In Luke 2, Joseph and Mary go to Jerusalem, to the temple to offer sacrifices according to the Law of Moses, for Jesus, their first born son. They encounter two people, Simeon and Anna.
Father, speak through Simeon and Anna’s life today and open our hearts to receive. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Consider Simeon –
Luke 2:25 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. 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 do for him according to the custom of the Law, 28 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.”
33 And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” This is what we know of Simeon:
He was a man. Nobody famous it seems. We know nothing of his pedigree, education, the blueness of his blood. Only that he was a man. It’s comforting somehow.
He was righteous and devout. Someone right with God in both his heart and his actions. Not perfect, but motivated by faith in, true love for, and fear of God. He had integrity of heart. He was careful, intentional in his life.
He lived in Jerusalem – a deeply religious context, where the learned, positioned, religious leaders lived. In the midst of lots of “religion” void of relationship, Simeon had a true relationship with God. It appears you can have one anywhere.
The Holy Spirit rested on him. What a statement! If we just meditated on that statement, I’ve no doubt it would uncover desire within us we might not have voiced in a while. Is there a longing somewhere in you to be someone Holy Spirit rests on? Get in touch with that desire and say to God in your heart, “I want Holy Spirit to rest on me!” I know the Holy Spirit is in us now, that Simeon was pre-resurrection and we are post. I’m not trying to make a theological statement, I’m inviting us to connect with desire for Holy Spirit in our hearts. Who doesn’t want more capacity for the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives in a manifest way? I know I’m not the only one. This was Simeon, it was evident Holy Spirit and he were close.
Simeon also heard and believed what God said to him, that he would not die before he saw the Lords Christ. How long had he carried this word? A week? How many of us think that, God by the Holy Spirit said, “Hey Simeon, by the way, you aren’t going to die until you see the consolation Israel, and He’ll be in the temple next week.” That is not my understanding or experience walking with God. No, likely this desire Simeon had began as a whisper in his heart many years before. And as God does, He allowed the leaven of desire to grow slowly and work it’s way into Simeon and work a lot of out of Simeon until both the desire and Simeon were matured, seasoned, ripe for the fulfillment. Simeon had a life like we do. I don’t believe his life was easier than mine or yours. He had heartache. He perhaps had multiple times where he thought surely this year. And the year came, and went, and surely not. But he held on to the desire. I don’t know how old Simeon was but he was elderly. He could have been waiting in faith believing to see this for years and my guess would be likely he waited 10, 15, 20 years. We don’t know about his physical health, his family, his career. There were times, when he must have thought it was never going to happen, or he wasn’t going to make it, yet he held on, believing God. It sounded like he was ready to die, because as he took Jesus into his arms that’s the first thing he said, “Lord, now I can go in peace…” I liken him to Abraham where in Romans 4 we read: Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed… Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead…Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” I think we have the same kind of faith in Simeon, also called righteous.
He was led by the Spirit Whom he listened to and obeyed. “Simeon, go to the temple now.” He did. It doesn’t say he knew why, it just says, he was led to go to the temple at that time by The Spirit.
WHAT A RESUME! That’s the kind of resume, we want, isn’t it? He wasn’t about, what can I go do for God? or “God, what is my ministry?” “How can I make an impact?” Simeon reminds us that the way of the cross is not up and to the right, it’s righteousness born of love for God, it’s openness, listening to Holy Spirit, it’s obedient following of Holy Spirit, in faith not sight. We see a beautiful picture here. His anointing was not based on youth, strength of body, intellect, or right circumstances, power, position or resources. It was relationship. He had been waiting to see the Lord’s Christ, holding in intercession a longing before the Throne immensely pleasing to God. What a longing, “Father, let me see your salvation. Let me see your Christ.” Can you hear in this longing both love for God and love for the world? It’s there. Be glorified and save your people. Send your Messiah!
