14.06 | In the Waiting
Luke 2:8-40
‘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. …And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, 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.’
Luke 2:25, 36-37
How long would you wait for something?
It probably depends what it is. But, if there was something you really wanted, would you wait a month? A year? A decade?
There was a tradition for the Jews, written about in the Jewish Law, of bringing a newborn son to the temple, forty days after he was born. The parents would offer certain sacrifices—a lamb and a dove if you were wealthy, or just two doves (or pigeons) if you were poor.1 Jewish parents had been doing this (with some interruptions) for hundreds of years. Joseph and Mary arrive at the temple to do this in our reading today.
When they get there, they meet two people.
Firstly, they meet Simeon. We don’t know exactly how old he is, but the words of his song suggest he is nearing the end of his life. God had spoken to him, at some earlier time in his life, that he would not die until he saw God’s Messiah King. On this day, after however many years of waiting, Simeon comes to the temple and knows in His soul the resonance of the Spirit, affirming that this child is the one he has been waiting for.
And then they meet Anna. Eighty-four years old, who had been a widow, likely for around sixty years. Widowhood in First Century Israel was vulnerable. With most employment held by men, a widow’s prospects were bleak. Widows were typically materially poor, physically vulnerable, and viewed as victims of their harsh circumstances.
But Anna is an extraordinary person. She turns these years of supposed destitution into relentless rhythms of worship and fasting and prayer in the temple. Year in, year out, for sixty years, she shirks her perceived victimhood and just keeps showing up—the kind of non-glamourous prayer warrior whose hidden consistency shakes the gates of hell itself.
And this Anna too, who we’re told is a prophetess, comes and sees Jesus. And she, like Simeon, knows who He is.
I love these two. They only appear here in the Bible. The rest of their lives are unknown to us. And yet, they appear here as these two emblems of those who learn the deep work of spiritual waiting. Who understand that the promises of God are rarely fulfilled to the convenience of our impatient schedules. Who have learned and lived that waiting is not merely absence of the thing hoped for, but is a season of extraordinary potential, when journeyed with the Spirit of the Living God.
Because those who wait with Him learn to see. Those who wait with Him learn the presence of the God in the waiting may be preparing us for the truth that the greatest gift in our prayers is actually God Himself. And because those who learn to wait with Him—in that deep waiting of the Spirit—have learned the perception of soul that can recognise the very face of God in the face of an infant, carried by two parents so economically stretched that they can only afford two pigeons to mark His arrival.
Waiting, my friends, can feel so hard. But the waiting is never wasted. Rather, waiting with Him is slow but fertile soil, in which we are trained to journey deeper, to learn to receive, and where we learn that the greatest gift to be found in both the waiting and the receiving, is always God Himself.
Reflect:
What am I waiting for?
How might the examples of Simeon and Anna shape how I wait?
Pray:
Father,
Patience is not always my forté.
I have all these desires and dreams,
And can easily tell my soul,
That I will only be content
When they have all happened,
And quickly.
But, Lord,
I wonder.
I wonder that Simeon and Anna may show me a different way:
It is not the way of quick fixes
And cheap testimonies;
But rather
It is the deepening of the soul,
That happens from a life that has learned
That in every day of our waiting,
We continually attune to the face of God.
For, when all that we hope for comes to pass,
We discover that every desire,
Could only perfectly be found
In this face,
The end of all our deepest waiting.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
2 Kings 20-21 | Proverbs 16:20-24
You can read about this in Leviticus 12.
So good!
So challenging!