Lessons from Simeon (Luke 2.22-40)

On the morning of 18^th November 1991 I watched Breakfast Time TV’s live coverage of the release of Terry Waite from captivity. He had been held hostage by Islamists for 1763 days. As he got out of the car in Damascus a British man greeted him and ironically said something like Mr Waite I have waited here 4 hours to see you.  Terry had waited 4 years and 10 months.

Simeon had waited even longer to see the Messiah. Not 4 hours, not 4 years and 10 months, but decades.

This is the first point I want to draw from this passage: for Simeon, the waiting was over.

• We spend much of our lives waiting.
• As a child for Christmas.
• As a teenager for someone to dance with.

I’m reminded of the Black Country character Aynuk, Enoch to those with Queen’s English, or is that King’s English? To those of us from the West Midlands it is Aynuk. Aynuk was waiting for his girlfriend at the station. So was a somewhat posh gent, smartly dressed, suave and sophisticated. When the gent’s girlfriend finally arrived she apologised for being late. The gent replied, ‘don’t worry darling, when I look at you time stands still.’ Aynuk takes this on board and when his date arrives and apologises for being late he responds, ‘Doh worry luv yower ferce could stop a clock.’

Waiting is part of life.

As an adult we wait for achievement.

We may wait for the appointment, we wait for the results, we wait for our final hours.

Simeon was able to approach his final days knowing that the waiting for the Messiah was over.

Knowing Jesus may not quantifiably solve all our longing and problems, but something stirs within our soul when we recognise Jesus in our lives and world.

• We may still worry about our children,
• we may still be concerned about injustice across our world,
• we may still fear what the future may hold, but to harbour Jesus in our hearts as Simeon held the Christ Child in his arms is to bring new perspectives on our lives, our community, our world.

This brings me to my second point. Simeon notes that the Christ will responsible for falling and rising. In our world today we are used to rise and fall. We speak of empires rising and falling. We speak of celebrities rising and falling. Yet J is responsible for falling and rising. According to his teaching, seed falls to the ground and rises. Even in the fall of death he rises on the third day. Here is hope.

Life is not one of a long fall, a long decline, but of rising, one of accumulating knowledge, wisdom, and insight. Every new day brings the opportunity to learn something new. Every new encounter brings the opportunity to develop through interaction.

I have recently read that novels enable us to live the lives of others. That is so true. Through reading a novel I can be transported to another place, another time. By doing so I learn so much about others, about the lives they led or led, about the times and places in which they occupied. A novel can indeed enable us to live the lives of others. What I have discovered is that the scriptures enable us to live our lives. We are not truly fulfilled until we spend our time with scripture, study it but more importantly embrace it. There is a reason why the books of the Bible have stood the test of millennia.

It seems no coincidence to me that those I have sat with as they approached death were the ones that had spent time with the scriptures. Maurice , the old Jewish man from Salford, whose parents fled the pogroms of Easter Europe as infants at the turn of the twentieth century who greeted the news of his terminal illness with as much grace as anyone I have ever known. Enoch , the old miner who sat behind me when I was a youngster in church with a Bible under his pew runner, and who, when as a teenager I visited him during his last days always seemed to be putting down his well-worn Bible as I walked in. These two people and a fair number of others I have known over the course of my ministry, taught me much about the importance of not just reading but embracing scripture and in doing so we discover that life is not one long fall, but one long rise.

Thirdly and finally, this appearance, this coming to us is not without cost. There will be opposition. There will be opposition because the innermost secrets of others will be revealed when they encounter the fullness of truth, and grace, and light. When evil encounters goodness it is a painful experience, goodness is opposed and evil seeks to snuff it out.

• A prophet is despised.
• The one who points out error is not welcome.
• The person that goes against the tide is made to feel lonely.

Simeon reminds us of this and even to Mary he informs her that a sword will pierce her own soul too.

Imagine, the woman that carried the child in her womb for nine months, who felt the first stir of movement within her, who felt torn at birth will experience a sword piercing her soul.

There is a fascinating tradition within Orthodox Christianity dating back to earliest times. Mary’s mother Anna became pregnant late in life. As a consequence her father dedicated Mary to the Temple as Temple Virgin. This meant that so long as Mary remain unbetrothed and a virgin she would receive instruction in the Law, the Torah. She also had to commit to some form of work in the construction of the Temple. At the time Mary was a child the Temple Virgins were working on the curtain that hung in the Holy of Holies. Matthew’s account of the Gospel tells us that curtain was torn in two, top to bottom, at the death of Jesus. We have often thought of this as a symbol of the barrier between humanity and God being torn down. For some Orthodox Christians it is that the soul of Mary was torn, pierced, Simeon said.

As we have already noted, harbouring Jesus in our hearts does not necessarily give us identifiable solace, it may cause us grief. Just as Jesus wept over Jerusalem so may we lament over the state of our world. Someone once said to me they would prefer a sensitive companion who feels the pain of the world and breaks down now and again than a cold hearted individual unmoved by the pain of others.

1. Ministry, discipleship calls us to recognise Jesus in the waiting
2. To know that for every fall there will be a rise
3. And that though the journey of faith is not without pain we are never alone, for God is with us in Christ, Emmanuel, the Word made flesh.