for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 

(Luke 2:30-31)

A couple of weeks ago I was in Lanzarote. It’s a volcanic island and usually the mountains are black in colour because volcanic soil isn’t particularly fertile. This year they were green - so much so that the tour guide we had one day couldn’t stop talking about how she’d lived on the island for thirty years and had never seen the mountains that colour. The week before we were there Lanzarote had had some of its heaviest rainfall and even in the most apparently barren soil there are seeds that wait for the rain.

Waiting. That’s what Simeon had been doing all his life. Waiting for a sign. Holding onto a promise that he would see the Messiah. How many years must have passed for this man? How much between time must there have been after he became convinced that he would see Christ and it actually happening here in the Temple? Was he of a similar age to Anna? If so the chances are that neither of them would live to see the outworking of God’s promise in Christ’s teaching, death and resurrection. But that didn’t matter. Now Simeon could depart this life in peace knowing that God’s kingdom had drawn near. So could Anna but not without a warning that things weren’t going to suddenly get easier.

Why does Luke include this story in his gospel? It’s not in Matthew or Mark. To the best of my knowledge it doesn’t appear in any of the non-canonical gospels so why does Luke think it so important? A couple of things I think. First off Luke was probably writing around about 80 AD - about 55 years after the Resurrection. The first generation of Christians were passing away. The earliest Christians like Paul had believed that the second coming was imminent - and that would remain a firm belief among some Christians right up to the present day - but there must have been some Christians who were thinking “Come on! It’s time already.”

Luke is pointing to Simeon’s trust in waiting to see the Messiah, to see this child of promise. He’s saying that the Kingdom of God has come and that while his readers may not live to see its full fruition, to see Christ’s return, they can hold onto hope for the future as Simeon did. For the promise of God is fulfilled in this child: it’s only going to be matter of time before the world comes right as God’s kingdom. But first there would be difficult times as Anna the prophetess says. Between times.

Let’s look where this happens. It’s in the Temple in Jerusalem. When Luke is writing that’s gone, reduced to rubble by the Romans. Tensions are rife between Jews and Jewish followers of Jesus, because Christians had stood aside from the war and were now allowed to live in Jerusalem while Jews weren’t. Luke is writing to both sides here. He’s saying, “Look, God’s promise to the people of Israel hasn’t been voided by this destruction: it’s been expanded and flowered. This child of promise Simeon and Anna encounter is to be a light not just for the Jews but for all people”.

We’re now 2000 years on. That’s a lot of between time. But like Simeon we have seen with the eyes of faith, that same child of promise. We cleave to the hope that God’s kingdom is close and that the world will one day come right and humanity will live as we are meant to live - as children of God, loving one another and casting aside hatred, greed and the lust for power.

Sure it may not seem that way right now. We have a senior advisor in the White House that says that what really matters in this world is power - not justice, not righteousness - and calls empathy ‘toxic’. We have attempts to impose belief by law and force, using a naive and simplistic abuse of scripture to validate a version of Christ that bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Son of God who taught us that the most important thing we can do in this world is love God by loving our neighbour.

That is what we are called to do. That is how we are called to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what Christians down the centuries have been called to do. How do you think Christianity caught on the first place? How do you think it survived through those first few hard centuries when folk had to make hard decisions about what they could eat, what festivals they could attend or whether they could go to their father’s funeral? Here’s a thing. Even the most critical pagan writers of the time had to grudgingly report that Christians displayed generosity, kindness, forgiveness and compassion to a remarkable degree. 

And that they held onto hope, even when their lives were on the line. They held onto the hope that Simeon saw. In what? A child. A baby. A tiny scrap of humanity held and loved by parents too poor to offer anything other than a pigeon at this ritual they’re observing. So small. So seemingly unimportant. Not an emperor or a king; not a warrior or a mythic hero. A child in whom Simeon saw something wonderful. A light for all people.

We are people of the between times. But like Simeon we are called to bear witness to a light for all peoples. We are called to bear witness to God’s promise that one day the world will come right and humanity will live as brothers and sisters, casting aside hatred greed and the lust for power and the world will know the peace that is God’s kingdom. Until then, whether we live to see that or not, we are called to live as if it has already happened as Simeon did. We are called to be seeds that wait for the rain.

Father grant us the trust of Simeon. That however far the world may drift from the love your Son taught we may hold onto the hope that your kingdom may come and live accordingly

Preached at Annan Old Parish Church

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