Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
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sermon. God bless. Now, God, as we heard the
Holy Spirit speaking to Simeon long ago in this
passage in Luke chapter 2, God, would you speak
to us? Would you meet with us now? Would the
preaching of your word be for the blessing of
your people? God, would you direct us and would
we find our comfort and our peace and our joy
in you? Amen. All right, I want you to take a
moment and look at some of the stained glass
around you, okay? Think about the work that went
into creating that. So I read in a commentary,
someone say that the first few chapters of Luke,
in these first few chapters, Luke is kind of
acting like this craftsman who's creating this
beautiful picture for us, this stained glass
picture. And he's taking these bits and he's
staining them and he's breaking parts, you know,
and he's then soldering them together. He's putting
lead between them. and he's wanting to show forth
part of the beauty that is Jesus through this
painstaking craftsmanship and it's actually sort
of in this moment when Jesus is presented in
the temple that part of what part of the beauty
is starting to shine forth at first is just kind
of these little cracks and little pieces and
they're kind of you know disparate and now he's
kind of putting it together and he's saying look
Well, Simeon says, for my eyes have seen, but
it's not just for his eyes, but for the Gentiles,
for all people, for the glory of Israel, a revelation
for all. There's a story that's being told and
it's shining out. This is actually what Simeon
prays, right? Lord, now you're letting your servant
depart in peace according to your word, for my
eyes have seen your salvation. that you've prepared
in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation
to the Gentiles and for glory to your people
Israel. His eyes have seen it. But here's the
thing, it's not just that the beauty is for his
eyes, right? Beauty is for the world. It's to
be presented to all people. It's a light for
the revelation of God to the world, to the Gentiles,
to the folk who are far off, right? Those who
are once aliens and strangers of the promises
have been brought near by the grace of God. The
glory of the story of Israel is seen for the
world to behold the beauty of God. But here's
the interesting thing. I think this is really,
really interesting and I share this with our
senior saints lunch. So some of this is gonna
be overlap for some of you. When Luke, wants
to display this craftsmanship, this beauty, this
thing that has been created for everybody to
see, it's not quite the folk that we would expect
that he goes to, to shine forth this beauty.
If you remember, we actually looked at some of
this in our adult Sunday school this morning,
the story of the Magi, these guys from the East
come. And maybe they came with the pomp and circumstance
that we have in our Christmas plays and stuff
like that with all decked out. Well, certainly
they were probably well to do because the gifts
that they offered. When they come from the East,
because they've seen the star, they go to Jerusalem,
the main city. They get the court of the king.
He questions them. He summons them. That's who
they're talking to, right? That's what you'd
maybe expect. Expect the story to be told to
those kind of folk. But when Luke kind of puts
it all together and he says, look, do you see
what I see? He's not going there. Said he kind
of goes to the unexpected. What we get here is
when Luke begins to tell how the birth of this
little Christ child is going to be the shining
light for the world. this beautiful thing that
is going to be the grace of God for the far off.
What we see is that he goes to the elderly, to
the older folk, to two older folks specifically,
Simeon and Anna. So the last couple of weeks
we've been, I was suggesting that we're kind
of, there's these fatherly figures, these father
figures in the. birth narratives. So we looked
at quiet Joseph, right, a couple weeks back.
Last week we looked at Zachariah, the one who
was made to be quiet out of his unbelief, demanding
a sign. And this morning I want to look at this
other fatherly figure, and actually this motherly
figure too, Simeon and Anna. And as far as we
know, they don't have, they probably actually
didn't have biological children, but know that
they have spiritual children. And just as many
sort of in our own church may not have biological
children yet, there's many spiritual children.
And I think that when we look at this, we actually
see part of the beauty of the good news that
Luke is presenting to us, okay, when we look
at these two figures. So first, the fatherly
figure Simeon. Simeon, like neither of these
figures, we get like this whole bunch of information
about them, but we know that he was righteous
and devout. And specifically, we are told that
he was waiting for the consolation of Israel.
