Day 27, Read Luke 2:25-38

While at the temple to present Jesus there was an encounter with two godly people who gave added confirmation as to the uniqueness of the Child.  Simeon and Anna are not only said to be godly and devout in character, they are said to be people who were among those who were looking for the Messiah (v25,38).  We are told there was a group of these people who “looked for the redemption of Jerusalem.”  Each was enabled by God to understand that the Child presented that day was the One in whom they put their hope.  

Godly people like Simeon are marked by certain things.  We would do well to note this.  He was “just,” a characteristic that is needed both in one’s relationship with God as well as with men.  He was “devout,” referring to a proper fear of God.  He had seriousness about God that often is missing, even in professing believers.  We often emphasize God’s acceptance of us in Christ as making for a casual relationship.  But the godly never lose sight of the fact that our Friend who has given us access into His presence is still the holy, incomprehensible, unchanging God.

One other mark of godly people is that they have proper expectation of Christ.  Consider the following.

·        Jacob, at the end of his life, told his sons as he blessed them, “I have waited for Your salvation, oh Lord” (Gen. 49:18). 

·        Simeon was “waiting for the Consolation of Israel” (Lk. 2:25).

·        Redeemed Israel, in the future, will say, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us” (Isa. 25:9).  

·        The redeemed today should also have a proper expectation of Christ in terms of His return.  In the early Church, believers were said to be those who “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:9-10).

·        Believers are those who are “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).  This is the kind of hope that gives us patience in trials and that purifies us (1 John 3:2-3).

·        In the face of increasing apostasy believers are not only to be “building yourselves up on your most holy faith” and “praying in the Holy Spirit” and keeping themselves “in the love of God”;  they are to be “looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 20-21).  It sustains us even as a proper hope sustained God’s people in the past in the days of Herod and the Roman Empire.

It would appear that those like Simeon and Anna who were looking for the appearing of Christ were not the majority.  But they were faithful until the day God satisfied their hope.  May the same be said of us.