His spiritual insight is remarkable. He didn’t see one miracle or hear one teaching of Jesus. He didn’t see Jesus take His throne but he recognized the triumphant Savior, God’s Messiah in infancy, In its beginning, in a budding of a flower yet to unfold, Simeon recognized Jesus. He had spiritual eyes to see what all this child, less than 2 months old would accomplish. He saw what Peter was shown in a rooftop vision years later, that this child would not only be the glory of Israel, but salvation for Gentiles. Simeon had a sense of the price to be paid, by Jesus, and the cost by those who truly loved him, His mother particularly.
If I could talk to Simeon, I’d have one thing to say to him, “Won’t you be my neighbor? Please won’t you be my neighbor!?” I’m serious. I want to know Simeons. When I sit by someone who has a life lived in the presence of God, they look at me and can see what’s budding, being birthed, perhaps recognizing something in me I don’t even see yet, and they call it forth releasing not only marvelous encouragement but also words of preparation. A “Simeon” speaks life to others because their relationship with God is deep and wide and long and high. Does the world need Simeons? Indeed we do. What a man!
Ok lets look at Anna
What do we know about Anna? Verse 36, And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanual of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, 37 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. 38 And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
She was old woman. At least 84.
She was widowed after only 7 years of marriage.
She stayed in the temple night and day worshiping God with fasting and prayer. In that culture, if your husband died, and there wasn’t an heir, you got to marry your brother in law! Yippee! My husband,Joel, is the youngest of four boys. You know that passage in Matthew 22 where the Sadducees are asking Jesus about the resurrection, “Whose wife is she?” That passage shakes me every time…poor woman! I thank God that’s not our culture! Marrying my brother-in-laws, whew! Can you imagine? OK, I digress. My point, is that as I sat with this verse and contemplated Anna, I thought, “She probably had no one. No brother-in-laws to marry her.” And for a moment, I thought, “Well maybe she had to go to the temple.” Like it was a default option for her; no other choice. As I was pondering that, I had a check in my spirit, and sensed the Lord say, “Jo, everyone always has a choice. Even within very limited opportunities, we have choices, how our heart leans. The heart chooses God or not God regardless of circumstances. And don’t think being in the temple is a default option.“ I repented.
It made me realize that somewhere deep inside me, I was feeling sorry for Anna. “What a dumb deal she got!” But did she? In the midst of a tragic reversal in her life, her husband died at a very young age, she may have been alone, the dreams she and her husband had of life together, having children and all she thought her life might entail, gone, this woman, Anna, chose God. How many look at Anna’s choice and think, “What did she really do with her life?” How many of us on some level think she really coped out? “Where’s her mission? What kind of fully orbed life can you have never leaving the temple?” I would suggest to us today, Anna’s life was a living testimony, and still is, to the worth-ship of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I said, “Worth-ship.” Beloved, she too had a life like you and me. She was a woman with emotions, dreams, needs, personality who chose well, a Mary. Anna lived an intercessory life. Stephen Venable said, “God is of such inestimable worth, our whole life would be well lived if our number one priority would be to worship Him night and day.” To pray to Him, to commune with Him, to be available to Him fully is the right choice always. And anyone who has given themselves to prayer of any length, will know that prayer is hard work. It’s no cop out. She chose to give herself to night and day prayer. That’s a remarkably wise response to a remarkably tragic situation. She didn’t default. She chose well to being in God’s house, beholding His beauty, for the love of God.
