Well, good morning, church. Merry Christmas.
Turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2.
We are looking at the Song of Simeon.
We've looked at the four songs which open up the Gospel of Luke over the four weeks of this month.
And today we are looking at the last one.
We're actually going to look at two people, both Simeon and Anna.
That are in this passage.
We're going to read Luke, chapter 2, from verse 25 to verse 38.
So you can turn there.
If you're looking at a pew Bible, it's page 857.
So Luke, chapter 2, starting at verse 25.
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.
And this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.
And the Holy Spirit was upon him.
And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
And he came in the Spirit into the temple.
And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law,
he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,
Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word.
For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.
And his father and mother marveled at what was said about him.
And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother,
Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed.
And a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.
And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher.
She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin
and then as a widow until she was 84.
She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.
And coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God
and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Christmas is finally here.
How many kids have been waiting and looking forward to Christmas for a long time?
Right?
Anybody been counting down the days through the month of December?
Looking forward to seeing friends or family?
Maybe visiting from out of town and eating special foods?
Giving and receiving presents?
For the adults, maybe you've been looking forward to Christmas too.
Perhaps it's the end of all the frantic preparations.
Making food, buying gifts, delivering gifts, writing cards, mailing cards, cleaning house.
Now you can finally sit back and relax.
At least for a little while.
After all the waiting and preparing, Christmas Day is finally here.
But what exactly is it about Christmas that makes it worth waiting for?
What is it that we look for and long for and hope for this time of year?
Is it just food, presents, getting stuff?
Is it being with people?
People we care about?
Friends and family?
Or is it something bigger?
A hope that somehow love and peace would prevail in our fractured and frenzied world?
You know, Christmas is one of the very few days in the year when you can walk through the city of New Haven and it actually seems to be at rest.
No rushed drivers running red lights.
No stressed out students burning the midnight oil.
No weary workers toiling from early morning to late night.
For one day in the year, the city finally seems to rest.
The only other day like it, I think, is Thanksgiving.
But even on Thanksgiving, the stores open at six.
So really, Christmas is sort of the only full day that the city seems to rest.
But of course, the rest and joy of the holiday season doesn't seem to last forever.
To be sure, some of it carries over through the next week.
Perhaps until the day after New Year's or this year, January 3rd, when the world will go on much as it was before.
So what is it that we look forward to at Christmas?
Is it just something temporary and fleeting that comes and goes each year?
Is it a mere projection of our wishes that will inevitably slip out of our grasp?
Or are the longings and hopes that we experience in this season, the hopes for family and fellowship, for peace and rest, for joy and beauty,
are those hopes and longings perhaps a window through which we glimpse a more enduring reality?
Even a transcendent reality, something that's not of this world.
And we hope and long and wait for that.
And we glimpse it at this time of year.
The passage we read this morning from the Gospel of Luke, we see a man and a woman who had been waiting a long time.
In fact, waiting their whole life long for what we celebrate at Christmas.
Until this moment, Simeon and Anna, their lives were characterized by waiting, longing, hoping, anticipating.
Verse 25 says, Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel.
Verse 37 describes Anna.
She did not depart from the temple worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.
The practice of fasting in particular was a sign of longing, literally hungering for God to come and transform this world.
One person described fasting as a kind of spiritual protest, an assertion that all is not well in this world.
So Anna and Simeon were among those who, as verse 38 says, were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
They were waiting for the liberation of their people, praying for the day when those who were mourning would be comforted,
hoping for the day when God would come, as he had promised long ago.
By this time, though, both Simeon and Anna were quite advanced in years.
We don't know Simeon's age, but verse 26 tells us,
That word Christ just means king or Messiah.
So it's likely he was getting older, realizing that death might come to him soon.
And Anna, Anna was certainly quite elderly.
According to verse 36, she had been married for seven years,
then lived the rest of her life as a widow until she was 84.
It's also possible that the text could be translated,
she lived as a widow for 84 years.
In that case, she would have been over 100.
Either way, she had lived quite a long time.
She had seen a lot, and she was still waiting.
But in the child whose birth we celebrate at Christmas,
what we see this morning is that Simeon and Anna finally found what they had been waiting for.
Their whole life long.
