The First Christmas Songs: A Song For When You’ve Waited a Long Time
Luke 2:25-35
Let’s talk about Christmas and hope today. Last week, we focused on peace because, in the Christmas song the angels’ sang in Luke 2:14, we heard that, when Jesus was born, he took the “glory of God in the highest” that the angels had witnessed and brought us the opportunity for “peace on earth to all people of goodwill”. Today, we come to a song that a man named Simeon wrote and, the main point I want to emphasize from his song, is that the birth of this child brings us hope.
But, I have quite a challenge when I speak to you about hope. We desperately need to clarify what we mean by “hope” when we read it in the Bible because biblical hope is very different from the way we use the word in our world. Usually, we think of “hope” as being something very good but, at the same time, very uncertain. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “a longing for something to happen or be true.” For example, you might ask me: “Are you going to have a great time with your family this Christmas?” My answer would be, “That’s my hope!” Do you see my point? That kind of hope is a longing for something good – but it is not yet certain.
In the Bible, “hope” is based on the promises of God – so “biblical hope” is for something that is both good and certain. In other words, if we have hope because God has said that he is going to do something in the world, we have confidence and because we trust that God will do what he has promised. “Hope” is the word the Bible uses for us holding on to God’s promises in such a way that we have peace even in the midst of hardships. I believe that hope is absolutely necessary if we will live our lives in this imperfect world and have any peace while we are going through hardship.
In our fourth song of Christmas, found in Luke 2:25-35, we come to a report about one of the best examples of a person living life filled with hope in the midst of a difficult time because he believed for certain that God would keep his Word. The songwriter was an old man named Simeon.
Let Me Tell You The Story
Mary and Joseph travelled to Jerusalem from Bethlehem (6 or 7 miles) in order to present Jesus at the Temple. According to Lev 12, the couple was required to offer a lamb at this sacred service of purification, circumcision and dedication. . However, Lev 12:8 tells us that if a couple could not afford a lamb then they could bring the offering of the poor, a pair of doves or two young pigeons.” It’s clear that this couple was very poor and, therefore, could easily have been overlooked that day at the Temple.
An old man named Simeon, who is described as “righteous and devout” was going about his daily business. Imagine the scene: Families were coming in and out of the Temple Court. Babies were crying. Lambs were – doing whatever lambs do. The priest was blessing the children. Families were celebrating. Off to the side, Simeon was just doing what he had done for decades. Tradition says he was 113 years old.
But, this day, something changed: Simeon somehow felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit. He sensed that something out of the ordinary was about to happen. At that same time, Mary and Joseph entered the Temple Court with their son in their arms. Simeon stepped into the Temple Court and took the baby Jesus in his arms. His heart was about to burst with anticipation. “Could this be the promise? Could this child be the one I have waited and longed for?” As Simeon looked on the tiny face of Jesus he knew that all he had been promised was staring back at him. And he did the only thing millions have done when they have met Jesus and recognized who he is: Simeon praised God!! As he sang, he uttered these word, “You may now dismiss your servant in peace.” In other words, “You can take me home Lord I have seen what I have lived for! I can go in peace knowing that you have made a way for me, my people and the whole world to be saved!”
What I want you to remember is that Simeon had lived through very difficult times for most of his life. And yet, when we meet him in Luke 2, he is still living faithfully for God. He had not given up hope. Far from it, he lived daily because he had experienced the hope that faith in God offers.
What do we learn today from him?
#1:God’s Hope Comes from Knowing and Trusting God’s Promises. It had been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah (2:26).
It’s important to remember that Simeon had somehow been shown by God’s Spirit that he would not die until the long-awaited Messiah had been born. It’s clear that this had happened many years before. Sadly, we’re not told how God’s Spirit made this known to him – through an angelic visit, through a dream, etc? We don’t know. What we do know is that Simeon had been faithful to live in the light of what God had told him. But, decades had gone by and nothing had happened. Simeon had become old. I imagine he probably looked like a crazy man in the eyes of some of his family and friends.
With that in mind, I almost weep when I read the opening lyric to his song in v. 29. When Simeon saw the infant Jesus, he said, “Now, Lord, now you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace.” The word “now” is emphatic. It is like an announcement that a piece of long-awaited news has been launched “now”! It evokes that deep feeling of: “At last. It’s been so long but at last it’s beginning!”
So, he was a man who was willing to wait for God and obey God while he waited for many, many years. That life surely felt, at times, like bondage. Thus, his song began with the language of a bondservant who has waited a long time to be set free. He felt the kind of “release” that a prisoner feels when pardoned or that a soldier feels when the battle is over and he can go home.
