In his book The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis tells how a young girl, Lucy, enters the wardrobe in the spare room of the Professor’s house and is unable to find the back of the cabinet. Instead she works her way through fur coats and steps into a forest with snow crunching under foot.
The first person she sees there is a faun named Tumnus. From him she learns that the winter has lasted for time out of memory, years and years. It is the result of the reign of the White Witch who represents Satan in Lewis’s Narnia books. The only thing that can end the winter is the coming of the true king, Aslan the lion. Like Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Aslan will defeat evil and bring warmth and life back to His people. Let us see how this story worked out in real life, among the people of Israel.
Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. Luke 2:25 (NIV)
Eight days after the birth of a boy his circumcision was required by law. Since Jesus was born in Bethlehem, to do this in Jerusalem was an easy trip. At the same time, a purification ritual for Mary was in order, so they brought a sacrifice and went to the Temple.
There they ran into Simeon. Like many prophets, we know little about Simeon. The thing for which he is remembered is that he had been promised by the Holy Spirit to see the Messiah before he died. In the mean time he waited.
When he saw Jesus, he prophesied about Jesus’ message, His death, and the global effect of His ministry. He even told Mary a disturbing thing:
"the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too." Luke 2:35 (NIV)
Many have understood this to be the grief Mary would suffer at Jesus’ death. I believe Simeon is saying that the same way that Jesus would lay bare the thoughts of other hearts, hers would not be exempt.
Mary’s own spirit would be tested by the ministry of Jesus and she would be required like all others to make a choice.
That choice was required of her. At one time she thought Jesus was going crazy and brought His brothers along to take Him home. He expressed a willingness to reject his family and follow the truth. However, by the end, she saw the reason for His behavior and embraced it.
Like the whole nation, Simeon was waiting
Simeon had the incredible promise that he would see Israel’s Salvation before he died. And he got his promise.
He was the last in a long line of waiting people. God had promised a savior centuries before and the people had been waiting ever since. God’s deliverance through the anointing of a savior, the choosing of a messiah, happened again and again.
When we name Jesus, we often include His title, Christ. Christ is the English version of a Greek word, Kristos. That Greek word is the translation of a Hebrew Concept, Messiah which means Anointed One.
Throughout Israel’s history, God used anointing with oil to consecrate leaders of different kinds:
- Prophets
- Priests
- Kings
I said one time that prophets were not anointed, but a member of the congregation pointed out in the Scriptures that I was wrong. This is my correction of that mistake.
-In the last part of Exodus, Aaron’s family was anointed and the priesthood began. They served as saviors to the land because they provided the sacrificial system.
-Saul was anointed the first king of Israel in 1 Samuel 9 & 10. He saved the land from their enemies the Philistines.
-The anointed of the LORD, the messiah that God had established was so important to David that he refused repeatedly to indulge in aggression toward Saul and ordered the execution of one who lifted up his "hand against the LORD’s anointed."
- David was anointed king 3 times.
- Elisha was anointed prophet by Elijah
- In Isaiah, 100 years before the man was born, God named Cyrus His anointed one, to save His people from exile in Babylon.
The concept of the LORD’s anointed had a short term and a long term meaning. In the short term, it usually referred to the king who would save Israel from enemies. But over the centuries, the concept of Messiah took on more and more meaning.
When God judged Hophni and Phinehas, Samuel’s sons, He promised to establish a permanent priesthood to serve before His anointed forever.
Daniel speaks in great power about the doings of the Messiah in the last day.
- David
- Isaiah
- Jeremiah
All spoke of an Anointed One who would not only save Israel from her enemies, but from her sins.
Some say the first promise of a Messiah came to Eve right after their sin in the Garden of Eden:
"And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel." Genesis 3:15 (NIV)
So the Jews developed a culture of waiting. They were surrounded by trouble, and had been told for so long that God would deliver them, that they knew they had to patiently wait for it to unfold. David says:
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins. Psalm 130:5-8 (NIV)
David was the anointed of the LORD, but he knew that the ultimate Anointed One would do more than He could ever do. David could do battle against military enemies, but God would send one to do battle against sin itself.
We get a sense of the longing of the faithful for the Messiah in Isaiah
Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws,
we wait for you;
your name and renown
are the desire of our hearts. Isaiah 26:8 (NIV)
After centuries, the people began to get used to waiting. Some gave up hope, so, to the virtue of faith in the LORD’s promise was added the virtue of patience for its fulfilment:
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD. Lam 3:26 (NIV)
And it is no wonder some gave up. If the presence of God among people is the warmth of the sun, just like in Narnia, winter had set in, and it seemed to have set in for good:
- As Noah and his children looked at the wickedness around them
- As they waited for the flood waters to subside
- As Abraham waited decades for the fulfillment
- As the Israelites waited through 400 years of slavery
- As they waited through 40 years in the wilderness
- As without a king, they were harassed by neighboring nations
- As they endured through the split of the kingdom after nearly a century of unity and hope
- As they endured the reign of Ahab and his dynasty
- As they suffered the attack and victory of the Assyrians, and the Northern kingdom ceased to exist as a nation
- As Jerusalem sat besieged by the Assyrians and the cities around them fell like snow flakes
- As they survived the reign of Manasseh, the most evil king Judah ever had
- As they were swept away to Babylon to wait for a 70 year exile to end
- As they returned piecemeal, a shadow of their former strength and numbers
- As their remnant became a pawn in Persian politics
- And then Greece
- And then Rome
They must have felt the chill set in like permafrost, like the bitterest blizzard. For millennia, they lived in the light of a promise that refused to give warmth. No wonder the Psalmist felt it was prudent to repeat the advice:
Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:14 (NIV)
Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan entered a land where winter held sway. They encountered a nation of animals whose hearts yearned for the coming of Aslan, the true king of Narnia. They had heard prophesies. They heard rumors of the past. But Mr. Beaver says that Aslan had never been seen in his day. Through hard times and long, cold waiting in winter, they had endured to see the coming of the king that would end the tyranny of the evil witch.
