Waiting for Jesus

WAITING FOR JESUS By Rev. Will Nelken _________________________________________ Presented at Trinity Community Church, San Rafael, CA, on Sunday, December 19, 2021 I have borrowed the outline and many thoughts today from an article by Pastor Jeff Peabody, for he captured the essence of something I have struggled to put into words, especially during these recent months. In a recent New York Times article, Jeremy Greene of John Hopkins University outlined the psychic impact of the past two tumultuous years on society. He said, “What we are living through now is a new cycle of collective dismay.” Collective dismay. Haven’t we all sensed that longing for an end to our current distress? And ours is but a trickle of that mighty stream that has flowed through eons—as Paul expressed: “We know that all creation has been groaning with the pains of childbirth up to the present time.” (Romans 8:22) The cry of the psalmist, “How long, O Lord?” surely resonates with us as we enter a second pandemic-shaped Christmas. It feels as though we are chronically on hold. Emotional memories of past sorrows are triggered, reawakened, and layered beneath the present suffering, coloring our experience in uncommon ways—adding to our confusion. We need hope, we need assurance. We need consolation—a word that expresses “comfort in the wake of loss or disappointment.” In the story of the birth of Jesus, we encounter Simeon and Anna, who were also “looking for consolation.” Their stories offer unique insights to the context of our lives today. Luke 2 25 And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to carry out for Him the custom of the Law, 28 then he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said, 29 “Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace, according to Your word; 30 for my eyes have seen Your salvation, 31 which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 A Light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.” And just behind Simeon was Anna, who was known as a prophetess—an elderly woman, widowed since an early age, who had turned that grief into an unceasing, lifelong prayer. Luke 2 36 And there was a prophetess, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers. 38 At that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. Consolation meets us in our powerlessness. Two things stand out about Simeon and Anna. First, they were both devout people. Scripture describes Simeon as “righteous and devout.” Anna never left the Temple, serving at all hours “with fastings and prayers.” A second, more basic, observation is that they were both very old. Simeon knew he was near the end of his time on earth. Anna was 84, well beyond the average life expectancy of her day. While their age might seem incidental, it highlights the limits of their humanness. Despite being above reproach and worthy of admiration, they could not lengthen their own days. Faith in God is not a magic wand to wave away our mortality. Rather, it is the instrument God gives us to make music from our weaknesses. Aware of their own frailty, and unable to change it, they resigned themselves to use whatever time and strength they had to honor and serve the Lord. God’s grace most clearly appears when we have no resources of our own to meet the need of the moment. A global crisis has a way of highlighting human limits and lack of control. Our collective efforts to “figure out” and strategize a way forward, have all had minimal effect. However, accepting our powerlessness in the moment does make room to see God’s hand in it. Consolation is more about welcome than change. Luke introduces Simeon with a word that is normally translated as “waiting” (prosdechomenos). This is a compound word, from a common prefix, pros, which is a pictorial term of close relationship, meaning face-to-face, as in a meeting, or a kiss. It is joined with dechomenos, which means to await, but with the nuance of admitting or receiving. Together, they express a “waiting” that includes and expresses an eagerness to welcome, to embrace. That emphasis transforms the concept of waiting from excruciating endurance to active anticipation. Simeon counted the days until God revealed what He had promised to him personally. Anna spent her decades in the Temple, not in hiding, but in serving prayerfully with anticipation of God’s response. Waiting on the Lord became her daily practice. My own waiting often feels like impatience and irritation. I grit my teeth and try to just hold on until I can move past whatever my current trial looks like. I want to get out, not welcome in. What would it look like to shift into a mindset where we are ready to receive, more than escape? Our hardships look different through the lenses of curiosity and welcome. When I remember that He who made us also keeps us day by day, and that nothing in Heaven or earth can separate me from His mighty love, it turns my challenge into the palette of colors from which God, who “can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20), will paint the next version of my life. Simeon’s own name provides a clue how to go about that, because it comes from a word that means “to hear intelligently.” We have far more practice hearing fearfully. Or angrily. Or just half-heartedly. Simeon, on the other hand, is presented to us as one who deliberately listened to God’s Spirit. Luke told us that the Holy Spirit “was upon him,” the Holy Spirit “revealed things to him,” and the Holy Spirit moved him. Intelligent listening is the result of thoughtful meditation. It meant that Simeon learned to discern the difference between his own impulses and reasoning and the leading of God. It meant that he was willing to take in the difficult messages of the Spirit and not just what he wanted to hear. And it meant that he stepped out in obedience, acting on what he heard. Consolation overturns our expectations. The outcome of Simeon’s listening is one of the most tender scenes in Scripture: he enters the Temple to discover Mary and Joseph with their