Simeon Waits

An old man wakes up in Jerusalem. He prays, as he does every morning. And today, deep inside, he feels a gentle push. Go to the temple. Go now.

Jerusalem in the days of King Herod was a busy city. Pilgrims came and went. Merchants sold goods in the streets. Roman soldiers kept watch. And at the heart of it all stood the temple, where thousands came to pray. Among all those people was one man Luke wants us to meet. Luke does not tell us his job, or his family, or exactly how old he was. But he tells us what mattered most about him. His name was Simeon. And he was waiting.

Luke describes Simeon with care. He was just and devout. Just means he lived rightly with other people. Devout means he took God seriously, with a reverent heart. And he was waiting for the consolation of Israel. Consolation means comfort. For hundreds of years, God's people had been ruled by others: Babylon, Persia, Greece, and now Rome. The prophets had promised that one day God himself would come to comfort his people and set things right. Many had stopped hoping. Simeon had not.

And Luke adds something remarkable. The Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to Simeon, by the Holy Spirit, that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ, the Lord's Messiah. Imagine carrying a promise like that. Every year that passed, every grey hair, every ache in his bones, would remind him: not yet. Christians have usually pictured Simeon as an old man, and his words later in the story suggest he was ready to die. Yet he kept watching, kept praying, kept believing that God would do what he said.

Then came the day. Luke says Simeon came by the Spirit into the temple. He did not stumble in by accident. God led him there, at exactly the right moment. And at that same moment, through another gate, came a young couple with a baby, about forty days old, and a cage with two small birds. Mary and Joseph were bringing Jesus to do for him what the law required. Out of all the families in the temple courts that day, Simeon's eyes rested on this one. The waiting was over.

Luke's phrase, the consolation of Israel, comes from the prophet Isaiah. Around chapter forty, the book of Isaiah speaks to God's people who had been crushed and carried into exile. It opens with the words, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. People like Simeon carried those ancient words in their hearts, waiting for the day God's comfort would arrive.

You'll find Simeon's long wait in Luke chapter two, verses twenty-five to twenty-seven. A faithful man, a promise from God, and the Spirit's nudge on the right day. In the next part of the story, Simeon will take the baby in his arms. So here is a question to carry with you. When God's promises seem slow, what helps you keep hoping and keep watching?