It's waiting for Israel to be consoled. Desiring
consolation, waiting for consolation. And of
course you can think about this in terms of Israel
as a whole. They're waiting, you know, they've
been waiting for a long time. You could even
say in some ways that the world had been waiting
for a long time. I mean there's the prophecy
long ago in Genesis chapter 3 that there'd be
a child that would be born of the woman who would
crush. that conniving lying deceitful serpent
in some ways we've all right the whole world
is desiring consolation and it's been a long
time coming but of course israel's also been
waiting a long time we've talked about this recently
israel desiring the true king on the throne yet
one event after another event after another event
only aggravates the desire for consolation but
um But this is also true in Simeon's particular
life. So you could consider the whole world,
you could consider the story of Israel, but you
could also just consider the story of Simeon.
This whole prayer of Simeon, it begins, Lord,
now you're letting your servant depart in peace,
which at least invites us into the idea that
his life was not one of peace. I mean, he's desiring
consolation and he's saying, now finally I can
depart peace. His life had likely not been one
of peace, but rather of desiring it. He'd been
waiting his whole long life with the world and
with Israel for this consolation. And it's not
hard for you to think through your own life and
the different stages of life of how... sort of
the desire gets aggravated. The long life builds,
time elapses, and the desire, the consolation
of life, the consolation of God, the peace of
God seems to grow, the desire for that. From
early on in life, we find a deep desire for consolation.
I'm trying to think of when this begins. No doubt
it begins earlier, but maybe one of the first
stages that it really seems to be present is
just in the odd social awkwardness of middle
school. You know that time where you're just
like, I just wish that I felt like I knew my
people and they knew me and where am I and can
I just have some peace socially? Then, you know,
it kind of, it doesn't really stop. I used to
tell college students when I was doing campus
ministry that they should just fill out a three
by five card and hand it to people because when
you're meeting somebody, you'd be like, oh, where
are you from? What are you majoring? What are
you going to do? It's like this incessant question
of what's your life going to be? And you're like,
I don't know. I just want consolation because
I actually don't have any peace in my own mind.
And I've got to give you the answer to this mess
of what's happening up here. It keeps going,
of course, early in your marriage. You are not
only faith the fact that your spouse is actually
not rose -colored it's just hormones and Neither
are you right? You've come face to face with
the reality that actually you are so messed up
and so are they and the consolation the desire
for consolation peace grows Your sin becomes
more defined It's easier to see partly because
somebody else is pointing it out sometimes by
God's grace. But then, of course, as you continue
on in life, often we experience miscarriages.
Children are lost in car accidents. Children
are estranged. Friends disown us. We move. We
have to make new friends. Ups and downs of financial
difficulties. You find yourself looking for a
new job, you know, and it seems like all they
want is the young people that know how to do
like AI, whatever that still is, right, wherever
the tech savvy folk. And of course, we can just
list our own ways. It seems like the desire for
consolation grows and grows as the years pass.
And here's something that is deeply, deeply important
that I think is actually one of the significant
lessons that we learn in this account here in
Luke. is that this is not just for those who
are outside of the people of God. That's not
the case in this passage. The desire for consolation
and for peace in this story is for the people
that are absolutely under the care and love of
the Lord, attentive to His ways and know His
law and are present in the temple and are worshiping
Him and giving their life to Him. They're the
ones that are desiring consolation, finally saying,
we can depart in peace. Think about this, okay?
We see this first in the parents of Jesus. So
it says, they're not really, they're not the
main figures here, but it says that they bring
what was according to what was said in the law
of the Lord. That's what verse 24 tells us. And
then it tells, they brought a pair of turtle
doves or two young pigeons. So again, we talked
about this in our adult Sunday school. What does
that mean? They were among the poorest. of Israel,
among the poorest of God's people, which is to
say they knew the hard life, life of struggle
for food and maybe housing. And that's what so
often happens among the poor that likely affected
their physical health and their mental health,
right? This is Mary and Joseph, part of God's
people, spoken to in dreams and by angels. and
they are not immune from the dynamic of desiring
consolation and desiring peace. But this desire
for consolation and peace within the people of
God is also highlighted when we look at Simeon.
