Howdy.
Well, some years ago, I had told my sister that I knew what it was that I wanted for Christmas one year.
Now, you've got to remember, I'm a child of the 80s.
Born in 1980, I avoided the 70s by that much.
And it was one of those things where in my childhood, I remember being in the theaters and seeing Transformers, the movie, the original.
Not like all these weird, what Michael Bay things going on here.
But rather, I remember this as a child and it was so hard to get a hold of a copy of that movie.
And I found out that apparently it was out on something called DVD.
And so I asked if she'd be able to get a hold of it.
And I saw that there were copies you could get online for about 30, 40 bucks.
And I'm thinking, okay, this would be a great present. I'm really grateful for this.
But when Christmas came and she gave it to me and I realized it was still in the original wrapping.
And I'm thinking, wait, but the used copies are 30, 40 bucks, but this is brand new.
And then I checked and realized she had spent the full $100 to buy me the brand new version.
And I was just, this was just too much for me. Oh my goodness.
And I was like, you didn't have to do this.
And she was like, I am not buying you something used for Christmas.
And I was like, okay, I got it. I got it.
So then when I found out that this last Christmas, she, I had asked her if she'd buy me a nice shirt
because I'm a single guy and I have no idea how to dress myself.
And so she went and bought me this really nice Lulu lemon polo shirt.
And I'm like, what in the world?
And I found out how much it was and I'm like, that's for one shirt?
And wow. So, but I'm like, this is a really nice shirt.
So I went and I found two more that were like 20 bucks each. They were used, but the same size, same style and everything.
And I was just like, what happens if I tell my sister I bought used shirts?
I don't even know.
So, but fortunately we managed to get through the drama of that stigma.
And that's one of the things to realize is that oftentimes we may have these ideas in our minds
that we have a stigma attached to it.
It's not that the thing may be good or bad, but rather is something about it,
maybe just leaves a weird taste in our mouth.
But even more than that, it's realized that the way that we view things also determines how we may treat it as well.
And before we really get into the heart of this particular passage,
I really want to make sure you know the setting and having to understand how many stigmas are being overcome in the midst of what's happening here.
You may be wondering what was going on as far as the idea of being able to get through the purification and all of this
and wondering what in the world did Mary do that required this big ceremony?
Well, the thing with having a child in those days, you have to remember,
people did not have the same type of sterilization techniques and the way of being able to wash things and take care of it almost instantaneously.
Back then, you just had to make sure that if there was something connected to bodily functions,
you just tried to keep it away from people and everything else for a while,
or you had to douse it in a bunch of water for a long time.
Well, with this is to realize that that was a part of the concern when someone had had a child.
So just making sure that all the things were being maintained for cleanliness in the like.
It's not like women were bad for having a child.
But what was interesting though is that while you were supposed to maintain seven days after having the child,
but then another 33 days before you could go into the temple, it was twice as long as she had had a daughter.
And I'm pretty sure that we at this point in life have discovered that having a boy or having a girl
does not magically make childbirth more or less difficult to deal with,
as much as realizing that at that time when God had given the laws to these people,
it was speaking to a society and a culture that thought that they needed to deal not just with the original sin of human beings,
but also the idea that Eve was the first one who ate the fruit in the garden.
The idea that not only were they purifying for the woman who had just given birth,
but also purifying for the future woman who would be giving birth.
The idea that all of this was really speaking to the way that the stigmas in their mind may have stood out
of what was required in the presence of God.
But even more than that is to realize what Mary and Joseph were coming into,
being in this big city, and to be able to realize that they came from Nazareth.
And the idea of saying, we realize later, people would say, can anything good come from Nazareth?
It's almost like somebody in the big city wondering if anything good could come out of Lubbock,
or Lubbock and Nacodotius, or something like that.
Or for some people, as I've discovered, whether they may wonder if anything good could come out of Texas A&M.
I'd like to say yes, yes there can.
But not being very wealthy, because remember, this is kind of out of the way for people.
