God Prepares Us to Wait: An Advent Devotion
What’s the most boring part of your life? How about sitting in waiting rooms? Where does that rank? That’s pretty high up there for me. At least with chores you’re getting something done. Usually you’re not a waiting room for fun reasons either. Most likely, you’re waiting for a doctor or a dentist. If you do a Google image search for the words “waiting room,” you will get very depressing results. It’s lots of skeletons sitting in chairs. Lots of sad people looking down at their phones. Waiting is boring, but the way we wait makes a difference for better or worse, doesn’t it? If you’re waiting to audition for something, you can do some last minute preparations or you can convince yourself you’re going to bomb. At the doctor’s office, you can mentally prepare to deal with bad news or you can drift into an uneasy sleep. You might even get frustrated with waiting, and get up and leave, missing your appointment altogether. In Luke’s Gospel, God turns the temple into a waiting room for a man named Simeon.
Mary and Joseph were bringing the 40 day old Jesus to the temple in order to consecrate him to God, as the Old Testament law instructed them. So, we should note, that even as a baby, Jesus was already fulfilling God’s commandments on our behalf. We know very little about this man named Simeon. Luke calls him “righteous and devout,” which really means that Simeon was a believer in God and took his face seriously. He was not perfect, but he believed that God would forgive him. Somehow the Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would see the Messiah before he died.
It might be hard for any of us to have been in Simeon’s position because we struggle with waiting. Part of that is we get impatient for what we want, but for now we’ll focus more on how we get distracted from waiting patiently. A few years ago there was a woman in Ireland who was arrested and charged with using her kids as a distraction while she robbed a series of stores over several months. She would bring in her cute kids to places like beauty salons and pharmacies. While the employees were giggling at the kids’ antics, their mother would take cash and other goods from behind the counter.
The devil does something similar to us. Instead of kids, the devil uses earthly circumstances, appointments, activities, and even relationships to distract us. Like the Irish woman’s kids, there’s nothing necessarily wrong about these distractions; it’s really more about what’s going on behind them. We are so busy. There’s work, and tryouts, and bills, and the lunchroom, and parties, and social media, and celebrities, and elections, and friends, and family, and stuff, so much Black Friday type stuff to research, and buy, and enjoy. Like those cute Irish kids, these things hold our attention without us even realizing it. It all seems so IMPORTANT. If were in Simeon’s position today, would we have been in the temple area when Jesus showed up with Joseph and Mary? Or might we have been busy with something else, something like texting a funny picture to our friend?
There are days that drift by us without true preparation and readiness. There are days where we am very bad at waiting. Sometimes these days slip by us without any real spiritual consequence, where our faith doesn’t really show through in my interactions with other people. We struggle to be focused like Simeon. You and I can get lulled to sleep in the waiting room that is our lives. That’s not a small thing.
The season of Advent is a great time for God to get us ready. Genesis 3 helps us get ready to recognize the problem, which is sin and the devil. The devil is still good at pulling our eyes away from God, just like he did with Adam and Eve. Did God really say that you need to study the Bible regularly? Are you sure you want to dedicate so much time to this spiritual stuff? Aren’t there more productive things you could do on a Sunday morning? Don’t you know most of it already? Before we know it, we’re cashiers laughing at two Irish kids, while the significance of the world’s greatest rescue mission is stolen from us in the background.
Genesis 3 also finishes with a promise. One of Eve’s descendants would come to crush the devil’s head. The Holy Spirit revealed to Simeon that the head crusher had arrived, and he was…a baby. Carried in his mother’s arms. What went through Simeon’s mind when he saw Jesus? It maybe seemed too good to be true. Like Abraham underneath the night sky in Genesis 15, maybe Simeon needed reassurance from God that His promise would be fulfilled. This baby, not even two months old, was the fulfillment of the ages. He was the center of God’s masterpiece, a plan of salvation. This baby Jesus was the Sistine Chapel ceiling, a beautiful project painstakingly crafted, piece by piece. Simeon got to see the Messiah with his own eyes.
It overwhelmed him, and he burst into song. We know his words well. With eyes of faith Simeon recognized that this baby looking up at him would one day be a man hanging on a cross. He was the Consolation, or Comfort of Israel. He came to remove the guilt of sin and fear of death. Jesus was God’s way of preparing salvation for the entire world. He was a powerful shining lighthouse in a world that would otherwise shipwreck on the rocky, terrible shores of hell.
Jesus was perfect at waiting. Even though the devil did his very best to distract him, Jesus never lost focus. Jesus was perfectly patient. He was never frustrated at his Father’s timetable; instead Jesus constantly pointed out that God’s way was the best way, even if that way led to Jesus being rejected, spat upon, and crucified. Jesus perfectly handled the waiting room of life, which answers all our failures in that waiting room.
As you can imagine, Mary and Joseph were amazed by Simeon’s song. But Simeon was not done yet. He prophesied that Jesus would cause the rising and falling of many in Israel. To put it more simply, many people would believe in Jesus as the Savior and would be lifted up from their guilt into the victory of forgiveness and eternal life. Others, however, like the people in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth, would not be able to believe that Jesus, this regular looking guy, could possibly be the one God sent to save the world. Their pride would cause them to stumble and fall over Jesus.
Studies show that high school and college are a time of major rising and falling for young Christians. Some of them are distracted by the pressures of classes, finances, or feeling forced by their peers to be someone they’re not. Some of them might be distracted by well-spoken faculty members who find it impossible to believe in the God of Christianity. Falling doesn’t have to happen in some big grandiose or violent way. Failing to notice Jesus in the temple ultimately has the same net result as intentionally turning away from him.
That’s where readings like Isaiah 61 help us. Israel at Isaiah’s time had largely forgotten about God and His promises. They were distracted by their material success and wealth. They were distracted by the gods of other nations, who seemed more fun, gods who let them commit adultery as part of their worship. Like the congregation that Isaiah served, we need to be reminded of our sin problem and what God did about it. God gives us so many blessings when we consistently come to meet Him in the temple of His Word.
God gives patience as a fruit our faith. Waiting doesn’t really require some extraordinary skill. At its heart, its mostly listening to God and letting Him encourage us with His promises. God’s Word proves to be a valuable resource when we’re waiting…to see how we did on a test…for a job offer…for a diagnosis…for marriage…for life to mean something. We can wait for anything, because the Consolation of Israel has already come. Already have the comfort of sins forgiven; that allows us to wait patiently for everything else.
Through His Word God also gives us the ability to focus and avoid the Irish kid distractions the devil wants to place in front of us. We can be intentional about our spiritual growth; we can have a plan made up of simple things, things like making church and Bible study a priority, like carving out time for personal devotion, things like thinking through our day and being ready for possible confrontation or chances to serve someone in need.
God gives these young people like you peace, peace like Simeon had. You high school students can handle anything, frustrations, tragedies, people attacking your faith and character, if you remember what peace you have in Christ. There’s a reason we often sing the Song of Simeon after we celebrate Communion. It’s because, like Simeon, we have seen Jesus, and we will never be the same again.
Simeon saw Jesus and burst into song. What will your song be? Will it be a good day at school? A day when you stayed focused, respected your teachers, and provided loving support to your friends? Will it be a good day at home? A day when you thanked your parents or grandparents? Will your song be saying no to peer pressure, whether you’re a kid, a young adult, or a for real grownup? Will your song be one of freedom, freedom to serve God by listening to Him?
May God bless our Advent Preparations. May our hearts be ready, for the Lord comes. Amen.
