When waiting feels worthless: Simeon & Anna

All right. Well, again, welcome to Hope Lowertown, and I'm glad you're here. Those of you who don't know me, my name is Brian and lead pastor here and excited to jump into our text this morning. So we've been in a summer series that we've called the Cloud of Witnesses, and that's been based off of Hebrews chapter 12 that says, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter, the beginner and the ender of our faith. For the joy set before him. He endured the cross. He didn't run to the cross happy, right? He wasn't excited to get crucified, but he endured the cross because the joy set before him, scorning its shame and our shame and our guilt, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners so that you will no longer grow weary and lose heart. So in the series, this is our 13th week now, we've kind of taken some obscure characters in the Bible, and that's what I chose to do. And it sounds like that's what all the pastors chose to do across locations today. My boss, Steve Tricler, those of you who do know him, he was like, I'm just gonna do Moses, right? I'm just gonna do someone that was actually mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11. I didn't do that. I don't know why. Glutton for punishment. But that's what we did. And this week, again, the same thing. We're gonna take some characters that we might have read of, but kind of in the shadow of maybe some other things. And so we'll see that. I know that the state fair is going on right now. We have not yet gone to the state fair. We might go today. And this was. This is not my story. Zach Abrams, was Lindsay with you? Did this happen? Yeah. So Zach and Lindsey were at the state fair this past week, and they went to get in line for what they thought was the entrance to the state fair. His mom showed up, and they said they stood there and waited in line for about 30 minutes, and his mom just said, this is it. I'm out. I can't. I'm not. I'm not waiting here any longer. Well, then they realized after a while that they were just in a random mob line that didn't go anywhere, right? That they had been thinking they were in the line to get in. And so then they had to go get in the right line to do that. We've all probably been there in some way, shape or form. Are you going to a McDonald's and you're standing there in line? And they're like, oh, I already ordered. And it's like, oh, well, thanks. You know, I could have told me that five minutes ago. We've all kind of done that. And so I wanna look at this sermon this morning and we've titled When Waiting Feels Worthless. And gonna be looking at Simeon and Anna. And this is gonna be specifically in Luke, chapter 22. Luke, sorry, Luke 2, 22 through 40. If you've grown up in the church at all or if you have just heard the Christmas story, you are familiar with Luke 2. But usually we stop. Well, we always do. We stop the reading of the Christmas story at Luke 21. And so I kind of want to continue that. This is Christmas in August here. It's still August. And so gonna kind of tie it in a little bit of this idea of waiting. That sometimes that as a believer or just a human being in this life, it can feel like I'm waiting. And I just, ah, why? What's the point? Am I in the wrong line? What are we doing here? And so I want to. The first point here just kind of set up Mark sort of we are gonna be in the next, who knows, couple years walking through the Gospel of Mark, which I'm really excited about. I've never preached through just the gospel that we have. And so really excited for this. I've already just started reading and studying and nerding out with all of that. And so I wanted to kind of just take today and just start looking at Mark and just kind of get a little bit more context. And I thought, well, it's a fifth Sunday. The kids probably don't want to hear about the authorship and dates and all that stuff of Mark. So we're not going to do that, but we're going to set it up because Gospel of Mark starts off with John the Baptist or John the baptizer. And so I thought, well, let's look maybe a little bit at the birth of Jesus, because Mark doesn't do that. So I'm cheating a little bit here. So let's look at Luke, chapter two. I will be reading this. I'm reading from the niv. And you can follow along in that handout you got, if you got it. But I'll Read it all. It'll all be on screen. So Luke, chapter 22. Sorry, man, I keep doing it. Luke 2, starting in verse 22. When the time came for the purification rights required by the law of Moses, that is, for any woman that was Jewish to be purified. Joseph and Mary, usually around 40 days, Mary took him to Jerusalem to present Jesus to the Lord. This was very standard, as it is written in the law of the Lord. Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the law of the Lord. A pair of doves or two young pigeons. So this just is a reference to Leviticus, chapter 12. It's all laid out. Leviticus is a book of. One of the early books of the Bible that just outlines all the laws that the people of Israel, people of Yahweh, had to obey. And one of them was that when you have a child who's born, you need to consecrate them at the tabernacle or the temple or go to a priest. And you, based on your income or what you have, that determines the sacrifice that God is requiring from you. And so the lowest, the cheapest possible sacrifice you could get was a pair of doves or young pigeons. And so this fits in with what we know about Jesus of being a carpenter. His father was a carpenter and had some kind of. Had a skill, but yet they're just laborers. And so they didn't have a lot of money. And so this fits right in. So the king of kings is not born into this life of privilege and money. So then we're gonna see this language of this consolation of Israel. So in verse 25, it says, now, there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon who was righteous and devout, and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him, right? This guy Simeon, he is waiting for Christmas, right? His whole life, it's just been. In a way, it's been winter over and over and over, and there's just no Christmas. He's waiting. It never happens. But this word there of consolation. Excuse me. I don't know what that was. Breathe. It's okay. And so when I hear consolation, I hear, like, loser's bracket. You know what I'm talking about? Consolation prize. You have this tournament and you get eliminated, and then you gotta go to that, and then you win. Oh, we got first place in the loser's bracket. We won the consolation prize. That's what always comes to mind for me. But that's not. I mean, it kind of is what constellation means. But the definition of consolation is the comfort received by a person after a loss or a disappointment. So, okay, that kind of makes sense with how my brain fits that in with this consolation prize, right? But this is what Jesus is. He is the consolation, the comfort received by a person after a loss or disappointment. Right? The Israel itself, the people following after Yahweh needed to be consoled by the Messiah. Israel had been beaten up and at loss over and over, century after century, millennia after millennia. And the Savior, the promised Messiah, was the consolation is their comfort. Third point here is waiting on God. So going back to that verse 25, here, it says, now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon who was righteous and devout, and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Or what we could use the word Christ in there. It's Jesus Christ. That's. Christ is not Jesus's surname. He is Jesus the Messiah. He is Jesus the Savior. And so the Lord's Messiah, now Jesus is born. But he was promised by the Holy Spirit, you will not die until you see this promised Messiah. Now, we don't know his. We don't know his age. We have no idea what his age is. But we can imply, based on that language of you will not die. Right? Meaning that he's. He's ready. Right? He's ready to go home. He's ready to just say, okay, I'm done. But the Spirit says you're not. It's not going to happen. Not yet. You're waiting and you're going to keep waiting. And you're going to wait and you're going to wait until you see Yeshua, the spirit Savior Jesus. All right, I'm gonna do this again. It was funny. Cause right before the service started, someone was kind of teasing me that I use the Chronicles in Arnia a lot. And I'm doing it again. So the reason for this, I've been reading through this mainly with Henry, and we're now in the final book. So all my Chronicles and Narnia illustrations are about to be over, I promise. Right. But we've been reading through these books. There's seven books in the series. And we're in the last book called the Last Battle. And it is very different from the rest of them. It's very different. It's a lot darker. And so I'm intrigued. So again, Aslan, this Lion is the savior of this multiverse place called Narnia. In the Magician's Nephew, you see the creation of Narnia. And it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. So in this story, though, it starts off with telling us about these two characters. You have Swift, this ape, and then you have Puzzle, who is actually a donkey, but they discover a lion's skin. Aslan hasn't been seen or heard of in thousands of years in Narnia. But they've been telling these stories and they've been waiting. When is Aslan going to come back and fix everything and make it all right and end the suffering and the pain and the injustices? And this ape, Swift, looks at Puzzle and says, hey, Puzzle, can you fit in that lion skin? So he puts the lion skin on, and he goes, you know what we should do? We should act like you're Aslan. If you just came out at dusk and all the Narnians saw you, they would do anything that we asked them to do. So they do this. Well, the king, Tyrion, he gets wind of what's happening and he says, there's no way, right? Basically, this donkey and this ape enslaved the people of Narnia, and say, you're gonna do what I tell you to do. And the king says, there's no way Aslan would ever act that way. There's no way he would commit violence like this. That's happening. So King Tyrion stands up, and then, as you can see from the picture, he gets tied up and bound and arrested. And there's this scene that obviously is red, where Tyrion doesn't know Aslan. He's never met Aslan. He's never