A family was sitting with their children in a restaurant.

The baby was in a high chair, and, as the mother looked around, she noticed that everyone was quietly sitting and talking.

Suddenly, the baby squealed with joy, and made a baby happy noise. He banged his hands on the high-chair tray, and giggled and smiled.

The mother looked and saw that the source of the baby’s glee was a man whose baggy trousers had their zip at half-mast. The man’s toes poked out of holes in the end of his shoes. His shirt was dirty, his hair uncombed and unwashed.

She was too far away from him to smell, but was convinced that he would. He was talking and waving at the baby, smiling and enjoying the baby’s response.

‘What should we do?’, the mother asked her husband, concerned about this man who was communicating with her baby. He wasn’t the sort of person that they wanted their precious child to be associated with.

Other people in the restaurant began to notice the man and the baby. Especially once the food had arrived, and the man began calling out - “Boo! Hey, look, everyone this baby knows how to play peek- a-boo.”

Everybody felt embarrassed. Other diners wondered what the family would do. The man was obviously drunk. The family ate their meal in silence, feeling uncomfortable, but not wanting to leave the food for which they were paying.

Eventually, they finished and headed for the door. The husband went to pay the bill, while the rest of the family went to the car park to get settled for their journey home.

But the old man’s seat was by the door, so they had to pass by before they could reach the street.

“Let us just get out of here,” the mother silently prayed, “without him saying anything or drawing attention to us.” As she drew closer to the man, she turned her back trying to sidestep him. But the baby had other ideas. Before his mother could stop him, he had reached out to the old man, who had taken him in his arms.

In an act of total trust, the baby laid tiny head upon the man’s ragged shoulder. The man closed his eyes, there were tears hovering beneath his eyelashes. His old, dirty, creaking hands patted the baby on the back.

As he rocked and cradled the baby in his arms he opened his eyes and looked at the mother. Then he said in a firm voice, “You take care of this baby.”

Then he pried the baby away from his chest and handed him back to his mother. There seemed to be a look of pain in his eyes. “God bless you,” he said. “You’ve given me a precious gift.”

Later, when the mother reflected on that meal, she came to realise that what that man had shown to her child was the love of God. The man had seen a precious baby; all she had been able to perceive was an old, smelly, worthless tramp.

Simeon and Anna recognised that the baby brought to the Temple that day for his dedication to God was more than seemed at first sight. They recognised in that child that he was God’s salvation, that through him God would reveal again his love and light to the world.
Perhaps Mary and Joseph were a little perturbed when this elderly man in the Temple started talking to them. We’re told that they were amazed at what he said to them. And I wonder what they thought about the elderly woman who saw them and then began telling everyone else about what she had seen.

Simeon’s words “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” remind us that God’s light was a light for all people, that God’s love and blessing was for all.

In baptising Flynn today, we too are echoing Simeon’s thoughts and words. We are acknowledging Christ as the one who brings salvation through forgiveness.

In the water of baptism, we recognise that because of that baby in the Temple and what he became, when we get things wrong God can wash all the bad away and make us clean again from the effects of our wrongdoing.

At the end of the service when we give Flynn a candle as reminder of God’s light, we are reminding ourselves of what Simeon perceived that day in the Temple, that Christ is our light. Christ is the light, not just for a particular nation, not just for a particular type of person, but for all - baby, adult, respectable person, tramp, outcast.

Christ’s light and love extend to all, and we are asked to take that light and love out into the world to share it with others, with all types of people.

As Flynn grows, my prayer for him is that he will come to recognise God’s light in the world around him, and that he will be drawn to that light, and want to share it with others too.