Simeon’s Encounter

Waiting
The old man sat in the morning sun letting its radiant warmth soak out the chill in his tired bones. He had left the house in the cool pre-dawn hours and even the long climb up the temple mount had not been enough to warm his blood. He had dressed warmly, but even now, after sitting in the sun of the temple courts for more than an hour he still had not warmed up. It seemed it took so much longer to overcome a chill these days. Of course, it seemed everything took much longer these days than it used to, but then he was approaching his 90th year and he was not as young as he used to be.
He reflected on how odd life was. He remembered how as a child and as a young man it had seemed that time crawled at a snail’s pace. He remembered how he had looked forward to his Bar Mitzvah, longing for the day when he would turn 13 and be considered a man. He had thought it would never happen. But then one day it did happen. Then he had begun looking forward to his wedding day, and after that to the birth of his first child, and after that... The sun had been his enemy in those days. It was always so slow in it’s rising and falling. 
But then one day the sun had come up and before he had time to think, it was sinking low in the west again. And then one day he woke up and his children were grown and his wife was an old woman, and he was once again cursing the sun. But now he was angry because it had somehow accelerated its daily visits, and seemed to be taking away his life one sunset at a time. 
He adjusted himself on the stone bench to ease the pressure on that irritating and ever-present crick in his back, and continued to reflect on how things had changed. There he had been speeding through life, watching his children bear children, watching his dear wife get sick and die, watching the sun in its daily race across the sky, thinking how quickly it would all be over and how he himself would soon die and be buried with his fathers. He thought about how that day had seemed to be advancing like a Roman chariot racing down the street, bearing down on him with incredible and deadly speed. But then, there had been a visitor with a message. It was a heavenly visitor with a message just for him. 
“Simeon,” the angel had said, “Simeon, God has seen your devotion to Him. He has heard your daily prayers. He has placed his Holy Spirit upon you. And now, He wants you to know that you will not die, before you have seen His Messiah.” 
As quickly as he had come, the heavenly visitor was gone, but his message had changed Simeon forever. 
At that moment everything had gone into slow motion again, like a dream. He found himself once again playing the waiting game. And now here he was years later, in the latter days of his eighth decade, having outlived his wife, two of his children and most of his friends, with a body that seemed to be dying one part at a time – still waiting. And once again the sun seemed to take it’s own sweet time about coming up and setting each day. 
His body longed for the rest of the ages, but his spirit longed for the day when with his own eyes he would see Messiah. 
“You shall not die”, the angel had said. A wry smile crept across his lips as he pondered the angels’ words. 
“Should the Lord tarry much longer,” he thought to himself, “and my body continue to fail, I shall soon be a mere skeleton walking the streets of Jerusalem.” 
He chuckled as he imagined horses shying and mothers pulling their frightened children out of the way as Simeon the Walking Corpse hobbled his way to the temple each day.
He had spent much time at the temple these past years, watching each face, listening to each voice, hoping that that perhaps this one or that one would be the promised one of God. One day melted into another as he waited and watched, knowing that with that glimpse of the Anointed One would come his release – release from the cares and the aches and pains of this world, and release into the everlasting arms of God. He waited with a prayer upon his lips and a song in his heart, to be sure, but still there was the waiting. And it was getting old, and he wasn’t getting any younger. 
But then this morning as he had lain awake in his bed in the chill pre-dawn hours, the Spirit had spoken again – not a physical presence this time, but simply a nudge in his spirit. And he knew. He knew with a deep abiding peaceful assurance, that today would be the day. Today his old eyes would look upon Messiah. Today he would see his redemption. And now as he sat, with eyes closed, resting in the sun, his spirit was alert and his heart was light. He basked in the warmth of the sun and in the glow of his own joy, feeling almost young again, reliving the delight of youthful anticipation. 
Then suddenly he felt a rush of something in his spirit, and his eyes snapped open. Instantly his vision cleared and his gaze riveted upon a young couple making their way across the temple courts – a young couple bearing a newborn infant. 
“But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son…”  Galatians 4:4

Seeing
The young couple stopped and stared as the old man crossed the stone pavement toward them. They stood stunned by the incongruity of the picture before them. The old man appeared from his bent form and wrinkled countenance to be no less than 90 years old, and yet the speed with which he walked toward them, made him appear much younger.  