seen Aslan. He's only heard stories of Aslan. And as he's tied up, he says, I wonder if I can cry out to him for help now. I wonder if I can. I wonder if he can hear me, if I cry out. And so he does. He cries out in his pain and his suffering and his loss. And he cries out and he says, aslan, if you're real, if you're really there, if the stories are true, can you just show up? Can you hear me? And C.S. lewis writes, it seemed even more quiet than before. He had tried to call out to Aslan, right? He's. He's in this moment of despair, and he cries out to his God. And what happens? It's even more silent than had he not cried out to God. It's just emptiness, waiting. Maybe you have felt like that. Why do I continue to Fight the good fight. Why am I signing up to start to fight the good fight when all I get in response is silence and neglect and darkness? Am I waiting in vain? It is always winter and never Christmas. How long do I have to wait? What is the point? Let me just say this, that most of the time God doesn't show up when we want him to and how we want him to. It just doesn't work that way. He's not a genie and a lamp. He will show up, but it probably won't be the way that we want him to or expect him to. He's God. He's not a tame lion. Let me just add this, though, that waiting in faith is different than putting God on trial. A couple weeks ago, we looked at John the Baptizer, which we'll look at again next week, a little bit different. I pick that passage because it's not in Mark, but John the Baptist is in prison and he's waiting his execution. And what does he do? He sends his disciples to his cousin Jesus and says, are you the one, or should we wait for another? Like Jesus, are. Are you really the Messiah? Are you really the consolation of Israel? Are you really going to set us free? He questions it, and he. And he kind of demands some proof. And Jesus says, don't worry about it. Just believe in me. And sometimes we can look to God and just say, God, I just need to know, have any of you asked God for a sign? I remember doing this very vividly. I remember driving and just saying, all right, God, like, I'm here. I'm cool. I'm cool with you. I believe in you. But if you made all the lights turn green or red, I don't care. I don't care if I have to stop all day. But if you made all the lights red, right, looking down like Michigan Avenue in Chicago, just all of them red at the same time, then I'll know you're real. And then it doesn't happen, right? Has anyone else done that? With random, hey, this thing's gonna happen. That happens. Then, God, then. And it's like. It's like putting them to the test, right? It's saying, remember the old commercials of, it's my money and I want it now? Remember those? Right? That's kind of what we do with God. Hey, God, I want to be happy. I want to be wealthy. I want to be. Fill in the blanks. So, God, I'm obeying the rules. What's happening? Show me that you're real. In Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 16, it says, do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at massa. This goes back, and it's a story From Exodus, chapter 17 that we have the Israelites complaining. They're murmuring, God just set them free from slavery in Egypt. And they get out and they're wandering in the wilderness. And they go, yeah, maybe that was just a coincidence. Maybe that wasn't really God. God, if you really love us, if you really care for me, I know you've done all that thing for us in the past, but if you really love us, then you will give us water now. And they start to complain, and they start to murmur, and if you really are God, if you really are powerful, then show it. Prove it. And they demand a sign. They put their Lord, their God, to the test if you really do exist. And that's why we read that. But then we see in the life of Jesus, which we'll get at in the Book of Mark, which I'm not gonna get into a whole lot right now. But Jesus is tempted in all the same ways that Israel experienced in the wilderness. Jesus experiences in the wilderness. And where Israel failed, Jesus succeeded. The devil tempts him and says, look at this. You can do this. This can be yours. And Jesus quotes that verse where Israel failed. He then takes that verse and says, thou shalt not put your Lord, your God to the test. I'm not going to put God to the test. How do we do this? In what ways do we do this? What ways do I do this? I thought of a few ways that I know I. I can struggle with this one. I kind of mentioned it. I demand God to work on my timetable. Hey. Hey. Let's go. Right. I've only got a couple weeks here to figure this thing out. Do it now, please. Maybe not now, but at least within the next couple weeks. Figure it out, God. That's one way. I demand God to work on my timetable. A second way is setting conditions for my obedience. Right. I'll forgive them if you do this or they do this thing first. It's a conditional response, completely unlike how he has shown up in scripture. God, you prove yourself first. Make it obvious and clear to me, and then. Then I'll. Then I'll obey another way. I expect signs. I want a sign instead of trusting his word. Right. I just need some kind of. Maybe just a piece. I