MY EYES HAVE SEEN

And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to carry out for Him the custom of the Law, then he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said,

"Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace,
According to Your word;
For my eyes have seen Your salvation,
Which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
A Light of revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel."

And His father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about Him.
And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, "Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed -- and a sword will pierce even your own soul -- to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed."
(Luke 2: 25-35)

Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. Because of this, and his comment about now being released to "depart in peace," he is traditionally considered to be an old man when he met the Holy Family at the temple. He had been waiting a long, long time for the coming of the Promised One.

We spend the season of Advent preparing for the coming of the Messiah. Once we are out of the season and past Christmas, we often settle our lives back into a daily pattern of doing our jobs, taking care of our loved ones, struggling with the challenges in front of us. We don't keep thinking about Christ coming to us. We go back to thinking about His being "with us" and accept it as part of the background of our lives.

But Simeon seems to have spent much of his adult life waiting and looking, expecting something remarkable. He had been promised the Christ, not just as a participant in the general promise to the People, but as someone who had an individual promise made specifically to him. He would see the Lord's Christ.

This is the wonder of God: He makes big general promises to His people, but they also apply to specific individuals. We have been promised that Christ is with us, as a people and as individuals. We have been promised that the Lord has planned good things for us, that He will provide for us, that we are partakers in His glory.

We face a new year, and we like to make dividing lines between the things that were and the things that have not yet come. We stand on this threshold, and we want to believe that what lies ahead are indeed good things, especially if what we've just been through has been challenging and stressful. I'm certainly feeling that way. Last year was the least comfortable year I've had, in so many ways. Oh, there were good things in it, to be sure. But much of it made me feel I was caught between two very rough stones, being squeezed and ground down.

The challenges don't really go away. Sometimes aspects of our circumstances keep stretching onward - financial challenges, repairs to our home environment that are needed but we don't have the means to address at present, relationships that are difficult but cannot be avoided, work that needs to be done. It's not easy to let go of our anxiety about these things, giving them to the Lord and trusting Him to provide for these matters. The imagery of the Good Shepherd is comforting. But our brains tell us that we don't live on metaphors. The world around us expects bills to be paid, jobs to be done. We sit and wonder, where is the Lord's Salvation for those things? How can we see it?

Did Simeon know that he was waiting to see a baby, I wonder? If he had waited many years to see the Promised One, I would imagine that he had spent a lot of time studying everything that spoke of the Promised One. And some of them mention a child to be born. So maybe he did know that a child would be involved. But maybe he looked to see an adult. I think all he knew for certain was that the Holy Spirit had promised he would see the Christ. He seems not to have worried about the details, but rather to have entirely trusted the promptings of the Holy Spirit (which is why, I suspect, he was given this particular promise in the first place). The Holy Spirit had prompted him to be at the temple at that time, on that day. And he knew the face of his Messiah when he saw it, even though it was a baby.

"My eyes have seen your salvation."

What have my eyes seen?

I have seen people prompted to give me assistance in my need, and I know the Lord's hand has been in that. I have seen the Lord moving people in advance of danger, and though they lost nearly everything in their home, they themselves were all safe from harm. I have seen the Lord provide a new home to a couple, one their hearts had been set on and which seemed to fall away from their grasp. And I have seen others waiting for the salvation of their worldly circumstances and challenges. I am waiting too.

But I ask myself, on this eve of Epiphany, am I really waiting to see the face of the Lord? Or am I just waiting to see some fiscal providence? I want to think that I am waiting on the Lord.

I have seen the hand of the Lord touching lives in varioius ways. I have to believe that He won't stop now. He is the Good Shepherd, and He is on the job.