Simeon-God Appears to Those who Seek Him

Introduction

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival.

Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory - known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning") - holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.

Christianity also offers meaning to suffering. With Christ, we can live with a purpose that transcends our circumstances.

In his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Viktor Frankl reached a similar conclusion after surviving the horrors of a German concentration camp. He observed that those with a higher system of beliefs lived longer and experienced more peace than those whose identities were built on less transcendent concepts like prestige or money. In a death camp – the personification of suffering in many ways – faith is the only possession that can never be taken away.

The point to Frankl’s work and the point of what I want to say is this. We may never suffer the way Frankl did. But we are all on a search for meaning, we all want purpose and significance in our lives.

We live in a world that has no meaning. Life has no meaning. Science has no meaning. Right and wrong have no meaning. All that matters, all that is relevant is what you think, what you want. Your truth.

But life has meaning. Life has purpose. Life has significance, but its ultimate significance is found only in the person of Christ.

Maybe you’re here this morning and you find yourself seeking. You’re here and you think that what you are pursuing, what you are doing will bring you what your soul is most longing for, and I’m here today to say that you won’t. However, if you will look to the manger, look to the cross, look to the savior who has come, you will find eternal life, you will find what your soul longs for.

I. The setting for Simeon’s Appearance.

We can see in the Bible how people show up on the scene. Certainly in Genesis we see the birth, life, and death of the patriarchs. Others we can see how they appear by piecing a few books together. Ruth and 1 Samuel tell us about David’s appearing. Others appear on the scene out of nowhere. Melchizedek is that person as we learn in Hebrews.

And Simeon is no exception. WE don’t have any background to who and where Simeon comes from. All we have is the setting here in Luke 2.

Luke 2:22–24 ESV

And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”

Mary has had the baby. We don’t know if they were still in Bethlehem or had journeyed back home. What we do know is this, this wasn’t the 8th day, as we see in v.21, but rather 40 days according to Leviticus 12:2-8. Regardless, the 40 days have passed and Mary and Joseph and Jesus all show up at the temple to offer the sacrifices to the Lord as required in the passage mentioned in Leviticus 12.

An Exegetical Summary of Luke 1–11 2:22

Presenting a son to the Lord recognized that God claimed the male child for his own [TG]. The presentation was distinct from Mary’s purification and it is the main focus of the sentence [ICC, Lns, NAC, NICNT]. The trip to Jerusalem for the purification provided the occasion for taking Jesus there for presenting him before the Lord at the temple [AB, WBC].

This isn’t abnormal, this isn’t out of the ordinary, this is something that occurred on a fairly regular, or daily basis. Your child is born, and you go and offer the sacrifice. Your child is born and you do your duty under the law.

And yet, this is different. This is abnormal in this particular circumstance. Because as Mary and Joseph are wandering around, are doing the things that need to be done, this man shows up and says, hey can I see the baby.

The setting for Simeon’s appearances and

II. The Situation that led to Simeon’s Appearance.

Again, a man shows up, and wants to hold the baby. I have been around first time mothers, I am married to a lady that was a first time mother, and one thing I know, first time mothers are awfully protective. I don’t know where that changes, at some point you’re like, you want my child, you can have him, take two or 6 of them.

But he shows up and wants to see the baby. And look at what we are told.

Luke 2:25 ESV

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

We saw those words last week, didn’t we?

Luke 1:6 ESV

And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.

This man was faithful, was devout, was sincere and devoted to God. A man who was devoted to his service of the Lord and was waiting for the consolation of Israel.

This term is influenced by references in Isaiah, such as 40:1, 49:13, 51:3, 57:18, 61:2, where they speak of the comforting of God’s people [BECNT, EGT, ICC, NIGTC, TH, WBC]. It concerns the consolation that would result from the coming of the Messiah to establish the messianic age [Arn, BECNT, BNTC, Lns, NAC, NIGTC, WBC]. ‘The consolation of Israel’ was considered by Simeon to be the appearance of the Messiah [NICNT, TNTC]. Rabbis referred to the Messiah as the Comforter [EGT]. The coming of the Messiah would bring consolation after all the sufferings endured by Israel [My]. It refers to God’s promise to rescue Israel from it enemies [TG; NET]. Simeon was waiting to experience the salvation that would come through the Messiah [ICC, NAC, Su]. This describes the Jewish hope that God would restore theocracy to Israel [AB, ICC].

Blight, R. C. (2008). An Exegetical Summary of Luke 1–11 (2nd ed., pp. 96–97). Dallas, TX: SIL International.