He moved swiftly but unsteadily with his hands outstretched toward them, making Mary think of a toddler chasing a butterfly. As he drew closer they noticed his eyes. The sharp and alert brown eyes seemed out of place among the countless furrows of his aged face. And they seemed to sparkle with greater intensity with each step he took. 
Reaching them, Simeon stopped and looked intently into the face of the young husband. He peered deep into the younger man’s eyes, squinting almost as if he was trying to read some hidden words there. The younger man, feeling a bit protective of his young family, asked abruptly, “Sir, do we know you?” 
Hearing the voice, the old man now cocked his head, as if straining to catch some distant sound upon his ear, and continued to search the young man’s face. 
Presently Simeon inquired, “What is your name, my son?” 
Glancing at his wife, Mary, the young man said, “I am Joseph, from Nazareth”. 
At this the old man’s face broke into a grin displaying an uneven row of ancient teeth. “Joseph, the favored son and deliverer of Israel!” he exclaimed.
Joseph looked a bit confused for a moment, then exchanging another questioning glance with his wife, he said, “Sir, whom do you seek?”
A look of disappointment crossed Simeon’s face. Could he have been mistaken? And yet the pull in his spirit toward this couple had been so strong. He glanced from the man to his wife, and then spoke in a voice that was little more than a whisper but full of intensity, “I seek the Christ, the Messiah of God.” 
At this Mary’s face brightened and she gave a reassuring nod to Joseph. Then she smiled a shy smile and looking down at the bundle in her arms began to carefully unwrap the swaddling blankets. Pulling back the soft cloth she revealed a tiny pink face beset with two dark and glimmering eyes. 
Simeon watched all this with wonderment, not quite comprehending what was happening. But then just as the infant’s face appeared, he caught his breath. With a sudden shock of realization he stood gaping as the baby peered out at him from his cozy nest. 
For a long moment he just stood there looking into the face of the child. 
A child! In all his years of looking for the Messiah, Simeon had never thought of the Anointed One as a child. To be sure the prophets had spoken of the birth of Messiah, even to the point of naming the city in which he would be born – Bethlehem. But Simeon had never really thought about the promised deliverer of Israel as a baby. He imagined a regal looking man, tall of stature, with an air of authority, striding into the temple courts, shouting orders, striking down those who opposed him, especially the Roman dogs who enslaved his people. But now here before him was this pink face, with glittering eyes, and haloed with a shock of black hair. And this… this tiny helpless infant was God’s Christ? His mind denied it, but in his spirit he knew it was true. He was looking with his own eyes upon the Savior of Israel.
Then with tremulous voice and halting words he asked, “What is… what is the name of the child?” 
Joseph replied, “We… I was told that the child will be called Emmanuel…” He paused momentarily, not quite sure how to continue – whether to give details of his angelic visitation or not. How much should he reveal to this odd acting stranger?
But before he could speak again, Simeon repeated the name aloud, more to himself than to anyone else. 
“Emmanuel. Isaiah, the prophet, he said ‘the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Emmanuel.’”
Emmanuel, Hebrew for “God with us.” 
Once again Simeon’s mouth dropped open and he gasped as the true meaning of that name sunk into his consciousness. God with us. Not only was this little babe in arms the Messiah, but this child was God himself, come to earth. 
Tears coursed down Simeon’s weathered cheeks as the enormity of the truth dawned in his soul. Could it be that somehow Yahweh, the Creator, the I AM, the Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had managed to wrap His infinity in this tiny bit of human flesh, and was at this very moment right here before him held in the arms of a young Galilean girl? 
At that moment, the infant’s tiny hand popped from the blanket, and grasped at a lock of his mother’s long dark hair. Simeon smiled and continued to weep as he looked at that hand. So soft, tiny and fragile it was. Almost involuntarily he reached out a gnarled hand and touched the new little fingers. 
Could this be the hand of the one who formed the earth, the sun, moon and stars? As if in response to Simeon’s thoughts, the pink fingers released the lock of hair and grasped at the old man’s bony index finger. He felt the gentle but firm grip and wondered, could these be the fingers that traced the river valleys and dug the seas? Could this be the hand that fashioned Father Adam from the dust? 