newborn son. Then he takes the Baby Jesus into his arms (the only person in the Bible whom we are told did so). In that act, he provided for us a striking visual of not just meeting Jesus, but embracing Him. As Simeon gazed into the brand-new eyes of the Ancient of Days, he discovered “God with us” in real life. Until general truth takes on concrete, personal dimensions, it is not yet ours—it is a mere abstraction. Nothing outwardly about Simeon’s life had changed, yet he told God he could die in peace. His inner disquiet had been calmed by Christ, and his soul was at rest. Simeon recognized that “the consolation of Israel” was not an event or a change, but a person. Are you looking for a change, or for the Christ? Anna responded to Jesus much the same way as Simeon. His sheer presence was the only evidence she needed to recognize God’s redemptive hand. Christ—an infant who couldn’t walk or talk—became the trigger to release her praise. We pin our hopes on answers more than on the One who answers. As we pray, we often have in our thoughts very specific, singular responses that we’ll accept from God as adequate. When He doesn’t respond according to our narrow guidelines, we despair. Meanwhile, Christ arrives in the midst of our distress as wordlessly as an infant, bundled in a form we didn’t see coming. In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, and still spreading viral mutations, we find ourselves called upon again by the community in which we live to all wear masks when we congregate in public. Many holiday traditions have been scaled back or eliminated. But we are learning how to be present to the limitations, grateful for more of what we have, and ready to receive, to embrace what the Spirit of Christ will provide. We are embracing vulnerability. When it seemed our power was being stripped away, Christ has made Himself known in unforeseen ways through the very limitations we wanted to eliminate. I am not praying for the old ways or the old days. I am eagerly anticipating the unforeseeable new thing that God is creating in our midst. His Kingdom marches on. His Spirit is alive among us. The lost are being saved. The broken are being mended. The dead are coming to life. In extraordinary numbers! Perhaps not in your neighborhood (yet), but in areas of the world that have been in much more darkness, for longer periods of time—a Light has begun to shine. The very pandemic that we fear has been the tool God has used to shut down anti-Christian regulations and governments, releasing hearts to discover the Good News of Christ as never before. Let me offer just one illustration (so you don’t think this is just my pipedream). We support an organization called Project Rescue that began in darkest India, where children have been sold into various forms of slavery by parents who themselves are enslaved by a poverty that is enforced upon them by their ungodly social caste system. Project Rescue walks the streets of Calcutta and other urban centers, and the roads of surrounding villages, day and night, to rescue young girls and boys from their broken lifestyles and raise them with the light and nourishment of the Gospel and the love of Christ. This is laborious and dangerous work, with relatively meager results. But as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the brothels were shut down and their sex workers were turned out into the streets with no covering, no means of support. At this unexpected turn of events, hundreds were released into the arms of Project Rescue workers and taken into safe houses to be cared for and told about Jesus’ real love and saving grace. Into gross darkness, a light has dawned! Consolation grows as we share it. Anna, also, made a point of talking about Jesus to “all who were waiting for redemption.” Again, Luke returned to that word prosdechomenos. The countless people Anna told about Jesus were marked by that same readiness to receive. Anna didn’t think Jesus was a secret revelation exclusively for her. She showed no possessive stinginess, no scarcity mentality, and no fear of the immensity of the task. As in the feeding of the 5,000, the Gospel has ways of multiplying itself to fill all the hungry, with more left to spare. God’s comfort and hope is intended to reach ever outward—through us, who have received Him—to the lost, the least, and the last, “to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Anna didn’t wait to see how Christ’s life unfolded before spreading the word. She didn’t need to see how things turned out first. This Good News “is God’s power to save everyone who believes!” (Romans 1:16). The more we tell it, the more will receive it. Of this we can be sure: if we tell no one, then no one will know. And people must know. And Anna’s own joy expanded with the sharing, as will yours. The greatest source of joy in this world is sharing the saving love of Jesus Christ with a lost soul. In whatever station of their journey you may find them—whether planting or harvesting, or somewhere in between—if you serve the Spirit’s aim, regardless of their response, your heart will be glad. It is our inestimable privilege to work in the power of the Holy Spirit in this way! We, too, are all part of Anna’s audience. Everyone is looking for rescue, for wrongs to be made right, for suffering to be over in these bewildering, beleaguering times. Anna joyfully points us all to the Christ Child and repeats her message: He is everything. He is our consolation. And there is no shortage in Him, and as Isaiah 9:7 says, there will be no end to the increasing peace He brings. Feel the longing that difficulties nurture, and don’t bury it or run from it, for when it turns to the Lord it will spring into a hope that will lead to profound assurance, and be answered (in the fullness of time) by the hand of Almighty God. He Himself is the Consolation for which we long. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Embrace Him whenever He is near. “Kiss the Son… Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.” (Psalm 2:12)