Here’s the point: This man of God found hope because 1) he knew God personally, 2) he had learned of a promise from God, and 3) he trusted God to keep his promise. After my many years of following Jesus personally, I want to tell you as emphatically as I can that this is one of the most important keys to learning to walk with God by faith. As you know, I believe that God still can and still does break into our lives in ways in keeping with how he broke into Mary’s, Zechariah’s, the shepherds’ and Simeon’s lives. However, I am equally convinced that the main way that you learn about God’s promises is through God’s Word.
This is why I rarely, if ever, preach to you without pointing you to one of God’s promises in the Bible. Like what? Listen to these promises:
God will show you mercy today if you return to him -- If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 Jn 1:9).
God will be with you even when you don’t feel like he is – God has declared, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you (Dt 31:6; Heb13:5).”
God will work even in the midst of bad things to bring about good -- In all things God works for the good of those who love him, of those who have been called according to his purpose (Rom 8:28).
God will hold onto you with love no matter what may try to separate you from him -- Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38-39).
God will complete what he’s started in you, in us and in his world -- Be confident of this: He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6).
How will you learn what God’s promises are? I want you to do this: In the coming year, read God’s Word regularly and look for the promises there. Sometimes, you will feel the Spirit speaking to you in very personal ways. To help you with this, we have some 2016 “Through the Bible Reading Guides” at the book table in the lobby. (See http://nae.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/BRG-2016-3D.png.)
Here’s a principle from Simeon’s life to guide your life: God will accomplish whatever he promises though we must often wait a long time to see the accomplishment. God’s faithfulness to keep his word is the basis of our hope. But for us to experience hope, we must both know God’s promises and as well as live in faith and obedience to the God who keeps his promises as we wait.
#2: God’s Hope Cannot Be Eradicated by Anything in This World. Lord, my eyes have seen your salvation… Mary, a sword will piece through your own soul (2:30,35).
The drama of this story is that the euphoria of God keeping his promise to send a Savior save people from the effects of sin and evil in this world flows directly into the promise that there will be pain while God continues his work of establishing a kingdom of peace and justice.
In his song, Simeon sings of his own salvation that this child brings and of a future for his own nation of Israel. But, this is a big and global vision. Simeon sings that God’s salvation ahs been “prepared for all peoples and brings light to all nations.” His eyes were looking into the future when all the promises of God’s Word will be fulfilled and all evil will be judged and destroyed.
But, even as I must do today, this old man of God had to provide a realistic expectation of how life would be for the couple in front of him. In graphic terms, he tells of struggle, even pain, that will be a part of life until God’s promise is fulfilled. He’s saying, “Don’t be surprised when hard times come. And, Mary, be ready when this child who brings salvation also will be the cause of the greatest pain you will ever experience in your heart. The kingdoms of darkness will rise up against him. Mary is given her own shocking prophecy: She will have to do as Simeon had done, i.e., believe God’s promise, live her life in the light of that promise believing that God will keep his word, suffer much while she waits but always have hope that salvation is real and will come.
Simeon prophesies, “A sword will piece your heart because of this child. But God knows what he is doing. He will be with you. He keeps his promises. Because of that, hold onto hope even in the midst of pain.”
I want to close by telling you of something that has brought me hope in difficult times for much of my life. When I lived in Germany (working as a singer) in the 1970s, I was made aware of the last Advent season of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life. While being held in a Nazi prison in Berlin because of his resistance to the rule of Adolf Hitler, on 12/19/1944, Bonhoeffer was able to smuggle out three brief letters from his dark catacomb. They were all scrabbled in pencil on scraps of paper. In one of them, he included a poem he had written that Advent, Von guten Mächten(“By Loving Powers”), which has become a hymn still much loved today in churches around the world.
This song speaks of the hope that we have in the promises of God even in a situation as dire as Bonhoeffer faced that Christmas season. You may know that just a few months after this song was written, the Nazis in Berlin hanged Pastor Bonhoeffer. The Allies liberated Berlin just one month after Bonhoeffer's execution. But, Bonhoeffer sang that he had confidence and comfort in the midst of a Nazi prison because of God’s promises. His song is a song of hope. I have sung it many times in Germany – and countless times in the midst of challenges I’ve faced in my life. The chorus of the hymn reads:
Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen,
erwarten wir getrost, was kommen mag.
Gott ist bei uns am Abend und am Morgen
und ganz gewiss an jedem neuen Tag.[
Translation:
By Loving Powers so wondrously protected,
we wait with confidence, befall what may.
God is with us at night and in the morning
and oh, most certainly through each new day.
When I read Simeon’s song, I hear Simeon saying together with Pastor Bonhoeffer, “Waiting for God is not always easy. But it is worth it. God promises that he is at work even when we do not see him. God promises the whole world will be changed – a kingdom of peace and justice is coming.. Because of that promise, there is hope. Because of the coming of Christ into this world, there is always hope.” Or, as Lauren Stiles has sung this weekend here at Lake Avenue Church:
Hallelujah! My waiting is done. Hallelujah! Messiah has come. Hallelujah! My God is the faithful one!