Sermon Tone Analysis
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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
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