 Jeff Nelson |
The
Long Wait
Sermon:
Scripture: |
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Where
are those Gentiles anyway? I was told there was a group here
somewhere that wanted to meet me and find out who I was. My
eyes are not so good anymore. I think I see people here
already. My goodness, it is quite a group indeed. Well,
this is a small place. Our temple in Jerusalem is much larger
than this. But I suppose if this is where you come to meet
God, that is what is important, isn’t it? I must say, this
area you live in, De-troit (is that how you pronounce it? De-troit?),
is so much bigger than Jerusalem. And it’s so much easier to
get into, that’s for sure. Jerusalem has a wall around it,
but here you can come in from anywhere. Not too smart if you
have an invading army, though, I might say. I
must say that I love Jerusalem. It is a beautiful city. It is
on this sloping plateau, and from the top of it you can see
throughout the whole Judean hillside. I can see it in my
mind’s eye even now. History speaks to you from every street
corner, every back alley. Why, Jerusalem was where King David
set up the Arc of the Covenant. Then his son, King Solomon,
was the one who built our magnificent temple. Sadly enough, it
has been a place where rulers and foreign powers have come and
tried to destroy her walls and desecrate her temple and take
her people and exile her. Great
Jehoshaphat!! You’re probably wondering who I am. My name is
Simeon. You probably don’t recognize me. I am not one of the
better-known figures in the Christmas story, but I’d like to
tell my story. In fact, you will find that most historians
don’t know much about my early life. So it’s a good thing
you have me here to tell you, isn’t it? Well, it
began long ago. I was born into a good family. Not too well
off, but we always seemed to have food to put on the table. I
remember those early days. How I loved school. In those days,
we would go to the synagogue and the rabbi would teach us
Hebrew. Hebrew is the language in which the scriptures are
written. We would learn our Hebrew and study the Word of God.
Those were wonderful days. We would learn passages of
scripture hour by hour. We would even commit some of our
favorites to memory, passages like this one from Proverbs:
Or the
Psalms:
We would
spend hours memorizing passages. We studied the Word of God.
You see, it is these words of life that point us to the God of
life, you know. I had a
good friend in those days. His name was Josiah. What a
character. We would sit together in school. We would pass
notes back and forth. We would laugh a little about the
rabbi—he always dressed kind of strangely, you know. We
would talk and learn the Hebrew scriptures together. Josiah
was my best friend. Years
later, when we got to be adults, we were numbered among the
seventy in Jerusalem who would translate the Hebrew scriptures
into Greek, because that was the language of the people. We
would study passages from Isaiah—powerful words from God’s
prophet. I remember very clearly this one time when we were
translating Isaiah. We were there as a group and Josiah was
next to me. We came to a portion of the text where God was
reassuring his exiled people, saying,
At that
point, Josiah took his pen and threw it down. He said, “How
can this be? Not forget?!
Not forget?! Look around. We are a people who have been
occupied by foreign powers and foreign gods for four hundred
years. Not forget? Look at the poor and starving people of the
streets, at the humiliation of our people. How long are we
supposed to wait, I ask you? How long? All this talk about a
messiah. Well, where is he when we need him? Rome keeps us
under its heel. Surely if we ever needed a deliverer, it is
now!!! Not forgotten us!! Well, perhaps God isn’t the only
one who needs to forget.” And with that, he just walked off.
The very passages that had always given us great delight and
joy and hope about the future…he just never believed after
that. I thought
about that passage a lot. One night while I was at home
asleep, a very strange thing occurred. I must have been
dreaming, but somehow in the midst of it all an angel appeared
unto me. The angel said, “Fear not, Simeon. I am the angel
Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. Your prayers have
been answered. God gives to you a promise. Before you shall
die, your eyes shall see the Lord’s anointed. You will see
the consolation of Israel.” Then the angel was gone. I sat
right up in my bed. I wondered if it was dream or a vision or
what. But I kept that hope. All those years I waited. Month
after month went by. Year after year. Decade after decade.
Still I waited. I don’t
know about you, but I have a bit of a “wait problem.” Oh,
I don’t mean that I am putting on a few shekels. I have a
problem waiting. I remember when I was younger, I couldn’t
wait for Hebrew school to start and then, before too long, I
couldn’t wait for the school break to come. I couldn’t
wait to visit Uncle Mordecai. I couldn’t wait to get
married. I suppose it is a lot like some of you at Christmas.
Some of you kids can’t wait until Christmas, and some of you
parents can’t wait until it’s over. Waiting is never easy.
My people Israel had been waiting for centuries for peace to
come, for God to restore us as people of hope and prayer for
the whole world. We had been waiting a long time. There is
one day I shall never forget. It was a day like any other. The
sun rose over the narrow streets of Jerusalem, over the tops
of the homes. The smoke from the cooking fires within the
homes rose thick and dark. Children were running off to play.
Sheep and goats were being driven through the city streets to
the pasturelands outside the city gate. Lads were going off to
Hebrew school—rather reluctantly, as usual. Women were
taking their jars to get water from the city well. I was
walking down a back road, headed to the temple as I did each
and every day. I went by my old friend Josiah’s house and
there he was, as always, sitting in the morning sun dreaming
with closed eyes. He opened his eyes and saw me come by and he
said, “Simeon, you old goat. How are you today?” I smiled,
“Fine. Fine.” “Where are you going?” he chided me.
“You know where I am going. To the temple. I feel it in my
bones today. Something is going to happen.” “Oh,
Simeon,” Josiah said, “you’re always talking about God
sending the anointed one. When are you going to learn? God has
forgotten us.” I just smiled and went on my way. The temple
was crowded that day in the outer courts. Why, there were
people from everywhere in the Mediterranean world. It was
filled with people of every tongue and tribe and language. I
had to be careful and weave my way through the people.