And even more than that, to realize what we have from Simeon and Anna,
is to realize that Simeon had been there for many, many years,
and he goes around telling people that he knew he was going to see the Messiah before he dies.
How often are we just dismissive when someone has gotten older,
and we wonder whether or not what they have to say is as relevant for people today,
instead of realizing that maybe they are the ones who are taking the time to listen.
Because how much in our world today are we too busy trying to make sure we have kept up with the Joneses,
or made sure that we have kept up with every group and club and sport in the world,
and not taken the time just to listen to what God may be saying,
or even for Anna, who wasn't willing or wasn't able to go forth and to be remarried,
but spent her time serving God in his temple.
To realize that the people that may have had the most stigma attached to them
were the ones who were coming forth to reveal who this Christ child truly was.
But the thing is that we don't always see what God sees.
What God sees that we don't, maybe the very thing that makes all the difference.
Because there they are coming in with a child in their arms, and let's be honest,
you don't know what a child is going to become someday later on in life.
And frankly, I don't even know how y'all can tell the difference between babies the first few days.
Oh my goodness, they all look the same.
I mean, I get mothers are supposed to know the difference and everything like that,
but it's like I can tell, pudgy or not so pudgy, that's all that I got out of that.
But, you know, after a little while is, is then you start to realize though that you don't know what the future will hold.
You don't know if this is a future ballerina or someone who's going to be helping out at the local Starbucks.
You don't know if this is someone who's going to be an artist or an engineer.
You don't know if they want to work with their hands or they want to work with the words of their mouths.
But rather is to realize that the future, it's so unknown.
And yet at that point, with nothing obvious there,
is that God is still proclaiming what he is going to do through this young child.
That's the thing about this is that God's plans for us.
They may very well take quite some time to be revealed.
Because if we realize this is that Jesus doesn't end up starting his earthly ministry until he's in his 30s.
And with that is to realize that it had already been revealed that he was meant to do so much.
But it takes that long for it to come to realization.
And while we may be thinking, well, you know, someone in their 30s, that's still pretty young.
But the point being is how long to wait, even when you know that something is meant in your future.
That is one of the things that can be hard about the life that we are living in Christ.
Is that when we know that God is moving us and directing our paths,
is that we may very well have to wait quite some time to understand how God is leading us the way we know that he is placed on our hearts.
But that doesn't mean that we are not already that person that God is calling and leading blessing.
Because as much as we may know that Jesus was anointed in the Jordan River many years later,
that doesn't mean that he was not already the Messiah.
We discover that just because we have not had an opportunity to see what is meant to be,
that doesn't mean that we ourselves are not already being led and called and changed by God in the meantime.
How often is it that we are still trying to make it?
We're still trying to get somewhere.
How often is it that many people feel that they have not arrived?
How many people have not arrived where they feel that they are supposed to be?
The difficulties that destiny does not always reveal itself in our timing.
It turns out Colonel Harlan Sanders, who left school in seventh grade in his forties, was running a small gas station
and started a restaurant in an apartment next door, didn't open his first KFC until he was 62.
Julia Child didn't even know how to cook when she left college, I know the feeling,
and didn't write her first cookbook until she was 50.
Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't begin the Little House series until her sixties.
Ray Kroc was a traveling salesman for much of his career selling paper cups and milkshake machines
before he teamed up with the McDonald brothers in his fifties and started the first McDonald's.
We discovered that Leo Goodwin Sr. was well into his fifties before he thought,
you know, I think I could start a low-cost insurance that became the government employee insurance company,
otherwise known as GEICO.
I think the GEICO came later.
Duncan Hines did not actually start writing about culinary experiences until their fifties.
We realized that Sam Walton didn't start his first Walmart until 44,
and Stan Lee didn't create the Fantastic Four until his forties,
let alone Spider-Man, Black Panther, the X-Men, and others,
or even realizing that Gladys Burl didn't run her first marathon until she was 86.
There's still room for many of you.
Joseph A. Campbell didn't start his first canned goods until 52.
Jarrah Tolkin didn't publish the Hobbit to Louis 45, let alone the Lord of the Rings in his fifties.