And I want to look at each of them this morning, Simeon and then Anna,
what they were waiting for and what they found,
and what that has to offer us this Christmas.
So first, I want to look at the rest that Simeon found.
Simeon's song in verse 29 to 32 is at the heart of this passage.
It's the last of four songs that open up this gospel.
We've looked at Mary's song of joyful praise.
We've looked at Zachariah's song of confident hope.
We've looked at the angel song of glorious news.
And finally, Simeon's song.
And more than anything else, Simeon's song is a song about peace.
It's a song of someone who finally found rest.
Now, in order to understand Simeon's song, I want you to imagine a security guard who works third shift.
Someone who's responsible to watch over a building or a neighborhood or a city through the long night hours
when most other people are asleep and unaware.
In the ancient world, the city would often have a night watchman
whose job it was to patrol the city walls to make sure the city was kept safe
from potential threats during the most vulnerable and potentially chaotic hours of the night.
Through the whole long night, the security guard has been pacing back and forth,
going from station to station, sometimes yawning and trying to stay awake and stay focused,
sometimes shivering and trying to keep warm,
sometimes yawning,
always alert to signs of potential danger,
all the while waiting and anticipating the time
when the sky would gradually brighten
and the sun would rise above the horizon
and flood the world and the city with light.
And then he would report to his boss and say,
Now, my job is done.
Now, I can go in peace.
That's how Simeon's song begins.
Lord, now,
you are letting your servant depart in peace.
The word now is actually the first word in the original Greek.
That's the emphasis.
For my whole life I've been waiting,
watching,
hoping,
looking forward to this moment,
and now
I can rest.
Simeon speaks to God as if he's speaking to a trusted boss.
He addresses God as Lord,
Master.
He acknowledges God's rightful authority over him.
He calls himself your bondservant,
one who owed everything to God.
And yet he trusted God to ultimately do him and his people good.
You are letting your servant depart.
Literally,
that means you are releasing me from the duty you have laid upon me.
Just as you said you would,
according to your word.
Your word is good.
Simeon describes himself as one who has been waiting through the long,
dark night,
through years and decades,
when God seemed distant,
silent,
or even absent.
When at times chaos and danger and evil seemed to reign unchecked.
But now he sees the dawning of a new day.
And even though the sun was only peeking over the horizon
and beginning to shine its light over the world,
he says,
now I can go in peace.
My eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared for all the world to see.
A light for revelation to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.
Simeon was most likely thinking of words that the prophet Isaiah had spoken
hundreds of years ago to the watchmen,
literally the security guards of Jerusalem.
Isaiah wrote in chapter 52 of his book,
the voice of your watchmen,
they lift up their voice.
Together they sing for joy,
for eye to eye,
they see the return of the Lord to Zion.
Break forth together into singing,
you waste places of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people.
He has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
Simeon knew of that prophecy,
and he said,
now it's come to pass.
Now is the day of God's salvation.
Now God has come and returned to Zion to comfort and redeem,
to heal and liberate his people.
And God's light would shine not just on Israel,
but on all the nations of the world.
Simeon says,
that's what God is doing through this child,
Jesus.
And so Simeon says,
now my job is done.
Now I can die happy and at peace,
because this child has come to do what I never could.
He's come to complete what I couldn't even start.
I'm just the night watchman.
He's the son of righteousness.
I'm not the Messiah.
He is.
You know,
the message of the Bible,
at the heart of it,
is not about what we must do
to draw near to God,
to fix ourselves and fix our world.
It's about what God has done for us
in the person of Jesus Christ.
And the posture it calls us to is
the posture that Simeon adopted to receive that.
Simeon saw the child,
Jesus,
and he took him in his arms,
received him,
and he said,
now I can rest,
because he is going to complete the work
that I could not do.
Many years ago,
Timothy Dwight said,
Christ is the only,
the true,
the living way
of access to God.
Give up yourselves,
therefore,
to him,
and the great work of life is done.
Now you can rest.
You see,
Simeon saw Jesus,
and he found rest.
Now it wasn't the
self-indulgent sloth
that comes from turning a blind eye
to the pain
and anguish
and brokenness of this world.
Not that kind of rest.
