Simeon's Song 2024 Series

Simeon’s Song

(Luke 2:25-32)

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

12-08-2024

Waiting for Gordon

Last week, Maxine and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary by crossing off another bucket list item. We ate lunch at Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen in the suburbs.

I asked our server, Shelby, if Gordon would be there to greet us. She explained that he usually is there for the grand opening but he didn’t make it because he was filming in New Zealand and just had his fifth child.

But, he would be making an unannounced visit to the restaurant sometime in the first six months. She said, “Every day could be the day. That’s why we always provide the best service. It keeps us on our toes.”

Her biggest fear is that he would show up on a day she wasn’t scheduled to serve and she would miss the chance to meet him.

She knows for a fact that he is coming.

In the classic play by Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godet, two men, Vladimir and Estragon spend the entire play talking and waiting on Godet, who never shows up. The play ends with both of them contemplating suicide.

It’s terrible to wait on someone who never even bothers to show up.

Hope Floats

As a counselor, I know that this season is one of contradictions. While it’s billed as the “most wonderful time of the year,” many are experiencing a first Christmas without a loved one.

Or maybe you have lost a job this year and Christmas is going to be tight.

Or the diagnosis came back and you are living with cancer or another disease.

Maybe your family is dysfunctional, or your kids won’t be home.

Over these next six weeks, calls to the suicide hotline will skyrocket and more people will attempt suicide than any other time of the year.

People are looking for hope. They are desperate for hope. And many have lost hope altogether.

I remember talking to a guy about my age and telling him that there was light at the end of the tunnel. He looked at me with sad eyes and said, “Jeff, the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.” About three weeks later, he ended his life.

Let me tell you this morning that we love you, we need you. Please don’t think that the world is better without it because that’s a lie from the pit of hell.

There is hope. Hear me. There is hope. It’s not in a program or a plan. It’s in a Person - Jesus Christ.

The word “hope” is used 52 times in the New Testament - enough hope for each week of the year.

In Scripture, hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is a future certainty grounded in a present reality. Or another way of saying it - hope is waiting for God to do what has already promised us.

Paul told the Christians at Corinth:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Cor 4:16-18)

To Paul, it’s about where your eyes are focused. This morning we are going to meet a man whose eyes and heart were laser-focused on hope of the coming Messiah who would bring comfort to his people’s hurting hearts.

We are going to look at his heart, his hope, his faith, and his song.

Turn to Luke 2 and we will pick up the story at verse 21.

Prayer

Joseph and Mary’s Obedience

“On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.

When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.” (Luke 2:21-24)

It’s so easy to read the Bible, especially these texts at Christmas, and miss massive theological truths right in front of us.

On the eighth day, he was circumcised. Wait? Why would Jesus be circumcised?!

Circumcision was a sign of being set apart from others and the “cutting off” of sin. But Jesus had no sin to “cut off.” Why would Mary and Joseph have him circumcised?

New Testament commentator Alexander Whyte wrote: