-it’s that time of year again, Christmas. There is a certain something in the air, that joy of people cramming into crowded shopping malls to buy things they don’t want for people they don’t visit. Ah, how we honor our Lord.
-but as we like to do every year, we’re going to go through the Christmas story. But today I want to focus on one part of the story. A piece that seems to be overlooked every year, it’s never in the Christmas plays, and I’m going to guess some people here have never even heard of these people, Simeon and Anna.
-but, let’s go to the beginning.
THE STORY
-Zechariah in the temple. I know, most people start later, let’s do the whole story. Zechariah is praying, doing his duty as a priest, when an angel tells him his wife is pregnant with a boy who will prepare the way for Jesus. Zechariah questions the angel and ends up mute, he can’t speak.
-three months later, a teenage girl named Mary who is engaged to a guy named Joseph is visited by the same angel. Except this time the angel says she is pregnant and she is going to have a Son, the Son of God named Jesus.
-she tells Joe, who probably doesn’t believe her (I don’t think I would), so he says he’s going to divorce her quietly. But an angel visits him too and tells him not to, that he will be the Son of God’s dad.
-a few months later, Mary goes to visit her cousin, a woman named Elizabeth who is married to a priest named Zechariah who hasn’t been able to talk for about six months now. When she sees Mary, her baby starts jumping inside her because he knows it’s Jesus. Elizabeth is so excited she sings a song and tells Mary how blessed she is.
-finally, after months of people doubting Mary, someone believes! She is so excited she sings a song too about Jesus and who He will be.
-after a nice visit Mary goes home and Elizabeth gives birth to a baby boy. They are going to name him, but Zechariah was told by the angel to name the boy John, so he writes it down to tell the people there, and suddenly he can speak again, which the first thing he does is praise God.
-then Zechariah is so excited, he sings a song of prophecy about Jesus and his son’s role as John the Baptist (although they don’t call him that yet).
-back in Nazareth, Mary is at home, but the Romans decided to do a census, and everyone must return to the husbands’ home town. So Mary and Joseph go back to a little tiny village called Bethlehem. Here Mary and Joseph show up just as she is going to have the baby, but because of the census there are no hotel rooms available, so Mary and Joseph go to a stable and there they have the Baby Jesus.
-this same night, there are some shepherds out and about, watching their sheep and an angel shows up, telling them the Messiah is born in Bethlehem. Then a whole host of angels (one of the very few times this happens in history) and they sing a song of praise to God about Jesus and tell the shepherds to go see the baby. The shepherds show up, see the baby Jesus, and they go throughout the town waking people up and telling them about the Messiah being born.
-up until now, you’ve probably heard a lot of this. Here’s the little piece we’re going to focus on. It’s not the wise men, they show up after this, and all the babies are killed and Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt. No, this is just after Jesus is born. Let’s read:
**Luke 2:21-40 -> 21When the Baby was eight days old, He was circumcised and was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before the Baby began to grow inside Mary. 22When the time came for Mary and Joseph to do what the law of Moses taught about being made pure, they took Jesus to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord. 23(It is written in the law of the Lord: “Every firstborn male shall be given to the Lord.”) 24Mary and Joseph also went to offer a sacrifice, as the law of the Lord says: “You must sacrifice two doves or two young pigeons.” 25In Jerusalem lived a man named Simeon who was a good man and godly. He was waiting for the time when God would take away Israel’s sorrow, and the Holy Spirit was in him. 26Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he saw the Christ promised by the Lord. 27The Spirit led Simeon to the Temple. When Mary and Joseph brought the Baby Jesus to the Temple to do what the law said they must do, 28Simeon took the Baby in his arms and thanked God: 29“Now, Lord, You can let me, Your servant, die in peace as You said. 30With my own eyes I have seen Your Salvation, 31which You prepared before all people. 32It is a Light for the non-Jewish people to see and an honor for Your people, the Israelites.” 33Jesus’ father and mother were amazed at what Simeon had said about Him. 34Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, “God has chosen this Child to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel. He will be a sign from God that many people will not accept 35so that the thoughts of many will be made known. And the things that will happen will make your heart sad, too.” 36There was a prophetess, Anna, from the family of Phanuel in the tribe of Asher. Anna was very old. She had once been married for seven years. 37Then her husband died, and she was a widow for eighty-four years. Anna never left the Temple but worshiped God, going without food and praying day and night. 38Standing there at that time, she thanked God and spoke about Jesus to all who were waiting for God to free Jerusalem. 39When Joseph and Mary had done everything the law of the Lord commanded, they went home to Nazareth, their own town in Galilee. 40The little Child grew and became strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God’s goodness was upon Him. (NCV)
-so here are two people that are skipped a lot of times when we tell the Christmas story. A lot! By they are probably some of the most important people because they tell us how we can see Jesus and how we should respond when we do. Both of these people reacted the same way, slightly different, but they both had things in common.
1. DEVOUT
-it’s not a term we use a lot, but it’s a good word. It means someone who is devoted or faithful. That’s the reason we usually use this term with religion, someone who is devout is usually thought to be someone who is faithful to God.
-both of these people were faithful to God. You have Simeon. Look at how he’s described, he was good, he was Godly, he was waiting for the time when God would take away Israel’s sorrow. He was waiting for the Messiah.
-think about what that would mean. Right now, we believe Jesus is coming back again. Would you be described as waiting for that time, waiting for Jesus to come back?
-verse 26 says how Simeon was told he would not die until he saw the Christ. Legend says, and this is only legend, there is no Scripture to back this up, but legend says Simeon was 113. Can you imagine living that long waiting for Jesus to come?
-but he waited. Not in an impatient way, but faithfully. He believed what the Holy Spirit told Him and he waited in a devout way for the Christ.
-then there’s Anna. All we know about Anna, she was married for a few years, then she was a widow for 84 years. So she was probably close to 100 too (some translators think she was 84 years old, but still a long time).
-now there’s a reason Luke mentions she was a widow so long. Back then, it was bad to be a widow. Big time. Remember, usually women didn’t work, and the jobs they could get were crappy. So widows were poor. And women did not own property, so unless she had other family she had no place to live. A lot of times widows were exploited by the law and all they had was taken away from them. So if a woman became a widow early in life, like Anna, they would have remarried, and fast.
-but she didn’t. In that culture, a woman like Anna would have been considered pious and faithful because she was faithful to her husband even in death. She took a life of misery and possibly poverty and remained faithful to her husband rather than get married simply to not worry about money. So already she was considered a faithful or devout person.
-but then we have verse 37. After her husband died, she never left the Temple, worshipped God, fasted and prayed every day, for 84 years! That is faithful!! Can you imagine going to church and worshipping every day for 84 years?
-part of the reason these people saw Jesus, they were waiting for Jesus. They were faithful to God, more faithful than others who were simply happy to do the religious requirement, do the routine, the bare minimum of faith.
-are you doing what you can to get to know God? Are you devout? Have you given it all to him.
-because they were so devout the were able to recognize Jesus.
2. RECOGNIZE
-notice, no one at any time says, “Here’s Jesus. Here’s the Messiah.” It’s just another baby being prayed for at the Temple, something that would have happened all the time.
-there was nothing special about Mary or Joseph that would have made them stick out. But both Simeon and Anna, they right away recognize Jesus.
-look at Simeon, he was led by the Holy Spirit to the Temple, God told him to go to the Temple, but it doesn’t say he was told why or who to look for. Simeon just sees the Baby and knows. He knows! He knows so well that he just walks up to them, “Can I hold your Baby?” “Sure creepy old man that’s so old he looks like the Baby will crush you, here you go, don’t break a hip.”
-he was so sure it was Jesus he just walked up. That was it.
-do you recognize Jesus? Do you see Him around you? There’s a reason we do God At Work stories at NewSong, because we have to be trained to see God around us, we have to learn where He is and how to recognize Him. Are you? Do you recognize Him?
-after they recognized Jesus, they did the natural thing to seeing Him. They worshipped Him.
3. WORSHIP
-if you were paying attention in the Christmas story, there was a theme. One that we even talked about a little earlier this year in “Why We Do What We Do”. People sang. Now, not all worship is singing, but in Jewish culture it was common that if something amazing happened and you wanted to worship God, you would break out into song.
-this prayer that Simeon says, many believe he actually sang it, and it is considered important because it is the last song in the Christmas story, the fifth!
-Simeon worships Jesus because he recognizes who the Baby is. It says Anna did the same, we just don’t know what she said. It simply says she thanked God.
-when you see God, when you recognize Him, when you are in His presence, what is your reaction? Do you worship Him? Do you change your life for Him? Do you sing to Him songs of praise?
-they gave Christ His due, they worshipped Him. And part of that worship was telling everyone about Him.
4. TOLD EVERYONE
-in Simeon’s song, you can see in verse 32, he recognized that the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of God’s people, was not just for God’s people. He was to save the world.
-have you ever thought about how earth-shattering that would be for the Jewish people? They were God’s chosen people. They alone had a covenant with God. They were the only ones following these weird and special rules. They were the only ones God seemed to talk to. Them, that’s it.
-God flipped their belief system upside down. Tell me honestly, would you be able to do that? If someone were to tell you there is now a Third Testament to God’s story and that Jesus is now an old piece and there’s something new to do, how quickly would you jump on that bandwagon? It would take me a while…
-but Simeon, he sees it right away and knows that Jesus is salvation for all, a light for non-Jewish people to see.
-Anna, look at her. She thanked God and right away goes out and tells people about Jesus. She speaks to those who are waiting for God.
-and again, many probably didn’t listen too well. This would been hard to hear. There’s no Scripture to really back this up yet, Jesus hasn’t done any miracles or teaching. All you’ve got to go on is the story two strangers tell you about their special Baby and how He was born, a pretty unbelievable story with no proof.
-but that didn’t stop them, the told people about Jesus. They let the world know Salvation had come to them.
-what about you, does your life tell people about Jesus? What about instead of your actions, your words? Do you tell people about Jesus? Do you see how He came to save people and you want to let them know?
-this reaction Simeon and Anna shared, it’s the right one. They were faithfully and devoutly waiting for God, getting to know Him so when He did show up, they were able to recognize Him. When the recognized who He was they worshipped Him and then told everyone about Him.
-this is a great time of year, Christmas.
-this is a great time of year, Christmas. Part of the reason I like it, everyone’s listening. It’s expected people will talk about Jesus at this time of year. People are paying attention to the stories and idea of a Savior come to earth. They are celebrating it. If you ever wanted a time to talk about Jesus, now is the time. People are more willing to listen, to go to church, to change their life more now than most other times of the year.
-so take advantage of it. And maybe they will react to a Savior like Simeon and Anna did.
