Simeon – Luke 2:22-29 Waiting a Lifetime
Our church’s advent series is called, “God at First Sight.”
Fanscinating concept, actually seeing God for the first time…being the first people to recognize God in the flesh.
Simeon and Anna waited a lifetime to see a miracle.
There had been generations of silence from God while his people lived in the midst of the consequences of their sin. But it’s never to late.
For Simeon, God promised he would not die until he saw “the Lord’s Christ.”
I don’t know if he kept that revelation a secret deep in his heart, or if he had told others and received the ridicule of unbelief. But it was something for which he lived for, day after day, baby after baby.
I wonder if he volunteered regularly to do the consecration of babies, the first born male, anxious to see if today was the day, holding, wondering, and then gently giving it back, a fatherly smile covering his disappointment. Or maybe his duty for consecration was by lottery, and today was his chosen day.
Anyway you look at it, he had done his share of consecrations with no Messiah. And here comes another day, another line of babies, faces he knew and some, like Mary and Joseph he had never seen. Maybe they were there visiting or registering for the census, who knew? The city was bloated with visitors and I’m sure the temple was also.
But Simeon was a man “moved by the Holy Spirit.” It’s mentioned three times: the Holy Spirit “was on him,” the promise was “revealed to him by the Holy Spirit,” and “moved by the Spirit” he went into the temple courts that day.
And when he saw this baby, this one baby, and everything was different!
He took him into his arms, holding God, incarnate. He had waited his whole life for this moment. And just like Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished,” Simeon knew his life was complete.
I can only imagine his feelings as he held, God in the flesh.