That's not true rest.
Nor was it the deflated weariness
of cynicism
and resignation
that makes you want to just
crumple up and lay down on the floor.
Not the anxious striving
and stressful rushing
that characterizes
so much of our lives,
so much of the time.
But Simeon found peaceful rest.
Knowing that God was in charge,
knowing that his plans for his people
and his creation are good,
and seeing that in Jesus,
the Messiah,
he has accomplished
what he said he would.
And our lives are in his hands.
Simeon could say that.
Have you found that peaceful rest?
Can you say with Simeon,
now because Jesus has come,
now I can die in peace.
Tim Keller in his book,
Every Good Endeavor,
tells a story about John Coltrane,
the jazz saxophonist,
and his most celebrated album,
A Love Supreme,
which he dedicated to God
as an offering of praise.
He explained that it was the result
of a spiritual awakening
he had experienced
by God's grace,
through which he had come
to acknowledge God's omnipotence
and our dependence on him,
the God who is gracious
and merciful.
There was only one live recorded performance
of this piece.
And at the end of that performance,
Coltrane stepped down from the stage
and he said,
Nunc dimittis.
That is the Latin
for the first two words
of Simeon's song.
Now I can go.
Keller writes,
Coltrane claimed to have had
an experience of God's love
that liberated him
from the tyranny of work.
From the pursuit of perfectionism
and self-justification,
he had been given God's power.
He had felt God's pleasure.
He had experienced God's grace.
He had responded in praise.
And now he could rest.
That's what Simeon found
in the Christ child.
Rest.
But now look at Anna
in verse 36 to 38.
Notice in verse 38 in particular
how the news of the child Jesus
affected her.
Anna didn't say,
Now I can die in peace.
Now my work is done.
Notice how she reacted.
She began to give thanks to God
and to speak of him
to all who were waiting
for the redemption of Jerusalem.
It's as if the coming of Christ
gave her a new lease on life
at the age of 84.
It awakened and enlivened her.
She began praising God
and proclaiming the good news
to everyone around her.
And the verb tenses indicate
this wasn't just a one-time thing.
It became,
it was a continuous,
ongoing,
habitual action.
Giving thanks to God
and speaking of Jesus
to all those
who would listen to her.
For Simeon,
the coming of Christ
made him ready to die in peace.
For Anna,
the coming of Christ
gave her energy
to live with hope
and joy
and praise.
Simeon got rest.
Anna got energy.
Some of us,
like Simeon,
might be ready to die in peace.
But we need strength,
like Anna,
to live
with praise.
Maybe like Anna,
you are getting older
day by day.
Perhaps your body
is gradually slowing down.
Your memory
is beginning to fade,
at least at some points.
Perhaps your eyes
are growing dim.
Your hearing
isn't what it used to be.
You feel not quite as sharp
as you once were.
And perhaps you're tempted
to sit back
and become just
a passive observer
of life going on around you.
Because you're facing
difficult physical
and mental limitations
that you haven't
had to deal with previously.
Maybe those of us
who are younger
or middle-aged
haven't honored you
in the way we should.
Perhaps you feel
disregarded
or unnoticed
or unwanted.
But let me encourage you.
The Holy Spirit
knows no age limit.
In chapter 1,
the Holy Spirit
was at work
in John the Baptist
when he was still
in his mother's womb.
And here,
the Holy Spirit
was active in Simeon
and Anna
nearing the end
of their lives.
Let me encourage you
not to be idle
and inactive.
and silent.
Be creative
within the limitations
that you have.
You might need
to find new ways
of doing things.
You might need
to ask for help.
That can actually
be a way of serving
someone else
by allowing them
to serve you.
It is actually
a way that you
can bless others.
But let your life
be characterized
like Anna's was.
By giving thanks
to God continually.
By speaking
of the Lord Jesus
to all who will listen.
Or perhaps like Anna,
you're on your own.
Anna was married
for seven years
and then she was a widow
for the rest of her life.
She lived in a culture
that even more than ours
revolved around marriage
and family
and children.
She lived in a society
where widows
were particularly vulnerable,
both economically
and otherwise.
But for whatever reason,
Anna had taken
a harder
and potentially
more lonely road.
