The non-Jewish world entered Matthew’s Christmas story through the Magi, who followed the star from the east. All of us non-Jews or Gentiles enter Luke’s Christmas story in Simeon’s song.
Simeon’s song reminds us what we so easily forget: Jesus came as Messiah first of all to his own people, the Jews. It is their waiting, their expectation and their longing that we echo as we celebrate this Advent season.
The apostle Paul spoke eloquently of what Simeon sings about when Paul addresses all Gentiles in these words
But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.
The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.
Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. (Eph. 2:12-16, The Message)
This has been the most amazing day of my life!
Now that it’s over, I’m glad you’re here to tell you about it because I doubt I’ll be going to sleep anytime soon. It began like any other day, waking up too early, as usual, thanks to the angry shouts of my neighbors and the braying of their recalcitrant donkey. I washed, ate a little, and began my morning prayers, the same routine with which I began a thousand other days.
That’s the adventure of being alive, isn’t it? Every day seems like every other until—when we least expect it—the Holy One to whom we pray day in and day out becomes more present than we had ever dared imagine.
During my prayers, God’s Spirit spoke to me. I know it sounds strange to your ears, but this has happened to me before. Prophecy has been silent so long in Israel it took me a very long time to acknowledge, even to myself, that God spoke to me.
The prophet Joel tells us that one day God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh. When that day comes, every child of God can intimately know God through his Spirit. No more approaching God by keeping at a safe distance, as we do now in the temple. At that time, the prophet Jeremiah says, “all will know him, from the least of them to the greatest.” But in God’s wisdom and mercy, for some reason I was chosen to receive a foretaste of those days still to come.
“What is it like?” you ask. At times my heart feels strangely warmed. At other times, I hear the “still small voice” in my soul that Scripture says Elijah heard on the fiery mountainside. When this happens, I get an impression or intuition—just something I KNOW deep in my spirit–and, if action is required, I’ve learned I must follow it.
Like you, I have lived most of my life looking forward to the coming days when the Lord intervenes again on behalf of his people. Even without any scrolls to read on our own, since we were boys you and I have learned and memorized the prophet Isaiah’s words:
Now that it’s over, I’m glad you’re here to tell you about it because I doubt I’ll be going to sleep anytime soon. It began like any other day, waking up too early, as usual, thanks to the angry shouts of my neighbors and the braying of their recalcitrant donkey. I washed, ate a little, and began my morning prayers, the same routine with which I began a thousand other days.
That’s the adventure of being alive, isn’t it? Every day seems like every other until—when we least expect it—the Holy One to whom we pray day in and day out becomes more present than we had ever dared imagine.
During my prayers, God’s Spirit spoke to me. I know it sounds strange to your ears, but this has happened to me before. Prophecy has been silent so long in Israel it took me a very long time to acknowledge, even to myself, that God spoke to me.
The prophet Joel tells us that one day God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh. When that day comes, every child of God can intimately know God through his Spirit. No more approaching God by keeping at a safe distance, as we do now in the temple. At that time, the prophet Jeremiah says, “all will know him, from the least of them to the greatest.” But in God’s wisdom and mercy, for some reason I was chosen to receive a foretaste of those days still to come.
“What is it like?” you ask. At times my heart feels strangely warmed. At other times, I hear the “still small voice” in my soul that Scripture says Elijah heard on the fiery mountainside. When this happens, I get an impression or intuition—just something I KNOW deep in my spirit–and, if action is required, I’ve learned I must follow it.
Like you, I have lived most of my life looking forward to the coming days when the Lord intervenes again on behalf of his people. Even without any scrolls to read on our own, since we were boys you and I have learned and memorized the prophet Isaiah’s words:
How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”
Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices;
together they shout for joy.
When the Lord returns to Zion,
they will see it with their own eyes.
Burst into songs of joy together,
you ruins of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord will lay bare his holy arm
in the sight of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth will see
the salvation of our God. (Isaiah 52:7-10
Some time ago I had the clear impression from the Lord that I was to be that watchman, that I would not die until I could see the Lord’s Anointed who was promised to come and comfort his people.
Your smile betrays you!! Yes, I know it sounds foolish and yes, I am already an old man like you without much time left. But the more I meditated on Isaiah’s words, the more the intuition grew inside me that these words applied to ME—I was the watchman who would announced this great good news!
But I am getting ahead of my story.
As I said, this morning God’s Spirit spoke to me and told me to go to the temple. When these messages come, I’ve learned I must obey. So I hurriedly made my way down the narrow streets and through the jostling crowds. As I walked into the court of the Gentiles and walked along the tables of the moneychangers and sellers with their cages of doves and pigeons, I wondered what to do next.
Why was I here? Who was I to meet? I reasoned that I would not find the consolation of Israel among the Gentiles, and so I walked past the guards and into the court of the women, where only Jews were admitted.
Suddenly I saw them! A man and his wife holding an infant. They had apparently just finished offering the sacrifices for purification, as all Jewish mothers of sons must do. They must be poor, I reasoned, because they offered only two doves, the minimum the law provided for those who could not afford more.
I still can’t explain it, but when I saw them there, my heart leaped for joy!! I felt as I did on my wedding day to my dear Sarah and on the days when Jacob and then Ruth were born.