Looking into the shining eyes, Simeon continued to wonder. “Could these be the eyes that looked upon the very first sunrise, that saw the flood of Noah, that watched David watch his sheep, that saw me as I was formed in my mother’s womb? Could these tiny ears be the ones that heard the cry of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, that heard the prayers of Hannah and Daniel and Esther?”
At that moment something fluttered at Simeon’s feet. Looking down he realized for the first time that there was a simple wooden cage sitting on the stones beside Joseph. Inside the cage were two young doves, the poor couple’s humble sacrifice for the redemption of their firstborn son. 
“Of course, that is why you are here at the temple,” he said to the couple. “To present the boy before the Lord in the temple.”* 
In that moment Simeon was stuck by the incongruity of the situation. Here was God’s Anointed One, God Himself in human form, the very one who had given the law to Moses on Mount Sinai, now coming under the regulation of that same law. 
The old man shook his head as if to clear out the conflicting thoughts. It had never occurred to him that God’s Chosen One would be himself subject to the natural laws of this world, and even to the ceremonial laws given to Moses. That God should stoop so low in order to redeem His people was almost more than Simeon’s saturated mind could take.  
By this time, Joseph had found his voice again, and continued with his answer to Simeon’s question. “I… I was told… by… by an angel, that we were to call the child Yeshua.”
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law... Galatians 4:4

Perceiving    
“Yeshua!” 
Simeon stood for a long moment and allowed that name to penetrate his swirling mind. Yeshua – “Jesus” to the Greeks. The name was not an uncommon one. After all it was the same as that of Moses’ successor who led the children of Israel into the promised land, and for that reason many Jewish parents named their boys Yeshua. However, the meaning of the name — Yahweh, God is Salvation — seemed somehow incongruent with the tiny face now peering out at him. 
How could this tiny, helpless baby be the deliverer, the redeemer of Israel? How could this little infant be the one who would set all of Israel free from her slavery to Rome? And how could the Creator of all the world be right here before him in human form? How could God stoop to become man? 
Suddenly, yet another concept entered Simeon’s fevered mind, but this thought seemed to bring clarity and resolution to all the rest. All at once the other ideas seemed to stop their frantic dance in his head and stood at attention for this one new thought: If God’s Anointed One, the Redeemer of Israel, were to reclaim God’s people and set up the kind of world-wide kingdom spoken of by the prophets, he would have to be God. For nothing less than the power of God himself would be required to not only free Israel from her slavery, but to also bring about the kind of heart transformation in individuals the prophets foretold.
His mind went to the passage in Ezekiel he had learned as a boy: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees…” Only God himself could make a promise like that, and only God himself could fulfill it.
As he looked at the child in Mary’s arms, Simeon tried to look ahead down through the pages of the book of this little one’s life. He wondered how Jesus would be raised by this poor and unassuming young couple? He pictured him playing with the children of his village, and imagined him being taught the scriptures along with the other boys. He wondered how and when Jesus would make his ascent to power, just how he would go about the job of redeeming Israel and setting up his kingdom. But suddenly a shadow passed over the pretty picture in his mind’s eye. Simeon’s face clouded as well, as the Spirit brought to mind the words of Isaiah the prophet — words he had puzzled over many times. For the prophet had spoken of God’s Anointed and said that He would be despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Isaiah had said the Lord’s servant would be pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquities, that all sin would be laid on him. 
At that moment Simeon saw with clarity the Lord’s plan for little Jesus. He understood that His salvation was to be not merely physical, but a spiritual and eternal deliverance He knew in that moment that Jesus did not come to save Israel from her slavery to Rome, but from her slavery to sin. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Simeon understood that God’s Messiah did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a sacrifice for sin. 
The words of Isaiah, “he was led like a lamb to the slaughter” came to mind, and he pictured Mary holding not a child, but a lamb — a Passover lamb. Tears flowed down his cheeks once again as the image came into focus. Just as the blood of the Passover lamb had purchased Israel’s freedom from Egypt, so the blood of Jesus would be shed to free His people. In that moment his heart was so full of love for this beautiful baby, his humble parents, and for God, that he felt it would burst.
Almost without thinking he extended his arms toward Mary and said through his tears, “I wish to hold him.” 