In the mean time, they had learned to live in the snow. They had learned how to read the signs of the weather and know when the storms were coming and how to use the adversity to their advantage in combating evil. And when Aslan came, the Spring came with him.
Israel waited long. But Simeon saw the dawning of Spring. He felt the arrival of warmth. He saw the thaw of winter.
The church awaits Jesus’ 2nd coming
Anyone will attest to the fact, there is nothing harder than waiting. We sit in judgement 2000 years removed from the arrival of Christ and wonder why the Jews could not wait patiently. We would understand if we would only think. We have now waited 2000 years for Jesus to return. He said He would come back and now there are elements of the church that debate whether He really meant He would come back literally, personally and bodily, or if it was a symbolic thing that may have happened long ago, or a thing that would never happen except in a symbolic sense in the hearts of His people. The church has endured:
- the struggles of beginning
- the persecution of opposition
- the tension of heresy
- the delusion of the Crusades
- the corruption of its leaders
- the suffering of the inquisition
- the confusion of the reformation
- the pain and disillusionment of fragmentation
- the frustration of sectarianism
- the coldness of social apathy
- and today, the irritant of petty arguments and opinion mongers who undermine the larger work of the faith with the magnification of debatable details of practice
No wonder skeptics wonder if Jesus will ever come again. The trouble in the church past and present gnaws at faith like an icy wind. The world sees the church’s trouble and turns a cold shoulder to the message.
The church has seen the rise of evil power after evil power that seemed to be the Anti-Christ incarnate. Each time the coming of Jesus seemed necessary and immanent. And yet, He has not come. As the martyrs were held beneath the cold water of rivers and their bones chilled, they saw a perfect opportunity for the LORD’s return and yet he did not. As a church who is still waiting for the second coming of the LORD, I say to you the same thing David said:
Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:14 (NIV)
Like the good animals in Narnia, the church has waited and many have remained faithful. The Spring will come when our King returns. But most of us are far removed from this kind of historical dynamic. There is a force which seems much more immediate to us.
The winter in our lives
Most of you have had personal crises. It never rains but it pours. Trouble comes in threes ... and comes again for good measure.
- Sickness leads to death
- death leads to heartbreak and grief
- Hospital stays lead to financial ruin
- Things break down
- People break down
- Houses need repair
- And then the taxes are due
- In the mean time, the church suffers through trouble both spiritual and otherwise
- All the while your friends’ marriages are falling apart and you are powerless to prevent it
- And your children do not do what is right in the sight of the LORD
And through crisis after crisis you are haunted by the words of Jesus just before He went back to Heaven:
surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matthew 28:20 (NIV)
Well where is He?
And our question echoes back from the clouds that overcast the skies of our lives. And we look through the coming winter storms and we cannot find Him. He promised His presence, but it is not evident. He promised His help, but the trouble persists. And the chill of our lives seems to have no end. And the snow settles on our heads in the form of white hair caused by the troubles we have seen. And we find ourselves cold at night even when the heat is on, because the strength of our youth has failed before the onslaught of the coming of the winter of our lives. I tell you again as David told his people:
Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:14 (NIV)
When Edmund and the witch’s dwarf saw the flowers poking through the snow and heard the birds in the air, they knew that a full thaw was in the air. Winter was over. And the witch threatened death to whichever of the two spoke the name of Aslan again.
When Jesus showed up at the temple in the form of a little child ... the spring of the Messiah was in the air.
When we hear of wars and rumors of wars and we see the unrest in the families around us, Remember that Jesus said:
Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Matthew 24:7-8 (NIV)
All this trouble is a sign of the new life of Spring, the thaw has come, Winter will soon be over.
When the trouble falls in your life like an endless sleet, look around you for the small signs of God’s providence in your life. Remember the guidance you have had at his hand and know that the thaw is only around the corner. It is as near as the apprehension of your faith.
It is easy to lose hope. It is easy to give in to the evil one as Edmund left his coat behind and gave in to the witch. But there is no need to sit and freeze.
- As surely as Jesus came the first time He will come again
- As surely as Jesus will come again, He will show up in your life and receive glory
- As surely as He was with Israel through the centuries of trouble, he will be with this church and the persecuted church abroad to make His name great
- As surely as He gained glory from all who have been martyred, He gains glory from you when you maintain faith in the face of your trouble
- Your faith is a warm cloak, wrap it around you
- The Word of God is a fire, warm yourself in it daily
- Your prayers are like a burning alter before the LORD, pray often and warm yourself at the glowing bronze
Look to the first coming of the LORD in a stable so many years ago, and know that in the trouble of your life, He will show up, in the fulness of His promise, He will come again:
Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:14 (NIV)
