Simeon: Ready to Go
Simeon is introduced to us by God in Luke 2:25-35 and if it wasn’t for that introduction, he would be like untold billions of others throughout human history that were only know by those closest to them during their lives; and who died without leaving a trace.
Even God hadn’t added him to the Biblical record, and even if we had never read about Simeon, what he was will last forever. Simeon was an Old Testament saint, who lived in hope waiting for the coming Christ by faith; and died in faith ready to go whenever God’s time came. Ready to go, what a way we all should live.
Simeon sends a message from his life that extends far from the Christmas scenes, reaching all the way to the very end of each of our lives. Simeon was a Spirit-filled and Spirit-led servant; and his life is a model for each of us.
Really Never Ready to Live Until Ready to Die
Simeon was READY to go. He confessed that in Luke 2:29. And what does life look like when you are ready? He looked at all of life as a loading dock where he was busily loading a ship for sailing home. Life was lived to get ready for the cruise, all the prep time before the real event was just that: prep time, not the real goal.
In one short verse, Simeon explains that being ready to go on the cruise called Heaven has three distinct parts. From his life we get a measuring stick for our own lives. We get a guide for trip preparation. Join me for a glimpse into one of the most fascinating and fruitful lives of the first century.
God surrounded the Birth of His Son with some of the most instructive passages in the Bible. The story of Christmas is an inspired collection of pictures captured in His Word.
Each one of the details we know of Christ's Birth are intimate scenes experienced by only a few, and for just a moment; but enjoyed by all of God’s children ever since. As we turn to Luke 2:22-35 we can all observe the scene surrounding Christ's birth from a new perspective, as a nearly six-week-old Jesus was on His way in the arms of His parents to be dedicated in Jerusalem’s Temple. Joseph and Mary would undoubtedly been walking up the entrance called the Southern Steps. I love to teach this passage standing in the midst of a group of Holy Land pilgrims with Bibles opened. It is one of those moments when you can feel the very place the event happened in God's Word!
This is an example of:
Intimate Moments Full of Life Truths
Around Christ’s parents would have been the tens of thousands of pilgrims who each day streamed in and out of that astounding structure. The Temple Mount was a 40-acre platform that could easily contain a quarter-of-a-million people standing on feast days. Herod enlarged the platform Solomon had built and surrounded it with one of the greatest colonnades of the ancient world. Among this forest of gleaming white 60’ carved limestone pillars, moved the rivers of worshippers who filled the Temple each day in Jerusalem.
Luke captures the moment when just two of these thousands of worshippers met in a Divine appointment. The transcript of their meeting has been preserved through the inspiration of God, and comes to us as part of God’s record of Christ's birth. (Luke 2:22-35)
As we read we’ll meet Simeon and marvel with him at baby Jesus. And then as we listen, the message God wants us to hear comes through the words Simeon spoke as he magnified God for sending Jesus into the world.
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