Session 4 - Wise Men, Simeon, and Anna Recognizing the Promise Fulfilled

About the Facilitator: The most important element needed for the success of this class is a facilitator who is at ease with open-minded, sometimes rambling discussion. The job might rotate among several people, or one person could lead all four discussions.

Preparation: The job is the same for each meeting. Find below the list of questions and quotations that amplify the theme of the week. The facilitator’s first work is to prepare the materials: simply print off the list, cut the paper into slips so that there is one question or quotation on each slip, and put the slips into a bowl. Participants will draw a slip randomly. The facilitator moderates by inviting someone to read a slip then opening discussion, encouraging others to contribute, suggesting alternate points of view, inviting participants to ground discussion in examples and personal stories, and deciding when it’s time to move to a new topic.

Structure of the Class: The structure for each meeting is the same: after a few minutes for greetings, the facilitator will open with prayer (suggested prayers are included), lead the group in reflecting on the week’s readings from The Upper Room magazine, read the week’s scripture passage, facilitate the discussion, and close with prayer (guidelines included). If there are carryover ideas from the previous week, the facilitator can attend to those before starting the current week’s discussion.

Other Materials:

• Provide an appropriate and attractive focal point if your room allows. This can be as simple as a purple cloth and a candle, perhaps with a manger to remind participants of the Mystery at the heart of the season. You can invite different participants to set this up each week.
• To encourage fellowship and foster a livelier conversation, you might provide light refreshments and music at the beginning of each meeting. After a few minutes, invite participants to bring their food to their seats and begin the session.
• Ask participants to bring their Bibles and provide a few in the room.
• Provide index cards and pens/pencils each session.
• You will need copies of The Upper Room daily devotional guide each week.

WEEK 4: December 17-23

Prayer: “Lord of Christmas, as we meet this evening, bless us with your merry heart and with deep peace. Thank you for these people, this church, and your presence here and everywhere. Amen.

Leader says (directions in parentheses): “Learning to see God in our lives is often a matter of remembering to look for God’s presence in ordinary people and situations. When we look for God, that can change the way we approach life every day. (Direct participants to group themselves in threes or fours for the review of the week’s meditations The Upper Room and give them to look back over this week’s meditations.) Direct them to discuss these questions: Where in these situations do you see people looking at daily situations differently because they become aware of God? How could you follow the example of one of these writers? What helps you to pay attention to God day by day?”

Leader says: The scripture passages we read during the Christmas season give us several stories of people traveling – Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men. We often use the image of traveling to talk about getting to know God. We hear people talk about being on a “spiritual journey” – which really means trying to learn how to follow Christ more faithfully. Get into groups of three or four and take a couple of minutes to look back over the meditations in The Upper Room for this week. Where do you see people changing — going to a new place — in these stories? Which writer from this week’s meditations would you most like to talk to? Why?

Read scripture aloud: Matthew 2:1-12; Luke 2:25-38

Leader says: The coming of the wise men is celebrated in the church as Epiphany. The word epiphany comes from the verb meaning “to show forth, to manifest.” The idea is that Jesus’ identity was revealed and recognized even by those outside the Jewish faith. This week we consider the annunciatory events that led the wise men, Simeon, and Anna to recognize Jesus for who he was.

Questions and Quotes:

• In The Upper Room's meditation for December 20th, Sharon Petropulous writes about walking the road to Bethlehem. What do you suppose Mary was thinking and feeling as she and Joseph approached Bethlehem? What do you suppose Joseph was thinking and feeling? What can each of them teach us?
• Read the meditation for December 22 from The Upper Room. Brenda Blakely emphasizes the faith responses of belief, obedience, and service. How are Simeon, Anna, and the wise men all fulfilling this ideal? How is God inviting you to deeper belief, obedience, and service this advent season?
• Simeon and Anna share a lively, long-term yearning for the Messiah’s coming. They watch for him, know with a special knowledge when he is near, and, when they finally see Jesus, know him for who he is. Talk about spiritual intuition and how you know when God is moving you, calling you, telling you something.
• Henri Nouwen says that waiting is an active thing. He says those who wait actively know that “what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing.” They have “the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun . . .. A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, who believes that this moment is the moment.” (From “A Spirituality of Waiting” in the Weavings Reader, Upper Room Books, 1993, page 67.)
  
  Such waiting is patient and open-ended.
  
  Talk about this. Does it help you wait? Does it help you have faith that “nothing is impossible with God?”
• Reread Simeon’s prayer. It’s a beautiful statement of utter joy and fulfillment. Think about how God’s promise was coming true during the long, long wait. What would such fulfillment be in our time? How can we wait well and faithfully?
• The wise men weren’t Jews, yet when they saw the star in the East, they recognized it as a sign of the Messiah’s birth. Astrology wasn’t a Jewish practice, yet it led the wise men to Jesus. Any comments?
• Regarding cross-cultural religious dialogue, theologian Shirley Guthrie suggests that when we as Christians recognize the living Christ in a situation when others might not understand it as such, we can name the situation, the shift, the radiance, whatever it is, and say something like, “I call that the presence of Christ. What do you call it?” Comments?
• The wise men’s response to the star was a cross-cultural acknowledgement of divine breakthrough in human life. At considerable risk and expense, they traveled to witness this Mystery. Is this faith, professional curiosity, wanderlust, or what? Where else do we see this sort of boldness in the Bible?
• At some point we have to wonder about Herod’s slaughter of the baby boys. To him, this was probably just a shrewd and expedient act, not an atrocity. But we have to wonder — where is God in that? Where is God in any of the appallingly violent situations the world suffers, especially those involving the suffering and abuse of children.
• Emmanuel means “God with us.” Does that also mean “God with Them?” . . . Everybody just said yes, didn’t they? But there are always some “thems” we really can’t imagine God loving. Imagine it anyway. Talk about the effort.
• Simeon is a bit spooky. Listen again to what he tells Mary she must expect: “. . . and a sword shall pierce your own soul too.” What does that mean to you?
• Several times in the Christmas narratives, Mary listens and ponders on the things that happen and what people say. Can you imagine her thoughts and feelings?

Closing: Once again, invite participants to write on an index card something of significance from this evening to keep in mind and prayer during the week of Christmas.

Prayer: “Lord, we ask that you bless us — as you did Simeon, Anna, and the wise men — with the Epiphany vision to know you when we see you and to respond in praise and proclamation. In the name of the living Christ, born in Bethlehem and in our hearts. Amen.”