How long do you have to wait for God before you give up hope?
When Mary and Joseph carried Jesus into the temple for his dedication, Messianic prophecies were distant. Generations had passed since a prophet had spoken about a deliverer; and in the meantime, Israel’s oppression seemed like it had limited prospect of improvement.
The words of the prophets testified to a deliverer who would break the yoke of oppression (Isaiah 58), shatter the swords of enemies (Isaiah 2:4), rule in the pattern of David (Isaiah 11), and rule the government with authority and strength (Isaiah 9:6).
And while some of those prophecies would have been fulfilled by Isaiah’s contemporaries, Israel was waiting for someone to bring them to ultimate fruition: a deliverer who would usher in God’s rule and reign.
Given how quickly most of us forget God’s promises, I have to believe that by the time we reach this account in Luke 2, a majority of God’s people (even those who still hoped for a deliverer) weren’t thinking much about God’s promise on a daily basis. And who can blame them? The ache of waiting had probably settled into the nation like a long winter. After a group remains watchful for generations without fulfillment, it would seem like an unwise investment to reserve daily vigilance for this kind of promise.
But God isn’t quite as quick to forget as we often are. And Luke 2 reveals that two people who awaited the Messiah remembered that, too.
Simeon had received a promise from the Spirit that he would see the Messiah before the end of his life. He had carried that promise for many years. Simeon continued returning to the temple, faithful in prayer, trusting that God would fulfill his promise (both to his people and to him).
Anna had endured deep personal loss early in her life. She responded by anchoring herself in worship. Luke describes her as someone who lived in the temple courts, “worshipping day and night.” Both Simeon and Anna lived as people shaped by expectancy that God would be faithful to his people and faithful to them. Their waiting formed their spirits toward attentiveness (instead of hopeless resignation, which is what often forms in me during times of waiting).
I’ve been impressed as I read Luke 2 with how their backstory of waiting takes up only about a paragraph in Luke’s account, but decades of their lives. Their faithfulness over the years created a space within them that was ready to receive the word God would speak through an infant. When Mary and Joseph walked into the temple with Jesus in their arms, Simeon sensed the Spirit drawing him toward them. He held the child and recognized that God had kept his promise. His season of waiting became the lens through which he understood what he was seeing. Faith had become sight.
Anna entered the scene just as Simeon blessed the family. She also recognized what God had accomplished. Praise rose from her like something she had carried for years. She began speaking to the people around her, telling them that God’s redemption was present and real. Her long season of prayer had prepared her for this announcement. The hours and years she spent attending to God’s presence had shaped her into someone who could perceive God’s new work even when it came in the form of a baby born to peasants.
As I read this freshly this year, I was convicted by Anna and Simeon’s tenacity and attentiveness (not to mention their patience).
Looking at Anna and Simeon’s lives, we can learn how waiting can be active. These two adopt a posture that allows them to metabolize pain with patience and openness over time. I don’t detect anything “Pollyanna-ish” in their way of being with God; and yet they stay committed to trusting God to arrange things beyond their field of vision.
Simeon and Anna remind us that God continues to meet people who make space for hope. Their lives show that waiting is often the doorway through which God’s salvation enters our story. They reveal how God honors people who keep listening and demonstrate that the promises of God mature and ripen over time (even when we feel God’s forgotten).
On an ordinary day in the temple, Simeon and Anna moved toward what looked like an ordinary family. In truth, they were walking toward the fulfillment of generations of longing. Their meeting with Jesus became the moment when years of waiting yielded joy.
What Anna and Simeon experienced is (in a moment) the hope of every “But God” story: an encounter with God that meets us at the level of our longings and losses and offers fulfillment.
Rev. Ethan Linder is the pastor of discipleship at College Wesleyan Church in Marion, Indiana, and contributing editor at The Wesleyan Church’s Education and Clergy Development Division.
