors of the world.

But Simeon was filled with the Spirit, and it whispered within his soul, this is not a symbol, Simeon, but a sign. This is God fleshed out, love embodied, for there is none greater.

Understanding at last, Simeon rose like one still sleeping, walking through a dream, unstoppable. Opening the door, he stepped out onto the point of a soldier’s sword. Falling into the void of fear and hope, the wide, wild eyes of the young mother cradling her child beside him, he murmured, Run.

Crumpled into the space her flight left behind him, he saw more feathers falling, wondered briefly, what now? before he saw across the way Anna, opening the cages of the turtle doves, loosening the leashes of the sheep and the cattle, running them out under the feet and over the heads of Herod’s army.

As though she were right beside him, he heard her speak in the voice of his mother, a whisper within his brain and his marrow, who could see God and not live like it?

Featured image: Simeon the God-Receiver (Old Believers, 19th c, priv.coll), public domain, via wikimedia commons