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Galatians 4:4-5
 
Embracing
Without hesitation Mary carefully handed the squirming bundle to the waiting arms of the old man, then locked her hands tightly around her husband’s strong arm. 
Simeon gingerly accepted the baby, surprised at how light he was. Somehow he expected the Son of God to be heavier. It had been some years since he had held a newborn, but it all came back to him, and he cradled the Christ child in a strong but tender embrace. Lifting the baby up toward his face he planted a kiss on the little one’s soft brow, showering him with a fresh sprinkling of tears in the process. 
Then taking one more look into the innocent yet wise eyes of the child, Simeon turned his own eyes toward the heavens and spoke in a husky voice, “Sovereign Lord I praise your holy Name, for your right hand and your holy arm have worked salvation for you. Now, God, as you have promised me, you can release me, and I will die in peace, because with my own eyes I have seen your salvation, which you have sent for all people everywhere to see. This child is a light to show God to the nations of the earth, and he brings praise and honor and glory to Your people Israel.” 
Joseph and Mary listened with wide-eyed amazement as the old man spoke. But if they were astonished by these words, they were utterly dismayed by what he said next.
Simeon now turned his eyes upon the young couple and spoke a blessing over Joseph. He called upon God to bless and protect the young father, and to make him a good provider for his family and a vigilant guardian for the child. 
Then turning his gaze upon Mary, Simeon also pronounced a blessing upon her. Mary smiled shyly as the old man spoke. But the smile turned to a look of bewildered distress as Simeon completed his blessing.
Looking deep into the girl’s eyes Simeon said, “Daughter, your son will be rejected by many in Israel, and it will result in their downfall. However, to others he will bring great joy and resurrection to new life. And through him the secret thoughts and intents of many will be revealed.” 
He paused momentarily, as though listening to hear something being said to him. Then with a melancholy look he said tenderly, “And you will feel as though your own soul has been pierced with a sword.” 
Mary’s knees felt weak at the impact of Simeon’s words. She clung to Joseph’s arm even tighter, and was about to ask what he meant by such a statement, when suddenly their little foursome was joined by an elderly woman, who came up to them fairly gushing words of praise to God, and reaching out eager hands to touch the baby. 
Simeon knew Anna well. He had spoken to her many times in the temple courts over the years and introductions were made all around. Of course, Anna had to take her turn at holding the baby, and there were many words of praise spoken by that little knot of people on the plaza. Many passersby stopped to see what was happening and everyone was told the joyous news. Finally, however, they said their goodbyes and Joseph picked up the cage of doves and with Mary once again holding Jesus, they walked toward the temple to complete the sacrifice. 
Watching them go, Simeon’s heart was light, and if he could have he would have skipped back down the hill to his house. He looked down at his gnarled hands, and recalled how good it felt to embrace that little body so full of life. 
“How extraordinary!” he mused, “To hold the one who holds the world.”
As he made his way home in the early afternoon sunlight, Simeon looked up, letting the sun’s rays hit him full in the face. Suddenly he realized that it no longer mattered to him whether the sun moved quickly or slowly. The sun was simply there, providing light and warmth to be enjoyed and used while it shone. After all, he had seen and embraced the Son, so he was ready to sleep in death when the Lord willed. However, for the same reason he now had a reason to live. He would live every day he had left telling everyone he met of his encounter with the Messiah. And he would urge each one to embrace the Son of God and live. This was his mission and his purpose for living and he must be about it while the sun was in the sky.
A merchant stood in the doorway of his shop as Simeon approached. “Pardon me,” said Simeon to the man, “Have you heard what happened today at the temple? I saw the Messiah! I held him in my arms! If you hurry you can hold him too.”
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Galatians 4:4-7
 

Written by Ron Burtz for a Christmas sermon series in 1999 and revised in 2008, 2015 and 2025. 
*According to Mosaic law, all first born boys were to be redeemed at the temple through the offering of a sacrifice. Luke’s gospel states that this was done for Jesus after Mary’s ritual purification was completed after giving birth. This was a period of 40 days. Since Bethlehem is only five miles from Jerusalem, this would have been a fairly short journey for Mary and Joseph who were still living in Bethlehem at this time.