They had already turned to leave and were walking toward the exit when I approached them. The smile on my face must have looked outlandish; the man eyed me suspiciously and I sensed he took his duty to protect his wife and young son seriously. But the young woman didn’t seem frightened, only quizzical. Only 14 years old and already a mother!
I asked if I might hold the child, and, despite her husband’s severe looks, she gazed into my eyes and then slowly held out the little bundle. I took him into my arms and then—you, who’ve known me for so many years, know I could never be called a poet—words somehow took flight within me:
Your smile betrays you!! Yes, I know it sounds foolish and yes, I am already an old man like you without much time left. But the more I meditated on Isaiah’s words, the more the intuition grew inside me that these words applied to ME—I was the watchman who would announced this great good news!
But I am getting ahead of my story.
As I said, this morning God’s Spirit spoke to me and told me to go to the temple. When these messages come, I’ve learned I must obey. So I hurriedly made my way down the narrow streets and through the jostling crowds. As I walked into the court of the Gentiles and walked along the tables of the moneychangers and sellers with their cages of doves and pigeons, I wondered what to do next.
Why was I here? Who was I to meet? I reasoned that I would not find the consolation of Israel among the Gentiles, and so I walked past the guards and into the court of the women, where only Jews were admitted.
Suddenly I saw them! A man and his wife holding an infant. They had apparently just finished offering the sacrifices for purification, as all Jewish mothers of sons must do. They must be poor, I reasoned, because they offered only two doves, the minimum the law provided for those who could not afford more.
I still can’t explain it, but when I saw them there, my heart leaped for joy!! I felt as I did on my wedding day to my dear Sarah and on the days when Jacob and then Ruth were born.
They had already turned to leave and were walking toward the exit when I approached them. The smile on my face must have looked outlandish; the man eyed me suspiciously and I sensed he took his duty to protect his wife and young son seriously. But the young woman didn’t seem frightened, only quizzical. Only 14 years old and already a mother!
I asked if I might hold the child, and, despite her husband’s severe looks, she gazed into my eyes and then slowly held out the little bundle. I took him into my arms and then—you, who’ve known me for so many years, know I could never be called a poet—words somehow took flight within me:
“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation, (Luke 2:29-30
God be praised! I could now be dismissed as a watchman, for the salvation Isaiah promised—first to our fathers in Babylon but ultimately in the Lord’s Messiah—was here at last.
Even in our times, but even more in times to come, people will have itching ears for every new philosophy, every new road to enlightenment, every new cosmic consciousness. But we Jews are an earthy people and our God is an earthy God. For us, salvation is SEEN and TOUCHED, not simply heard. Salvation is located not in ideas, but in a person, a tiny child with wet diapers that I held in these, my own arms. I don’t know all he will do, but this child will grow up to not simply teach salvation, but to somehow become salvation.
But I was not finished. Other words of Isaiah that I had long pondered now came flowing into my brain: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” (Is. 49:6). And so I went on:
Even in our times, but even more in times to come, people will have itching ears for every new philosophy, every new road to enlightenment, every new cosmic consciousness. But we Jews are an earthy people and our God is an earthy God. For us, salvation is SEEN and TOUCHED, not simply heard. Salvation is located not in ideas, but in a person, a tiny child with wet diapers that I held in these, my own arms. I don’t know all he will do, but this child will grow up to not simply teach salvation, but to somehow become salvation.
But I was not finished. Other words of Isaiah that I had long pondered now came flowing into my brain: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” (Is. 49:6). And so I went on:
which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel.” (Luke 2:31-32
In that moment, I realized with an amazing clarity that this chosen Child would do far more than simply restore our fortunes as God’s chosen people. He would be used as Isaiah predicted to carry God’s promised salvation outside the circle of our race to the entire world.
I wish you could have seen their faces!!
I sensed his parents understood what I was saying about God’s destiny for their child—but to hear it from me, a perfect stranger: how flabbergasted they looked! You should have seen the growing astonishment in their eyes when I spoke about their child as a “light for revelation to the Gentiles” as well as our own people, Israel. I’m sure they had never heard that before.
Then the moment was over. I handed the child back to his mother. I told her to expect sorrow, for not all the people would welcome her son. Many would choose for him–and against him–in the years to come.
And that brings me back to tonight and why invited you in when you passed by my door, even though it’s late.
I was there to see God’s salvation in the flesh, a tiny child we have been waiting for all these many generations.
Oh, one other thing—they told me his name: Yeshua, which means “God saves.” Appropriate, don’t you think?
I wish you could have seen their faces!!
I sensed his parents understood what I was saying about God’s destiny for their child—but to hear it from me, a perfect stranger: how flabbergasted they looked! You should have seen the growing astonishment in their eyes when I spoke about their child as a “light for revelation to the Gentiles” as well as our own people, Israel. I’m sure they had never heard that before.
Then the moment was over. I handed the child back to his mother. I told her to expect sorrow, for not all the people would welcome her son. Many would choose for him–and against him–in the years to come.
And that brings me back to tonight and why invited you in when you passed by my door, even though it’s late.
I was there to see God’s salvation in the flesh, a tiny child we have been waiting for all these many generations.
Oh, one other thing—they told me his name: Yeshua, which means “God saves.” Appropriate, don’t you think?