just want something to confirm this decision that I've made. Could you just make it really clear that this is what that I. This is the Right thing that I should be doing. Maybe it's even just. Could I just wanna. I mean, man, I remember back when I was in college and I just. I just remember getting engaged in worship and it was just. I was just. Oh, I was just filled and I just loved it. Could you just make me feel like that again? If I. If I could just have that feeling again, then I'll believe. We put conditions and we expect signs. Instead of trusting him at his word. Let's look at some examples. Basically, Simeon and Anna. Let me just read them. Not a whole lot that I want to comment on, but we'll just read this. Let's look at people who are examples of waiting and waiting. Always winter without Christmas, without a demanding spirit. They say this. Then in verse 27 in Luke chapter 2, moved by the Spirit, he went to the temple courts. This is Simeon. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying. And he sings this song. 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 to all ethnicities and the glory of your people of Israel. And the child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be spoken against so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed and a sword will pierce your own soul too. Simeon here is with the Holy Spirit in a way like ahead of his time. The Spirit reveals things about the Messiah that people missed for thousands of years. It was revealed ahead of his time. The Messiah is going to cause division. That's not the Messiah I read about in the Old Testament. The Messiah is going to unite the world and bring peace. What do you mean division? About brother against brother and sister against sister? What are we talking about? That's the Messiah who's going to do this. He says that he's gonna be a light to all Gentiles, all ethnicities. This isn't just about Israel. It never was just about Israel. And Simeon makes that very clear. Third, he says, mary, you're gonna be in agony because of Jesus, that you are going to witness the suffering of your own son. He gets it. The Spirit reveals something to it. So let me read. There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Peniel of the tribe of Asher. She was very old. She lived with her husband seven years after her marriage and then was a widow until she was 84. That's old. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying, coming up to them at the very moment she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who are looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem through the consolation of Israel. And now we have the redemption of his people. Decade after decade, Anna sits there waiting, seemingly for nothing. How many times did Anna probably ask the question, am I in the wrong line? When is Christmas gonna come? Quite literally, when is the actual first Jesus? When is the. When is he gonna get here? When can we celebrate Christmas? It's always winter, never Christmas. But now it's here. Santa's coming, all right? There's just joy filling her heart and her soul. And so when Mary and Joseph. Sorry. When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the law and Lord, they returned to Galilee in their own town of Nazareth, and the child grew and became strong. And he was filled with wisdom and the grace of God was on him. What we learn here about Anna and Simeon is that they worshiped in silence. They trust the Holy Spirit even in this long waiting game, it feels like. And they rejoiced when the answer in the form of a baby finally came. We don't hear any bargaining from Simeon and Anna. We don't hear any ultimatums. There's no deadlines. Hey, God, you gotta do this now. I'm sick and waiting. They waited. Last point is the big difference, which was is my big brother, big and older. His online gamer tag. He's the big difference. He's the big diff. Shows up. All right? He's making a difference, right? There's something that has changed in the waiting game. There's something different now between you and me that was different with Simeon and Anna. Again, we've all been in some waiting at some point and maybe waiting in vain. But the difference now is that Jesus already came. He already was born, he already suffered, he already died, he was already buried. He already rose again on the third day and he ascended into heaven. We now have that. We get to look back on that. They didn't have that. They were waiting and waiting. Now we can look back, we can remember it's not in vain. We have all at some point waited in vain. But we don't wait in vain with God. It's gonna be a negative way to say it and positive way. Maybe in Christ the wait is Never in vain. Well, how do we know that I don't feel that? First Peter, chapter four, says this in verse 12. Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fire. This is quite literally the fire. Nero burns down Rome and persecutes Christians. They're burning. Don't be surprised at the fire that has come upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in so much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. Later on, Peter tells his readers, you will suffer for a little while. Well, how long is a little while? He goes on to say, it might be your entire life, but in the scheme of who God is, it is a little while. Well, in the middle of it, it doesn't feel like a little while. It feels like my entire life. Yeah. Yeah, it is. But in the grand scheme of eternity and who Christ is, it is a little while. And you might look at this and you go, well, that's about suffering. That's not waiting. It's about. It seems a little different. Let's read what the psalmist says in Psalm 13, starting in verse one. Listen to him. He's gonna say it four times, very explicitly. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts, and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me, look on me and answer, lord my God, give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, I have overcome him. And my foes will rejoice when I fall, not knowing how long something might go on is suffering. We've all been there. I can handle pain. I can handle inconveniences or any kind of suffering to an extent, especially if I know how long it's gonna be, if I know there's an end date on this thing. Right? I'm in pain, but I know I'm gonna go to the doctor. I know he's gonna help me out and have a surgery. Whatever it may be, I know when my suffering will be over. It makes it far more easy. But when you have to keep asking the question, how long? How long is it gonna continue to be winter and Christmas doesn't show up? It is suffering. Listen to what the psalmist says here in verse 5. But I will trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord's praise, for he has been good to me, in closing, just in gospel application, in Christ, the weight is never wasted. It's never wasted. It might feel like it's going on forever. And I just want this to be resolved, I want this to be fixed, I want it to go away. And it just keeps going on and on and on and on. And you might start asking, am I waiting in the wrong line? Simeon and Anna remind us that God's promises are worth the wait, even when it feels delayed or our cries into the darkness like King Tyrion go unanswered. And as we see from first Peter, even when we die in our waiting in Christ, the weight is never wasted. We're gonna have a time of communion. We have communion every here at Hope Lowertown. And so we have the cracker over here that represents the body of Christ that was broken for us. We have juice. There's a gluten free option on my left, your right, if that's a dietary restriction. And we take that bread and I break it. That's what Jesus does with his disciples. He says, this is my body that was broken for you. You eat this in remembrance of me. We remember, right? That's why that's the big difference between a Simeon and Anna waiting there. They're waiting, they're looking forward and is it ever going to happen? And then it happens. And now the difference is that we get to look back and we get to remember viscerally, taste and see and remember that he is good. And even in my pain and how long, oh Lord, we can cry out, but I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord's praise for he has been good to me. We take the juice that represents the blood of Christ that was shed for our sins. And we know that we can stand there completely forgiven, not because of anything that we've done, but completely based on his grace and his mercy and his love for us. So if you're a follower of Jesus, I would love for you to take these elements with us. You don't need to be a member of this church or any church. But if you're like, yeah, that Jesus, the one who died for me, the one that did that, I don't see him. I wish I could. I wish I could tangibly experience it and see him. The wait is never wasted. And we get to remember what it is that he did for us thousands of years ago. The waiting is not in vain. Christmas has come. He's here. And we remember that he has said it is finished. So don't try to add anything else to what he has already accomplished. Let me pray. And then the worship team's gonna come back up, they're gonna sing two songs, and feel free to grab these elements as you see fit. You can pray, take those elements, sing whatever it is that you. You feel led to do, and then we will be dismissed. Let me. Let me pray. Father, thank you for our time to gather together. As we've looked at this series now, 13 weeks of looking at different people in the Bible who have been hurt, been cast out, been beaten, been waiting seemingly forever that Jesus, you enter into the story. You enter into our story and you say, I see you. You look at us and our suffering and you say, I hear your cries. You look at us and see our sufferings and you look us in the eye and you say, I dare. I get it. I know. I know what it's like to suffer. I know what it's like to be betrayed. I get it. And so that we can look to you for consolation, we can look to you for a time of comfort in our hour of need and know that our waiting and our suffering is never in vain. In Christ, you have won and you are winning. We thank you for that. Pray now that as we take these elements, that you would just be honored and glorified with the glory that is due. Your name, and it's the name of Jesus Christ. I pray. Amen.