And then to realize that John Pemberton, after having a saber wound,
struggling with heroin addiction, was looking for a pain reliever that was not addictive
and stumbled upon the formula for Coca-Cola when he was 55.
The thing is, is that the timing in our lives, it's something that we may not discover for quite some time.
Many people need time to discover their calling.
We spend so much time making sure we know how many people are famous and wealthy before they were 30
to realize that those are the flukes of circumstance,
and that we are meant to discover life and destiny and purpose in a timing that may be all our own.
But also even more than that is what about the times when we wonder, maybe we made a misstep.
Did we make a choice or decision, something that somehow delayed what we were meant to do,
or meant to be?
Do we wonder if somehow we misdirected God's paths?
Do we wonder if anything in our life may be wasted?
The thing is, is that we know that we are sinful and we are broken and we don't make every right decision.
Is anything truly wasted in life?
And so asking that question, do we waste our potential, is to realize how many of Jesus' own disciples fled at the crucifixion.
How many of them were running away when they realized that their Messiah, their rabbi was being arrested.
How many of them were not even ready to admit of who they were meant to be, and even more than that, his own family,
not even wanting him to go forth and to do the ministry that he was meant to do.
What is it whenever the ones who are closest to us aren't even sure that they want to even support or encourage,
or maybe when we aren't ready to support and encourage the ones that are closest to us.
And so we realize later that maybe we weren't quite ready to see what God had in store.
But even knowing that, the fact that this Jesus was appointed for the fall and rising of many in Jerusalem,
and that even his own mother would be struck to the core at seeing what would happen to her son,
is to realize that when his resurrection came to be, is to see that their plans for him, their plans for themselves,
they were not truly wasted.
Is that God was able to take what had happened, and even the fact that they fled or turned their back,
and to use that to glorify Christ Jesus.
Even for the times when we realize that we have made missteps,
is that that does not mean that God is now done with us.
And it does not mean that we have now thwarted his future plans.
And it does not mean that we no longer have a place in what God is doing.
And that may be hard because it's easy for our minds to get stuck in the past,
and we're looking at a future that we wished we had,
but to realize that even in the midst of all of this,
that God is still welcoming us back, even each day, with every misstep.
Because that's the thing about this is that while we may wonder about whether or not we have wasted something,
God's plans are never wasted.
And so when we realize that as God has destined us,
is that that does not mean he has not taken into consideration our humanity,
and the fact that we needed a Savior in the first place.
And so when God sees us,
he does not see us as whether we have or have not somehow managed to do everything he wanted of us correctly,
but rather he sees us as his heirs.
And that's the thing about being the heirs of the King.
Because when grace sees us as God's heirs,
it means that we also have a future inheritance that no one else can take away.
Because as much as we may think of or know how often it is that those who are in power
may stumble and make mistakes or even their future heirs may do the same.
We know that that doesn't change their place,
or the fact that there is much that is still expected.
We may not even be willing to see it ourselves yet.
Maybe you're still not even sure you want to have something that you're meant to live into.
Leave me alone. Let me just live my life.
But there is a God who's bigger even than the times when you're not ready.
Because with that is that even when Simeon saw what others couldn't,
God reveals what even we can't see in ourselves.
So much of what we know, so much of what we believe.
So much of what we think is just this much of what's happening.
And to realize that what God is doing is going to go way beyond even what we may have imagined.
So we may realize our sins, but we must also give that to God.
Because in reality is that it is not the efforts that we make
that determine what God is going to do.
Rather, it's God's grace that takes even the worst and turns it into what is beautiful.
So no more do we need to spend our time wondering,
am I truly worthy of being a part of God's plan?
None of us are, but that's not what makes us a part of God's plan.
It is only truly by grace.
And then realizing now that you are still a part of it, even now being forgiven, being loved,
is that now you get to try again.
And you get to discover even more of what may be in front of you.
So whatever you may think is keeping you from discovering that in your own life,
may God show you truly his forgiveness, his mercy to you,
that you truly have a part, no matter what anybody else may think of your potential.
Thanks be to God.