So the first thing we read about Simeon is not
that he was desiring the consolation of Israel,
but the first thing that we read was that he
was righteous and devout. And then we read in
verse 26, that the Holy Spirit had revealed to
him that he would not see death until he'd seen
the Lord's Christ. Verse 27 tells us that Simeon
came in spirit to the temple, which is to say
this man who desired consolation, that wanted
peace, that wanted a life where God actually
met his sorrows with God's consolation, was somebody
that was led by the Holy Spirit, indwelled by
the Holy Spirit. This is, you know, if you could
say this is one of the leaders of God's people.
And he's living the life that you're living that
seems to be sorrow aggravated by sorrow aggravated
by sorrow, desiring consolation. And this is
an important lesson that we learn here. And unfortunately,
honestly, it's a lesson that lots of Christians
want to shun and say, ah, you come to God, you've
just got your life to get, you get your life
together. He's just gonna, your life's gonna
be fine. And here we find these saints near the
end of their life. Desiring consolation, desiring
peace, because they had known such deep sorrow,
no doubt. Even the devout and the faithful and
those who are led by the Spirit ache for peace,
desire, consolation. Which leads me to this.
One of the graces that God has given to this
church is our elderly. fathers and mothers of
the faith. Let me say this, because I want particularly
you elderly to hear this. One of the graces God,
do I need new batteries? Am I cutting in and
out a little bit? No, okay, no. One of the graces
God gives to our church is the elderly. You older
folk among us, you are God's gift to us. The
long faithful, you know? Ed Camp had his birthday
a couple days ago. If you know Ed, if you've
sat with him, you know that his life has been
one of sorrow on sorrow, some really deep tragic
sorrows. Some of you know that one of his boys
was killed in a car accident years and years
ago. He had gone out to the shore with some friends
in his early 20s and on their way back was hit
and died in a car accident. You know Ed and you've
talked with them recently, you know, what an
utter Challenge these last few years have been
these last three and a half years since his wife
Anna passed away They met in high school And
he loved her dearly and they were married what
62 years I think it was or something like that
Maybe they were part of the church. I forget
what how long it was exactly and yet Ed is holding
fast to Jesus. You know, he's one of the long
faithful ones. Sorrow upon sorrow, desiring consolation,
desiring peace, and holding fast to Jesus. Many
of you know our dear sister Donna Weatherly has
been having a difficult time. She's in a rehab
on the west shore. and hasn't been able to be
present with us, she's holding fast to Jesus.
And what a gift and what a grace of God to us
all. Fathers and mothers in the faith, you are
a grace to us from God. You are a gift to us.
Your long life of bearing sorrow, your long life
of desiring consolation, You're aching for peace
and looking to God as the giver of it is one
of the greatest gifts that we have as a church.
To be greeted by Dot Fisher after she hasn't
been with us is a gift, right? Especially when
she gives you a big bear hug. Especially when
you know why she hasn't been with us is because
often when the weather is not well, she is not
well. And she still desires the Lord and the
peace that comes from him. in the midst of a
body that's not always working well. Gordon,
your bearing your cancer, your lung cancer, right
after you retired was such a gift to me those
years ago. But even more, Elaine and Gordon,
you together, trusting the Lord in the midst
of Elaine's cancer, spoke to every one of us.
It was a gift. Your long faithfulness is a gift
to us. This is part of the lesson of this passage.
The long desire for consolation and looking to
the Lord for our peace, the long faithful, the
long faithful fathers and mothers are the gift
of God to the people of God. And they train us
in the way, in His ways, they are truly fathers
and mothers for us. As we age, And at each stage
of our aging, here's another lesson that we need
to hear. We need the gift of the long faithful
and the elderly among us. But I also want to
suggest to you this, we need the gift of those
who are just beyond us. You didn't know what
I mean? You like high school or college age folk,
our children need to see that Jesus can be followed
at the next stage, right? you high school college
age students, you need young adults who are trying
to figure out like, what do I do in my like,
you know, post college life? What does singleness
look like? How do I faithfully follow Jesus in
the midst of like desiring a spouse maybe, or
trying to figure out what my job is like. In
the midst of that confusion, and actually following
Jesus in the midst of that confusion, you are
a grace to the people that are right behind you.