She was a great lover of God. You don’t sustain that kind of devotion and faithfulness over the long haul out of a sense of duty or because you defaulted. Only love will sustain you in that place. Say she married at 15, she would have been widowed when she was 22. That means she had been in the temple over 6 decades…60 years. In her twenties, how many couples happily married, came to the temple? She saw them. She had to have grieved her loss countless times. She stayed. In her 30’s, 40’s how many couples came to dedicate their first born sons? She saw them, perhaps prayed and prophesied over countless precious babies. She didn’t have one, never would. She grieved, but she stayed the course. In her 50’s, 60’s, her energy levels wained, her joints swelled, her body ached, she realized she wasn’t seeing or hearing as well as she used to, but she stayed, persevering. Decade after decade, year after year, month after month, day after day…Beloved, that’s true passion for God. Passion isn’t some hyped up emotion, loud talking excitement about some new thing happening. It might start with that. But true passion is day in, day out, showing up, staying the course, faithful in the ordinary, mundane service over and over and over again. Stephen Venable again reminds us, “Longevity and steadfastness in the place of prayer and worship is one of the rarest virtues on the earth.”
Anna was a prophet. What is the spirit of Prophecy, you ask? Revelation 19:10 says, “For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Anna was able to recognize the Christ and testify of Him to everyone she saw. Her life before the Lord enabled her to also recognize the Savior of the world, in infancy form. And we know there were many who came and went from the temple, who held positions of public trust, were learned, had status and power with a better resume culturally who never recognized Him. Even following Him around, seeing miracles they had never seen before, hearing profound teaching with undeniable authority, even in the midst of out-of-this-world kindness, concern, care, they never saw Him. She did! She acknowledged His worth-ship by the way she lived her life and that’s a powerful testimony. It’s a worthy calling to the life of prayer. It’s a worthy calling to worship. Not as part of something else, but as a high and noble and right response to Who God is. She was a deep well. You don’t become a deep well quickly… or cheaply. Her life was costly. It’s easy to read over her, diminish her. Let’s not.
She practiced gratitude, she was thankful. That might have been a key to her longevity. Gratitude, one of the most important yet underdeveloped spiritual disciplines.
She was an evangelist. You won’t have to worry about evangelizing when you are living out of the presence of God. Spending time beholding Him, being with Him, meditating on His word, you will come to know yourself loved. God’s love for you, will motivate your love for Him and for others and you will be a light. There’s no dichotomy between a life of prayer and a life of evangelism. One will lead to the other, but the order matters.
Beloved, life doesn’t go as we think it will go, we have heartache and pain. We suffer. But we have choices just like Anna. Anna gave herself fully to the Lord in the midst of her heartache. She is a beautiful picture, encouraging and inspiring us to do the same. I wonder if we need to pause and rethink how we have responded to some heartache in our lives, some disappointment and pain? Might we need to repent for choosing bitterness, self-pity, anger instead of trust in God? God loves us…so much so He gave His only Son to die for us, and He Who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness of danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. That’s Anna!
Where are the Anna’s today? Where are the Simeon’s? We need them.
Both Anna and Simeon were in the winter years of life, but they had so much to offer. Both of these people rare treasures. Culturally, they would have been easy to overlook. An old woman who never leaves the temple, and old man mumbling about the consolation of Israel all the time. Did they have a big public ministry? Were they invited to conferences as keynote speakers? Were there names plastered all over the internet or on billboards? No, but they knew Christ at first glance. And I’m convinced they are great in the kingdom of God.
Although it’s not obvious to the unspiritual eye, they are in the very center of what is relevant. God Himself is the ultimate center of all things. Importance of someone or something hinges solely upon its relation to the God of the universe, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “Though the political, economic, and military leaders of the earth appear to be very influential, in God’s eye they are but a vapor that appears for a moment and then vanishes. As those of wealth and political standing consolidate power, the derangement of their pride leads them to believe they have become mighty when in truth they are growing more and more irrelevant through their failure to esteem God and give Him glory” says Stephen Venable. Both Simeon and Anna are vitally important and highly relevant because they chose to live close to the ultimate Center of all things, God, esteeming and giving Him glory.
People of God, Anna and Simeon were common people just like me and you. But their cooperation with God in the invitations of life set before them have much to teach us. Rise up Simeons. Rise up Annas. God deserves you. The world needs you. Amen