There is something about Christmas when you are a child. Those weeks and days and hours leading up to Christmas morning just seem to go on forever. You just cannot wait to open the presents you see under the tree, but you know you have to wait. I remember a couple Christmases where the night before seemed to go on forever. We stayed up for the 11pm church service, then we came home and went to bed. And then I sat in bed and waited and waited and waited until morning. It seemed to take forever for it to come. My parents learned that those last days before Christmas were so hard for me and my sister so they came up with a great solution for our family. They figured they’d wear us out completely so we’d have to sleep well on Christmas Eve. We would go snow-skiing on Christmas Eve. We would drive up to the mountain and spend the day skiing. This would be great because we would also have the opportunity for a white Christmas this way, something I never really grew up with. We would then come home, have dinner, change and go to church. By the time we got home from church we would be exhausted and would sleep right through the night, but then we’d still wake up early on Christmas morning to open presents.
Sometimes the secret to making waiting bearable is keeping busy. And then, sometimes, when we spend all our energy and focus waiting for something to happen, it becomes a bit of a let-down when it does finally happen. We let ourselves get so excited and wonder what is in each box for us, and then when it’s all over it doesn’t even come close to living up to what we were expecting. The presents are opened and the boxes are empty and we are bored because we are all done opening gifts and don’t know what to do with ourselves next.
Simeon and Anna joined all of Israel in waiting for the coming Messiah. And much of Israel was under whelmed when Jesus did come, but not Simeon or Anna. For they had been faithful to God and knew God well, and they recognized Jesus for what he was: the Savior and Messiah who would save all of God’s people.
Today’s scripture tells of two people who have spent their lives waiting: Simeon and Anna. They were both faithful in their lives. Simeon is described as righteous and devout, Anna is described as a prophet. Both of them were elderly. Anna had been widowed for 84 years and married for seven before that. That puts her over 100 years old. They both had experienced full lives with joys and sorrows. And they both followed where the Holy Spirit led them.
Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he saw the Messiah. This is quite something. To be told that you would meet the Messiah sometime in your life, but not to know what to expect would be an odd thing. I wonder what Simeon’s expectations were. I wonder what happened each year as it passed and he did not meet the Messiah. And then one day, probably while he was praying, the Spirit came to him and told him to go to the temple. Did he know he was looking for a child? Did he first look among the rich and wealthy? Or did he zero right in on Jesus? We don’t exactly get the story from his perspective. Instead we are told that he took Jesus in his arms and praised God and prayed. He told God that his life was now complete because he has seen Jesus, the Messiah. He did not get to experience anything that God did through Jesus. He did not even have to wait to see Jesus grow up and begin to speak with wisdom. He had seen Jesus and he was complete. Now this is faith, and it is so different than what Jesus has to deal with when he gets older. Simeon doesn’t question how Jesus is going to be the savior. Simeon doesn’t try to figure everything out. Instead he holds this baby with so much potential and he thanks God for the opportunity to see him.
What are the things that we are waiting for? You have to be a little careful with waiting, because it leads to the possibility that you are too busy waiting to actually experience life. When you spend all your time waiting for the future you end up missing out on the present.
I actually wonder if this is a problem that we sometimes have as Christians. Perhaps we are a bit too much like children waiting for Christmas morning and because of this we let the wonder of what God is doing right now pass us right by. Sometimes we are spending too much time waiting for Christ to come again and therefore are not doing anything that might help our neighbors. When we have it in our heads that Christ is going to return and destroy this world and then create a new heaven and new earth (which Christ does promise to do), we perhaps don’t do everything that we can to take care of this earth around us. When we decide that poverty and pain are going to end when Jesus comes, so we don’t need to do anything today to help them, we are letting the waiting have a bit too much control in our lives. It is very clear throughout scripture that Christ is going to come again. But it is also very clear that we are given a responsibility as his church, as his body, to care for the world around us. We are given stewardship over the land and the animals. We are given the responsibility to care for the people around us who need care, particularly those who are not able to care for themselves… the least of these. This means Christian and non-Christian alike. That’s right, when Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, he is including our non-Christian neighbors as well as our Christian ones. So as we wait, what are we doing as God’s people to make this world a better place? How are we changing this world more into what God wants it to be?
