Luke 2:25-38
I’m sitting in the bleachers. They don’t have backs, and I do, so I’m sitting on the top bleacher with my back against the wall. I also have a backside and I left my little bleacher cushion at home so I’m sitting on my blue and white plaid flannel sherpa lined jacket that I got for $3.99 on super-secret clearance at the sporting goods store. I don’t need the jacket on my body because I’m in a natatorium which is a super cool word that must come from a Latin word linked to swimming because the Spanish word for “to swim” is nadar and since I’m not in a nadaratorium, I just assume Latin because I don’t want to google it. Ok I googled it. It’s Latin – natare. A building where people swim. And this one has lots of people because I am at one of our kid’s swim meets. And if you’ve never been to a swim meet, they are like much of life where you’re uncomfortable and you’re waiting most of the time and cheering some of the time and it’s kind of stuffy and noisy and splashy and everyone is in a Speedo. But mostly, you’re waiting.
God doesn’t seem to mind making us wait. He made Isreal wait 400 years from the last prophetic words of Malachi to the heralding cry of the camel fur wearing, locust and honey eating John the Baptist. He made Elizabeth, John’s mother, wait before she became a momma. And in Luke 2 we meet two wonderful waiters, Simeon and Anna.
Luke doesn’t tell us much about Simeon. He lived in Jerusalem. He was righteous and devout. (What a beautiful thing to say about a human! Oh, that when I am an old man people say that about me, that I am righteous and devout. That’s a good goal in life.) Simeon was looking for the consolation of Israel. He wasn’t just waiting. He was waiting and looking for the consolation of Israel. The word is paraklēsis, and it shares the same root as paráklētos, the name Jesus gives the Holy Spirit – the Comforter, Counsellor, Advocate, Helper. Simeon was waiting for God to comfort and help His people and that very Consoler was indwelling him. Making a home in Simeon. That Consoler had revealed to Simeon that he would not see death until he saw the Messiah, the promised redeemer, the One, the Hope, the Consolation. Luke says that he “came in the Spirit into the Temple”. Have you ever seen a person “in the Spirit”? Not in a weird screamy awkward way, but someone who is so full of consolation and comfort that it flows out of them like steam rising from a hot cup of coco? Simeon was like that. He brought comfort with him. Then he held Jesus and said that the Lord could take him home because he has looked Salvation in the face and held the Light of the Gentiles in his hands. Simeon had learned to wait and somehow the waiting made him better. Deeper. Comforting. Full of hope and joy and life. He wasn’t worn down by the waiting like I often am. He was made righteous and devout.
Next, we see Anna. A prophetess. Daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. Luke says she, “was very old in her many days” and the syntax is hard to figure out, but either she was 84 or she had lived as a widow for 84 years which would make her around 105. One hundred and five. She was old. She never left the temple. Prayed and fasted and worshipped night and day. Can you imagine the kind of woman Anna was? We knew old people like this. David and Helen Ekstrom were Bible translators in Guatemala for over 60 years. They arrived in 1951. Translated the Bible into three Mayan languages. And when we arrived fresh faced and clueless, with a toddler and a newborn, into the highlands of Quetzaltenango, they drove 3 hours to visit us. They were old. Faces wrinkled like elephant skin. And when they left, we felt like we had just spent 2 hours with the Lord Jesus Himself. They were so steeped in the Spirit, so seasoned by prayer, so honed by suffering, so softened by waiting, that they had absorbed the very aroma of Christ like a love letter scented with perfume. I think Anna was like that. And she walked up to Mary and Joseph and 40-day old Jesus and praised the God who made her to His face.
Can you imagine how happy she was? Her happiness rolled out of her tiny little old lady body like thunder as she spoke about Jesus to all those folks at the temple who were “waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem”. That word for redemption is only used three times in the New Testament. Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, said it, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people” and the author of Hebrews said it in 9:12, “…but though His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all time, having obtained eternal redemption”. And Anna used it. She told all who were waiting for God to ransom them, to redeem them from their sin, that Redemption was here. That little baby was redemption for us all. Waiting taught Anna how to see past the obvious and into the eternal.
I would bet you a shiny nickel that you are waiting for something. Maybe it’s Christmas. Maybe it’s a new job. Maybe, like Elizabeth, it’s a little blue plus sign on a pregnancy test. Maybe you’re waiting for a promotion or for your child to be saved by your Redeemer. Maybe you’re waiting for lab work or the semester to end. Maybe you’re waiting for your wedding day. Maybe you’re waiting in the darkness for the light to pierce in and give you hope. For the sadness to lift and the joy to waft in and bring you life again.
Whatever you’re waiting for, wait like Simeon and Anna. Pray. All the time. Listen to the Comforter. Marinate in the Word. Let your Redeemer turn waiting into worship and let the process make us righteous and devout, deep and fragrant, a steady consolation to those waiting without hope.
God is with us in the waiting room. Immanuel entered our sadness and sits beside us while we wonder how this will all turn out and He whispers, “I am here.” Listen to His voice. He is forming you. He is redeeming you. And if you let Him, He will turn your waiting into wonder.