It can be done, right? Or think of you couples,
maybe you've recently been married or something
and you're like, I think we want children. That
sounds like a good idea. That sounds unbelievably
stressful. And I'll just tell you it is. And
it can be done because the Lord is kind and He
is gracious. Right? And in the midst of your
questioning, actually seeing people just ahead
of you saying, you know what? God can be followed
now. The long act of faith can be done. You empty
nesters are God's gift to me because I am often
shook up by the idea of that stage of life because
it sort of feels like the next major stage in
my life. There is a great gift of being in this
body of Christ where we have fathers and mothers
going ahead of us and saying, follow Jesus to
the end. Follow him to the end. The consolation
will be met. with the peace of God. Simeon is
a father in the faith instructing us in our sorrow
to lay it all on the God of peace. And many of
you are that to us as a church. Many of you can
be that to those that come after you. God is
creating this beautiful piece of art. And often,
if you looked about it, you're like, those are
pieces that were probably broken. Maybe crushed
a little bit, chipped off on a side. Maybe when
it was laying out on the table, you're like,
what is this mess? And then he puts it up for
the world to see and he said, oh my word, it's
a light to enlighten the world, to bring peace.
He is creating something lovely. One of the greatest
witnesses you give to the world is through your
long faithfulness to the Lord. Your long faithfulness
in a life of sorrow desiring his consolation.
So then we have the story of Anna, right? Again,
we actually don't learn a lot about Anna. I mean,
we have the little bit at the beginning, her
family lineage and stuff like that, but we don't
get a lot. We don't get a lot about Simeon. We
don't get a lot about Anna. And in some ways
what we have about, Anna is similar to what we
have about Simeon, which is to say it's just
this little glimpse into a long life that was
probably often marked by sorrow, desiring consolation.
Look down at verse 36 if you have it open. The
second part there, it says, she was advanced
in years. having lived with her husband seven
years from when she was a virgin, meaning that
they were married for seven years. Which means
that, you know, at that time, very likely she
would have been married like mid -teens. Say
she was married when she was 15, 16, you know,
she was married until she was in her early 20s.
That's probably what it was. And then it says,
Verse 37, and then, as a widow, until she was
84. Here's an interesting thing. Actually, the
Greek is not as clear as the English says there.
It says, so we get the sense from that that in
this passage, she's 84. That's possibly what
it was. It could mean that she lived 84 more
years after the passing of her husband. We actually
could be dealing with somebody that's in her
early hundreds. Honestly, we're not totally sure
what it is, but the point remains. She lived
decades upon decades as a widow, having lost
the love of her life. And isn't that actually,
isn't that what's happening here, right? This
long waiting God, bring your comfort and your
consolation into the midst of our sorrow. And
this passage again, it shows us her devotion.
She did not depart. This next part of verse 37,
she did not depart from the temple worshiping
with fasting and prayer night and day. It's not
that she probably had like a tent there, but
she spent all of her days there, which also indicates
to us that she very likely did not have family.
We're invited into this deeper story of sorrow,
and we're invited into seeing that again, she's
devout. She's a prophetess, it says. That would
have been a teacher. She would have been outside
the temple talking about God with people, telling
them about the Old Testament, right? Verse 38
says, 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,
just devout. Her life was marked by sorrow upon
sorrow. She too was waiting, long waiting for
consolation. Which is, again, to say this, your
gray hairs and your aching joints, your arthritic
bones are welcome in the fellowship of Jesus.
He delights in it. He actually teaches us through
you, even in your aching. your long sorrow of
lost loved ones and your clinging to the promises
of God might be the exact place, might be the
exact thing that God uses to teach others. It
often is, actually. They're often the exact places
where God is taking broken things and saying,
look at the beauty of my grace. Look at my love
and my kindness. Look at this beautiful painting
that I'm displaying for generations to come.
Look at the light that's shining through them.
But let me sort of end by coming to the little
paragraph that actually joins these two stories.