So it is dangerous just to sit and wait and forget about the present. But we are still called to wait on the Lord. We are still called to live lives of patience that allow us to see God working. And so, again, I ask, what is it that you are waiting for? Is there something that you are waiting for God to do? Is there something that you are anxious to see, to participate in? Simeon was waiting for the Messiah to come? It’s a pretty big deal that he waited for. And he was one of many who were waiting for that… but he got to see it in a special way because he allowed the Holy Spirit to guide him. We are waiting for the Messiah to return. But we have no promise that he will do so in our lifetime. So we wait for other things, things that are more personal; things that affect us individually. And we trust that God can make these things happen, and we therefore know that these things are worth waiting for. With God’s promises, we aren’t going to be disappointed like we are after Christmas. God’s promises are well worth the wait, they are exciting and when they come about they end up being much greater than what was expected. Look at Jesus. Israel was waiting for a Messiah. They were waiting for someone to come in and save their nation from their enemies and bring a bit of peace to their land. What they were waiting for had nothing to do with their souls, it had nothing to do with eternal life. They just thought they were waiting for a king who would deliver them from Rome. But God did them one better. God sent Jesus who did save his people, but much more than they even thought they needed to be saved. Jesus came to save their souls, Jesus came to rescue them from sin. Jesus came to bring eternal salvation, to put his people back in right relationship with God. And Jesus didn’t just come for the people of Israel, he came for all people who are willing to accept him as their Lord. Wow! Talk about exceeding expectations. But for Simeon it wasn’t important to know all this. All he needed to know is that God was working in the world in a special way through Jesus. He had seen Jesus, the Word made flesh, God with us, and this was enough for him. He knew that God would keep his promise to work through Jesus and he was ready to go home to be with God. But first, he blessed the family; Mary, Joseph and the baby. But his blessing didn’t sound so very great. Let’s hear it: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” What a blessing. Maybe I should end our services by wishing that a sword pierce your soul. “May the Lord bless you and keep you, may a sword pierce your soul.” Then again, maybe not. But then, this is what it means to wait on God’s promises. Our souls will be pierced when we see the pain in the world around us. Our souls will be pierced when God answers our prayers in ways that we don’t necessarily expect. And our souls are pierced when we realize the sacrifice that Jesus made for each of us on the cross.
Has your soul been pierced with the sword? Have you experienced the joy that comes with knowing, trusting and following Jesus? Have you experienced the pain that comes with knowing that you are not all that God would like you to be?
Today we are beginning a new year. It is 2006. There is something somewhat arbitrary about the way we keep time. This is especially true when we realize that they didn’t even get the year of Jesus’ birth right and therefore Jesus was born four to seven years before Christ. It’s even weirder as we had a leap second last night, adding one second to time to get everything lined up properly. I hear this is because the world is slowing down about a second every seven or eight years.
But no matter how arbitrary it is, the New Year is a time where we often look back on what has gone before in our lives and we look forward to what is to come. The year before has ended and now we are starting again. This celebration of the New Year is much like what Jesus promises us. He promises that when we turn to him the old man dies and the new man is born. We can cast away those parts of our lives where we are not following God properly. We can confess our sins to God and put them behind us. God allows us to start afresh. God promises that he will be with us. God tells us that we don’t need to wait for him to come again because he is already here with us, in our lives, in our hearts. Are you ready to put God first this year? You’ve started on the right track by coming to church on the first day of the new year, you are beginning your new year with Christ. Are you going to stay faithful to him throughout the year? Are you going to continue to put him first?
I’m not talking about having a New Year’s Resolution to be a better Christian. What I am talking about is using this New Year as an opportunity to acknowledge that God has made a real difference in your life. And you can spend 2006 as a new creation in Christ. This means you can live a life of service and a life of hope. This means you can follow where God leads you. This means you can work to be a light in the world, shining Jesus to all you come in contact with. This means that being a Christian isn’t just you coming to church, but rather seriously putting Christ first in all you do. Anna, the prophetess seemed to hang out at the Temple in Jerusalem pretty regularly. Simeon was a different story. He went where the Holy Spirit guided him. Let us be like Simeon this coming year.
Let us listen and hear where it is that the Holy Spirit has for us to go, and then we will find ourselves in situations where God can use us to do great things. Then God will be able to speak through us, then God will be able to work through us. We will be God’s hands and feet and the world we live in will never be the same. It is exciting when you let God work through you and you are able to see him do things through you that you didn’t know you were able to do. The truth is that we probably don’t see that happen enough. This isn’t because God doesn’t want to work through us, it is most likely because we aren’t letting him. So let’s make this a year where we do let him work in our lives and make a difference in this world through us. Let’s make this a year where we listen and hear the Holy Spirit in our lives. And Let this be a year where we follow where that Holy Spirit sends us. Amen.
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