GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 2:25
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. Righteous and devout, he was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
Luke introduces Simeon with “Behold!” (ἰδοὺ), which I have translated “Now.” Who was this Simeon? He was a man, a righteous man; a devout man. He was a man who was waiting—waiting for “the consolation of Israel.”
We’re not told anything else about Simeon. We don’t know how old he was, although artwork always depicts him as elderly, perhaps because Anna (verses 36-37) was “very old…eighty-four.” It’s been speculated that he was the same Simeon (Συμεών) who was a Pharisee, president of the Sanhedrin in the year 13 (17 or 18 years after this), the son of Hillel and father of the famous Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). It is interesting to note that of all the famous Pharisees of this time, especially from this family and the heads of the Sanhedrin, Simeon is the one who is neither quoted nor even mentioned in the Mishnah of the Jews. However, this is all only speculation. What the Bible says—and nothing else matters—is that Simeon was a man; the man who waited.
“Consolation” is παράκλησις in Greek, paraclesis. You can see the word Paraclete in there. It means encouragement, help, comfort, or salvation. We will learn more about Simeon and the promise God made to him in the following verse, but this is our moment to talk about the Consolation.
The consolation that Scripture gives is for our benefit. “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through…the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). This is the comfort God commanded Isaiah to give (“Comfort, comfort my people!” Isaiah 40:1); “comfort all who mourn” (Isaiah 61:2).
The Old Testament church had been promised that this comfort and consolation would come. All of their sacrifices and all of their worship pointed ahead to it, looked forward to it, and waited in expectation of it. Simeon’s hope and prayer was that this would no longer be something in the distant future, but that the Savior would come, that sin would actually be atoned for, and that the true Israel would be saved. What a thing to wait for! What a prayer this man had!
And he didn’t lose sight of his goal.
We wait in expectation of Christ’s second coming. When he comes again, we will be rescued from pain and all grief; from shame and despair and everything that torments and troubles us. We will be lifted up by the grace of God and by the power of his word out of our coffins, out of death, out of mortality with all its crises and cares, and we will be taken into heaven. What a thing to wait for! What a prayer we all have!
Don’t lose sight of our goal.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota