Simeon greets the Christ child at the temple. Feelings of fulfillment, glory, profound joy, prophecy, love and the Holy Spirit. Simeon was told by God that before he died he would meet and see the Holy One. Even though a Baby came to the temple that day with His young parents, Simeon and the prophetess Anna knew that this was the promised Messiah.
I'd like to tell you my story. I am not a famous man, nor did I wish to be. I simply was able to play a small part in a happening a long, long time ago. In fact my story began on this very night, almost 2000 years ago. Yes, I am a very ordinary man. Even my name, Simeon, was the most common name to give a boy child in my culture. Simeon. The word means "harkening". To listen carefully. Perhaps I was well named. For it was in my harkening, in my listening carefully, in my watching attentively, that a small spot in history was reserved for me.
I was known as a just and righteous man; devout in that I was careful about my religious duties and upright in that I reverenced God. That my friends and neighbors knew me as a virtuous, upright man was not important to me, other than the fact, of course, that this meant that I was known as keeping the commands of God. To be thought of as righteous is unfair and untrue of any mortal man.
Only one in my knowledge ever was truly righteous, and it was He who was the central figure of the story which I now relate to you. My prayer would be that as one known as righteous, that this might mean that I am approved of, or at least acceptable to, my God.
All Israel waited and longed for the Messiah. Unfortunately the most intense longing seemed to always coincide with the times when we, the people of Israel, had sinned against God and had invoked His wrath against us. Israel wanted a Messiah who would come to solve their problems. All Israel had deserted God and worshiped not just the true Living God, but many other gods as well.
Throughout history it was this attempt to place God in the same category as the many other gods which most angered God. The covenant made between God and Israel was based first on the exclusivity of worship which God demanded. Anything less was totally unacceptable to God.
So all Israel was waiting for, even praying, for the Messiah. Waiting and praying for the comfort and solace which His coming would bring. I too waited and prayed. But where most in Israel waited in desperation, I waited in, . . . expectation. Expectation for the fulfillment of God's promises made to me. For my knowledge was grounded on personal experience. The Holy Spirit had revealed to me that sometime before I died I would see the Messiah, God's anointed son, the Lord's Christ.
That being promised, I saw no reason to doubt it's validity. It was not unusual for the Holy Spirit to be with men and women of my generation, the pity was that the Holy Spirit seemed to be an infrequent visitor in their lives, not an ongoing inhabitant.Each day I felt that special feeling of anticipation. God had not granted me the knowledge of when the Messiah would come, nor was there any reason why He should have done so. Mine was only to harken, to wait and to watch attentively.