Finally, I made my way to one of the inner courts to where I
usually sat by two large chests. That is where parents came to
give their offering for the dedication of their children. I
would sit and watch each one come. I sat there in the morning
sun and closed my eyes and remembered the angel’s promise
once again, how I would not die until I saw the Lord’s
anointed. I opened my eyes, and for some strange reason that I
cannot explain, my eyes fixed upon a rather ordinary-looking
couple. But something within me, why, it stirred. My heart
began to pound and my breath began to quicken. I got to my
feet and approached them. I think I kind of startled them. I
look a little wild-eyed, you know. I asked them, “Is this
your son?” They said, “Yes.” “Tell me, what is his
name?” “Jesus.” “Where was he born?”
“Bethlehem.” I suddenly thought of the words from the
prophet Micah: You
Bethlehem, though you are the smallest of the clans of Judah,
out of you shall come forth a ruler. I asked
them, trying to restrain my excitement, “Do you think I
could hold your child for a moment?” The frightened mother
looked at her husband, and he kind of smiled in a knowing way.
I think they were used to strangers being drawn to their
child. I put my stick down and took the child into my arms. He
smiled at me. When he smiled, my heart soared. Something
within me moved. I cannot explain—it must have been the
moving of God. I turned my chin up to the sky and I said,
“Oh, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, and as you have
shown in the sight of all your people, you have allowed me
your servant to depart now in peace, for I have seen the
consolation of Israel. My eyes have seen your salvation, a
light to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.” I held him
up and, as you can imagine, there was quite a crowd that began
to gather when I said something like that. Some weren’t too
happy about him being a light to the Gentiles. Some aren’t
too happy about them, you see. We went over to a place where
we could sit for a moment, and I held the baby on my lap. I
said a blessing on them and they paid their offering. The
child was dedicated in the appropriate way and off they went. I was one
of the early ones who saw God’s new promise and announced it
before I died. I became a witness that God had not forgotten
his people and that, with this child, a new kingdom would take
root. The wait was over. I hope you, too, find what you’ve
been waiting for. Merry Christmas. *
* * * * For Simeon,
that first Christmas was the fulfillment of a promise. It was
the realization of his yearning. It was the end to his wait.
Simeon spent most of his life waiting for Christmas. When you
think about it, we all spend a lot of our time waiting.
Waiting to fall in love. Waiting for the pain in our
relationship to subside. Waiting for the light to turn green.
Waiting for the guy ahead of us to realize the light turned
green ages ago! Waiting for this lousy job to be over. Waiting
to get a job. Waiting for peace on earth! Waiting for the
Lions to win the Super Bowl! Waiting for the bread dough to
rise. Waiting for a bite of that warm, fresh bread that tastes
like heaven. Waiting on you. Waiting on me. Waiting on God. In the
midst of this Christmas season, what is it that you find
yourself waiting for? Are you waiting for healing to come to
your body, to a relationship, to a loved one, to your home or
community? Are you waiting for employment or a clearer
direction of where your gifts and graces might be best
employed? Perhaps you are waiting for love, for laughter, for
the birth of a child of your own? ‘Tis the season to be
waiting. So what does Simeon teach us about waiting, and what does his waiting tell us about Christmas? First, Simeon reminds us that our waiting is always infused with God’s promise. Simeon received a promise that allowed him to wait. He could wait for Christmas to be born because he trusted that his waiting would not be in vain. Simeon knew that somehow God would be faithful to the promise He made. Whatever you are waiting for, whatever your heart is yearning for, remember to infuse it with God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. Trust that somehow, someday, in some way you will see the fulfillment of what you have been waiting for. Simeon’s
story also tells us that waiting for the Christmas promise is
an active kind of waiting. Simeon went to the temple every
day. He prayed for, prepared for, and planned for the day that
he would finally see the fulfillment of God’s promise.
Faithful waiting is not passive. It is not a hopeless state
determined by events totally out of our hands. We are called
to be active in our waiting—preparing our hearts, preparing
our lives, our homes, our communities, and our world for
God’s promises to be born. What are
you doing in this season of waiting to prepare for the coming
of Christmas? How active is your waiting? Like Simeon, we must
build into our lives the kind of praying, preparing and
planning for Christmas to be born. Simeon’s
story reminds us that when God’s promise finally comes, it
may come in ways that we would never have thought. In fact, it
may come in such unexpected packaging that we may miss it
completely. Remember, nobody else in the temple seemed to know
what was happening. God’s new fulfillment came to life in a
baby born to a nameless, poor couple. There was nothing about
them that would have seemed special. Nothing about this child
would have indicated that he was special. But Simeon knew.
Simeon’s story tells us that part of waiting is learning to
pay attention, to keep our eyes open and our ears attuned to
movement of the Spirit in our midst. Finally,
Simeon’s story reminds us that we must be ready for the
answer to our waiting to come in ways we might never have
expected. This story reminds us to keep our eyes open and our
ears attuned to the spirit of God, because so often the coming
of God in our midst comes just like Christmas—in small,
seemingly insignificant ways—and if we can recognize it,
then we might realize that the wait is over. Tonight as you leave, you will be given another ornament for your Christmas tree. This ornament is an hourglass, and it reminds us of the power of faithful, active waiting out of which Christmas is born. It is my hope that during this season we will find small in-breakings into our lives of waiting and, just like that baby born in the manger two thousands years ago, that the unexpected packaging of God’s promise will grow into a saving promise of new life for each and every one of us.
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