Did you notice that? There's this kind of story
of Simeon and then it kind of jumps down to Anna
and there's this little paragraph in between
that sort of joins them together. I mean, Simeon
does speak, but... but here's what it says, verse
33 to 35, and his father and his mother, that's
Mary and Joseph, marveled at what was said about
him and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary
his mother, and I think this is very likely because
we don't believe that Joseph lived into Jesus'
adulthood because he's not mentioned when Mary
and his brothers are mentioned later on, behold
this child is appointed for the fallen 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. That sounds maybe cryptic. But what
we find is that the beauty of this brilliant
story that God is shining into the world is where
he knows the sorrow, the parental sorrow. Mary.
A sword will pierce through your soul also. And
that's where we see actually the beauty of the
gospel of Jesus is when the sword pierces through
the soul of Mary. When does the sword pierce
through the soul of Mary? I guarantee you it's
when she is watching Jesus on the cross. Is there
a greater sorrow that a mother could experience
with their own child in agony upon a cross dying
right in front of them? I guarantee you, that's
when the sword pierces her soul. It's gotta be
it. Which is to say, right here in the midst
of this story of simian desire and consolation,
I'm saying I long for peace and I can finally
depart in it because I see this child right before
me. And in Anna's own story of long sorrow, the
linchpin of all of it, is the fact that God is
not distant from it, right? That's why they have
consolation. It's the unique thing about Christianity.
It is. That God not just knows sorrow, but becomes
part of the sorrow. He's not just far off looking
down upon you thinking, oh, I'm so sorry you're
going through all that. But he goes to the place
of the cross. Takes our sin upon him. He goes
to the place of pain. His mother's own pain,
the sorrow of the world, for the life of the
world. To say that the hope that we have in our
lives, in our lives as young children, our lives
as young adults, our lives as young parents or
senior citizens, is that when God comes to us,
He comes to us Himself and goes to the place
of sorrow Himself and suffers. that we might
have consolation. He's not distant from it, he's
not divorced from it, he's not so far away as
a God distant, but he comes to the very place
of sorrow that we might know his consolation.
Which, let me end with this, is to say, I bet,
I bet there are people that went to Simeon and
to Anna. They're at the temple and Anna's this
teacher, right? And Simeon, obviously, is teaching
too. He's got this prayer that we remember as
the Nunc de Midas, which is prayed, by the way,
every evening in complying prayer in many traditions.
Some of you use the Book of Common Prayer. That's
at the end of every day. So he's still teaching
us, which is awesome. But I bet as they were
there at the temple, no doubt people would come
to them, as some of you have come to me and say,
why does God allow such pain and sorrow in our
lives? Right? I mean, who doesn't ask that question
in that time? And my guess is what they would
have said is actually the same answer that I
often get, which is I don't really know. I mean,
the Bible doesn't exactly tell us why you experience
the particular sorrows that you experience, why
we wait so long for consolation. Maybe Simeon
and Anna met them and said, I know that I know
the long waiting and it was painful You know,
they knew that so they could they could talk
to people about their own experience, but they
probably don't know the exact answers But on
this side of the cross what we can say is That
Christianity and Jesus unlike any other good
news that you will have on offer says God knows
it God knows what you're going through God knows
your long desire for consolation and for peace
and he goes into the midst of a broken world
and he goes through the cross and through the
empty tomb to say it is not the end of the story.
Consolation will come. His light will shine into
the darkness of the world. His peace will come
into this messed up world. This is the good news
of the gospel. that Jesus meets the long waiting,
the desiring for consolation, the ones who want
peace. And then Jesus says, it's on offer. Give
my life for you that you might have life. That's
the good news of Christianity. That's the good
news of our season that Jesus knows our long
waiting and he comes to bring us his peace. Amen.
Amen. Lord God, thanks for the fathers and mothers
of the faith. Thank you for Simeon and Anna.
Thank you for Mary and Ed. Thank you for Donna
and Gordon. So many others, Lord. Gotta pray
that we would live the long, faithful road. It
is very hard. And it is long and it's waiting.
And we desire your consolation. We desire peace.
And sometimes it feels like we keep waiting,
God. But Lord, more than anything, we say thank
you for the Lord Jesus, not only whose mother
was pierced with sorrow, but you, Lord Jesus,
yourself were pierced, stricken, smitten, and
afflicted for us. We bless you, Lord, that you
not remain a distant God, but you come to us
in sorrow that we might know your peace. In your
name we pray. Amen.