What are you longing for? What are you looking for in this life that you’ve yet to find? Are you experiencing an emptiness that you are trying to fill?
• There is nothing wrong with that. All of us has longings.
• Longings for love, for acceptance, for friendship, someone to understand us.
In the midst of all these longings, there is ONE – one particular longing that anchors all these needs – the longing for Jesus.
• Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well: “Everyone who drinks [the water that this world offers] will be thirsty again.” (John 4:13)
• “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.” (John 4:14)
• Only a relationship with Jesus fulfils us completely. Without Him, something will always be missing.
In his book CONFESSIONS, Augustine says, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in You.”
• Blaise Pascal expresses it this way: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.”
• Unless we meet Christ in this life, we will not die in peace. Really. Literally.
Someone in LUKE 2 could not rest in peace, until he sees Jesus! And after he sees Jesus, he tells the Lord he could go.
• We are all seeking fulfilment in life. We are going to learn what it takes to be so fulfilled in life.
• We are going to look at these TWO persons in LUKE 2 and their LONGING for Christmas, literally.
• That Christmas did not happen with fanfare or decorations, no flickering light, no beautiful music or carols. But, what an encounter it was!
[Read Luke 2:22-38]
We read TWO persons waiting for Christmas - SIMEON (a “righteous and devout” man) and ANNA (a prophetess).
• We do not know for how long they have been waiting to see this day. The impression I get is a LONG TIME, because both of them are very aged now.
Simeon is near death - it mentioned that he “would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” (2:26) and after seeing Jesus, he says he can go.
ANNA “was very old” (2:36); 84 years old (2:37) (some translation says, she has been a widow for 84 years).
It might have been a long wait, but… THEY HAVE NOT GIVEN UP HOPE
Things has not been going well for Israel, for centuries.
• They are a conquered nation – over the last 500 years – first the Babylonians, then the Persians, the Greeks and now the Romans, for the last 60 years.
• After the times of the prophets, God has not spoken to the Jewish people for 400 years.
But they have not given up HOPE in God. The Messiah will come. It doesn’t depend on the political landscape, it doesn’t depend on the circumstances they are in.
• Even the silence of God does not mean a thing. It is what the Lord has already said!
• There is hope even in the silence of God because God has already revealed His Word to us! This is our hope – the revealed Word of God!
The people living in darkness WILL see the light, Isaiah prophesied!
• Simeon and Anna waited because they’ve hope in God. They waited because they’ve not lost faith in God.
• The Lord assures SIMEON – Luke 2:25b-27 “…the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 27Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts”
• The word SPIRIT appears 3 times in 3 verses. God gives him hope. God assures him with hope. God guides him into the Temple at the right time, to see his hope.
Have you lost your hope in life? Have you lost your faith in God? Get back to hearing what God has said, and is saying!
• We lose faith in God because of harsh experiences and circumstances. We cannot understand our pains and we start to question God.
• When we start to doubt God, faith begins to waver and weaken. We stop talking to Him and distant ourselves, which in turn makes faith weaker and eventually dies.
• The ember is being extinguished by our indifference. It’s a spiralling effect!
We got to arrest this. How? BREAK IT. Take the step of faith and come back to hearing what God says. Reach out to God anyway!
• God wants us to trust Him even when it seems there is not much reason to do so.
• Heb 6:17-19 17 Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. 19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
• When we say, “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow”, that’s strictly speaking, not hope. It’s just wishful thinking. Hope is anchored in SOMEONE who is in control!
It might have been a long wait, but THEY HAVE FAITH IN GOD’S WORD
Why were SIMEON and ANNA so passionate about seeing Jesus? They knew something.
• They know the prophecies of God regarding the coming of a Messiah. They know what this Messiah Jesus would do.
• SIMEON was “waiting for the consolation of Israel” (2:25) and ANNA spoke about the child to all who were “looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.” (2:38)
• These two phrases are important because that’s what motivated them. They were looking forward to the salvation of God - Jesus will save the people.
Both of them BELIEVE the promise of God. They know the Messiah will come.
• They may not fully understand how this salvation thing is going to be carried out (I don’t think they expected the cross), but they know the WILL of God.
• They saw something that no one else in the temple courts sees that day. The rest of the people were too caught up by their own affairs, to understand the grandeur of what was taking place.
• John says: “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” (John 1:5)
Only those who look with eyes of faith will see it. Only those who SEEK the Lord (with all their heart and with all their soul), will find Him! (cf. Deut 4:29)
• If you’re losing sense of God’s presence, it is likely because we’ve become too preoccupied by self!
• It is not that God is not around; we are too self-absorbed to be able to see Him!
Simeon is in tune with God’s Spirit. The Holy Spirit was upon him.
• When he saw the child, 2:28 “Simeon took him in his arms and praised God...” He recognised the child!
• ANNA too saw the child, came up to his parents “at that very moment” and gave thanks to God. And started to talk about the child to all those around her.
Their recognition of Jesus is nothing short of being miraculous. It’s the revelation of God! Jesus was barely 40 days old!
• Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the Temple because according to Law “every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord” (2:23).
• They came after Mary’s purification is completed (2:22), which is the 40th day after birth (cf. Lev 12:1-4).
• They recognised a 40-day old infant child to be the Messiah! We would have a hard time telling if a child looks like the father or the mother.
God granted them LONGINGS of their heart. You seek God and you will find Him. They saw the salvation plan of God.
Simeon’s song of praise reveals the depth of his understanding of God’s will.
• He sings (2:30-32), “For my eyes have seen your salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”
• It is not just the salvation of the Jewish people, but the whole world.
What a revelation! There is nothing greater than this. There is nothing as gratifying and as comforting as this. Simeon was happy and fulfilled.
• He says, “Now dismiss your servant in peace.” (2:29) I can go now. I’ve seen what I’ve been waiting all my life to see. Now I can rest in peace.
CONCLUSION
Herein lies the secret to a fulfilling life, to see the WILL OF GOD fulfilled.
• Ultimately that’s our calling – to proclaim the salvation of God in Jesus Christ, to see that the hopeless finds hope, the broken finds healing, and those in darkness finds the light.
• We are only fulfilled when God’s will is done. Don’t give up hope. Have faith in God’s Word.
Are you longing for Christmas? What exactly are we longing for at Christmas?
• Simeon and Anna wants to see Jesus and proclaim Him. He alone is our consolation and redemption. Jesus Christ is our only hope.
The school system in a city had a program to help children keep up with their school work during their stays in the hospitals.
One day a teacher (who signed up as volunteer in the program) was assigned to visit a particular child. She took the child’s name and room number and talked briefly with the child’s class teacher. “We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now,” the teacher said, “and I’d be grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn’t fall too far behind.”
The volunteer went to see the boy that afternoon. No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain. She stammered as she told him, “I’ve been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs.”
When she left, she felt she had not accomplished much. But the next day, a nurse asked her, “What did you do to that boy?” The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize.
“No, no,” said the nurse. “You don’t know what I mean. We’ve been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back, responding to treatment. It’s as though he’s decided to live.”
Two weeks later the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until the teacher came. Everything changed when he came to a simple realization: “They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?” He saw hope when the teacher came.
We have hope because Jesus came. Let the world know. He mends broken lives and make them whole.