In other words, the situation was this. Simeon, in his devotion to God, in his desire to serve God, found himself being promised by God that He would not see death until He had seen this consolation, which we are told is the Lord’s Christ. Remember that Christ means Messiah and is not Jesus’ last name. Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Christ, the anointed one.

And Simeon finds himself seeking, looking for this Messiah. There’s a lot of details we don’t know and see in this story. First, we don’t know that Simeon was an old man. We kind of assume it because of the story of Anna in v.36-38. Anna was older.

Luke 2:37 ESV

and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

And Simeon’s own words kind of make us wonder if he isn’t older when he states

Luke 2:29 ESV

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word;

Again, we don’t know his age, we don’t know how long he had been seeking the Lord, but we do know this. The baby came. Did Simeon go to the temple every day? Did God urge him, speak to him, did he have a hunch that this day was that day? We don’t know, but when his eyes fell upon Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, he knew for sure that this was the One. This was the Messiah.

Luke 2:28–32 ESV

he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

After all these years, after all this time, he has finally found the salvation of Israel. He has finally found what it is that the heart wanted and needed most of all He has found Jesus, the Savior of the world.

Behind Augustine are a succession of desperate searches for fulfillment: excessive pleasures, false religions, philosophy, dissipation and distractions—futilities that left him so weary of himself he could only cry out, “How long, O Lord, how long?” At the very moment when he uttered that cry, circumstances led his eyes to a passage in Romans that showed him he could be freed from sin. Shortly afterward, he was baptized.

Now, a decade since his baptism, after long musing upon the transformation that took place in him when he finally believed, he begins a unique autobiographical and philosophical prayer to God, a book which will become one of the most original and famous works in all of literature, the world’s first psychological “autobiography.” The Confessions will be his testimony of God’s interaction with a soul that has found rest in its Creator.

Heart bursting with the reality of God, he addresses his manuscript directly to the Lord as one long prayer and meditation—a prayer and meditation that will take him five years to complete. He dips his quill and begins, “Great are you, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is your power, and your wisdom is infinite.”

In contrast to God, he muses, what is man? Yet there is a connection between the two. Humans, such a small part of creation and short-lived as they are, still find a need to praise God. In spite of sin, each feels the longing to reach out to his Creator. Why is this? He realizes it is the doing of God. “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.”

https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/incontext/article/augustine/

III. The Significance of Simeon’s Appearance.

The fact that Simeon and Anna are there at the temple, prophesying and greeting the Messiah has several different meanings coming into play. They confirm to Mary and Joseph what the angels have told them, and what they knew from shepherds and so on. They serve as public witnesses to the people of Israel that their Savior has indeed come into the world. And they serve as a reminder to us, to you and I living in the 21st century, far from the world of ancient Israel.

A. We will never find what we truly long for until we find it in Christ.

That’s why I shared the story of Augustine. Augustine spent his life pursuing worldly pleasures and lusts until he found Christ. That’s why he was able to look back and say our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him.

You won’t find the peace and hope and love and joy that you want outside of a relationship with Christ. I read a week or so ago a column from Michael Brown reminding Christians that President Trump is not their Messiah. And he said he wrote it because he’s reading so many who are writing that all is lost if Biden gets in office.

Your salvation won’t be found in a covid vaccine. Lock down, shut down, we’re on our way to a vaccine. It’s coming. And yet, we live to 100 and die without Christ? What have we gained?

Nor your money. Paul told Timothy

1 Timothy 6:17 ESV

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

That’s why Jesus said

Matthew 11:28–30 ESV

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

John 4:10 ESV

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

This is the story of the Gospel, the story of Christmas.

Downhere sang that song.

Follow the star to a place unexpected Would you believe after all we've projected A child in a manger? Lowly and small, the weakest of all Unlikeliest hero, wrapped in his mother's shawl Just a child Is this who we've waited for?

'Cause how many kings stepped down from their thrones? How many lords have abandoned their homes? How many greats have become the least for me? And how many Gods have poured out their hearts To romance a world that is torn all apart? How many Fathers gave up their Sons for me?

B. What God has spoken and promised to you will come to pass.

Simeon waited. He knew God had spoken and he waited. Like I said, we don’t know if he waited at the temple every day. Was he old and held the promise for long years? I don’t know. But he waited, and God brought deliverance, God brought salvation, God brought the consolation of Israel and dropped him right into his lap.

We always must caution. We know that God has spoken through His Word, and anytime you believe God has spoken, it will conform to His word. God has not told you to rob a bank or divorce your spouse and marry someone else.

But the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ.

Numbers 23:19 ESV

God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?