Chapter 5
The Ones Who Waited
In Luke’s version of Jesus’s story, he focuses on the people who get swept up into the whirlwind of ancient promises coming to life. From the aging Zechariah and Elizabeth who suddenly find themselves expecting a baby to the shepherds who discover heaven’s armies out in the fields, person after person ends up pulled into the story of Jesus without expecting it.
But in the middle of Luke’s second chapter, we meet two people who spend their whole lives waiting for the long–promised Messiah. They wake up every morning hoping that that would be the day when they would get a chance to see God’s promises come true.
The first person we meet is another aging man. Like he did for Zechariah, Luke calls Simeon righteous and devout. And like Zechariah’s son, John, Simeon is full of God’s Spirit. That Spirit had confirmed to Simeon that he would live until he got a chance to meet the long–promised savior of Israel (Luke 2:26). As if to drive home the point, Simeon’s name means “heard” or “listened,” and it comes from a story in the Old Testament when Leah—one of the mothers of the twelve ancestors of Israel’s twelve tribes—proclaimed that God had heard her cries for another son and granted her request.
Simeon had indeed grown old, but trusting the promise of God, woke up one morning and went to the temple. There he met Jesus’s parents, who had brought the infant boy to the temple for his ritual dedication (see Leviticus 12:1–8). Simeon immediately recognized the infant for what he was, took the baby in his arms, and proclaimed a beautiful prophecy over the child:
“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29–32)
Simeon gets what he wants. He lives long enough to see the arrival of the savior of not only Israel, but all the world. He understands that Jesus is not just a gift to the downtrodden Jews, but to all who would embrace him as the savior he came to be. The old prophet is satisfied with his small role in the life of the long–promised Messiah, and, after speaking some words to Jesus’s mother, hands the baby back.
It’s a very small story, but one we often miss when we read Luke during the Christmas season. Simeon joined thousands of Jews in his day in the hope that God’s Messiah would come during their lifetimes. But only Simeon faithfully waited on God’s timing. As the years slipped by, he never gave up hope. He clung to the promise that God’s Spirit had given to him and then waited. And waited. And waited.
Luke doesn’t give us any other background on Simeon. Only the few sentences of the small role the elderly man played in Jesus’s story. But Simeon’s words to Mary and Joseph were immortalized in Luke’s gospel and have come down to us. Perhaps what’s most striking is that Simeon met Jesus, yes, but was content to die having met only a baby. Simeon didn’t ask that God preserve his life long enough to follow Jesus as a disciple. Or to watch Jesus perform miracles or—as many Jews hoped—overthrow Rome. Simeon was happy simply knowing that the deliverer of the world had arrived. It was enough.
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Shortly after Simeon stops speaking, Luke introduces another character who had waited for years in the temple. Anna (whose name means “answered”) had been faithfully praying and worshiping her God in the temple for over eighty years. She had lost her husband early in their marriage (Luke 2:36–37) and had spent the time since dedicated to prayer. She stands nearby as Simeon speaks to Joseph and Mary, and she too sees the arrival of her Messiah. She too waited. And she too lived long enough to see God’s promise come true. Like the shepherds, Anna then goes to all who would listen and tells them about the arrival of the savior of the world.
As with Simeon, Anna gets only a few sentences in the story of Jesus, but she too lives on in Luke’s writing. Her quiet, faithful waiting stands as a testament through the centuries of what it looks like to simply trust in the promises of God. And then wait.
In the first two chapters of Luke, a dozen people get pulled into the vortex of Jesus’s story. Most of them wake up one morning and have something incredible happen to them. Angels, miracles, heavenly armies—they all encounter something that shocks them to the core and sets their lives on a completely different trajectory than the day before. But none of that happens with Simeon and Anna. What they encounter is Jesus himself. A Jesus who hasn’t spoken a word yet. Who can’t move on his own. Who is completely helpless in the arms of his mother. But he is enough for Anna and Simeon. Jesus alone.
There’s a reason that Luke ends the birth story of Jesus with the two elderly people who waited. It’s an invitation to ask ourselves a simple question: Is Jesus enough? Is simply knowing the one whom God promised would deliver the world from corruption enough? Do we need more than the humble savior in order to feel like we’ve gotten from God what he promised? Or can we be content—even happy—with simply encountering the one who would change the world forever? Who can change us forever? In the end, Simeon and Anna ask us the question: What will you do with Jesus? And it’s up to us to answer well.
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