Anna knew what it was like
to spend every holiday
without a spouse
and without children.
She knew what it was like
to go to bed alone
every night.
She knew what it was like
to have lost someone
so very dear to her.
Maybe you're wrestling
with one or more
of those things.
Loss, loneliness, longing.
But in all that,
Anna devoted herself
to God.
It says she did not
depart from the temple.
Now that doesn't
literally mean
that she pitched a tent
and laid her sleeping bag
in the temple
and camped out there
every night.
There wasn't space
for her to do that.
That wouldn't have been feasible.
But it means
she did not isolate herself
from the people of God.
She actively engaged herself
in the community of faith.
So let me encourage you
to do that.
And it also says
she devoted her energies
to worshiping,
fasting and praying
night and day.
If you have neither spouse
nor children,
that is actually
one of the great
spiritual privileges.
you have,
you can spend
uninterrupted time
in prayer
with no one
to bother you
and no one
who could rightly
interrupt you
and claim
your time.
Well, perhaps someone
would interrupt you,
but with less interruption.
the road of sin
or widowhood over the long term,
the road of loss
and loneliness
and longing
that comes in various
shapes and forms
is not an easy road
to walk
and often not a path
that any of us
would choose
if it were just
up to us.
But the Bible says
that the Holy Spirit
of God
can energize us
to walk on that path
and that the Lord
Jesus Christ himself
accompanies us
for he walked
that path,
the path of loss
and loneliness
and longing
when he was on earth.
His life began
in a manger
and his life
would end
on a cross.
He was rejected
so that we could enjoy
God's acceptance.
He was made poor
so that we could
become eternally rich.
He was forsaken
so that we might
be forgiven.
He died
so that we might live.
He gave
so that we might
receive a gift
that would never
pass away.
And seeing the Christ child,
Anna found energy
through which
she could live.
Simeon found peace
in which he could die.
And isn't that
all we really need?
When it comes down to it.
Isn't that
what we hope
and long for
in this holiday season?
What we try
to grasp onto
in the form
of beautiful music
and satisfying food
and thoughtful presence
and the comforts
of a home?
Of course,
it never lasts forever.
Perhaps deep down,
we're always left
wanting more.
we're trying
to soothe
and silence
the aching longing
deep within our soul.
This Christmas,
look to Jesus Christ.
Find in him
the peace
in which you can die
and the energy
through which
you can really live.
Maybe you've never
done that before.
Maybe this is
all new to you.
You can begin today
by simply
receiving him.
Perhaps you still
have questions.
Seek him.
Seek until you find.
Maybe you have
trusted in Christ.
Look to him
again today
with renewed
faith and hope.
Ask him to fill you
in a fresh way
with his Holy Spirit
who gives us
his peace
and his power
within our souls.
Many years ago,
someone wrote
a very succinct
but profound
description
of what it looks like
to do this.
To find the peace
to die
and the energy
to live
in Christ.
And it
made its way
into a document
called the Heidelberg
Catechism
which has been used
by Christians
for hundreds of years
and this is how it goes.
It puts it this way.
It says,
what is your only comfort
in life
and in death?
In other words,
what is it
that gives you energy
to live
and peace
in which to die?
And the answer
is as follows.
That I am not my own.
But I belong
body and soul
in life
and in death
to my faithful Savior
Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid
for all my sins
with his precious blood.
He has set me free
from the tyranny
of the devil.
He also watches over me
in such a way
that not a hair
can fall from my head
without the will
of my Father
in heaven.
In fact,
all things must work
together for my salvation
because I belong
to him.
Christ,
by his Holy Spirit,
assures me
of eternal life
and makes me
wholeheartedly
willing and ready
from now on
to live for him.
Christmas
is finally
here.
What have you
been waiting for?
find it
in Jesus Christ.
Let us pray.
Father,
we pray
that
by your grace
today
we would find
what Simeon
and Anna
found
in Jesus
whose birth
we celebrate
on this day.
The peace
in which we can die
and the energy
through which we can
really live.
Grant us that
by the power
of your Holy Spirit.
perhaps for the first
time,
perhaps in a fresh
way
today
and send us out
with joy
and praise
for what you have done.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.