²² When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), ²⁴ and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

²⁵ Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. ²⁶ It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷ Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what was customary under the law, ²⁸ Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

²⁹ “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
    according to your word,
³⁰ for my eyes have seen your salvation,
³¹     which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
³² a light for revelation to the gentiles
    and for glory to your people Israel.”

³³ And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. ³⁴ Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵ so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”

³⁶ There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, ³⁷ then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. ³⁸ At that moment she came and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

³⁹ When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. ⁴⁰ The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.

This Sunday in the lectionary cycle (the three-year rotational Scripture reading schedule) there are two options: the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany or the Presentation of Our Lord Sunday. As I was looking through the texts for both of these options, the stories of Simeon and Anna in the Gospel for the Presentation of Our Lord Sunday caught my attention.

Simeon is “righteous and devout” looking forward to the “consolation of Israel” – presumably God’s action in the lives of God’s people. The Holy Spirit is with him as he awaits with eager longing what God is going to do. Moreover, he has been assured that he will not die before he sees the Lord’s Messiah with his very own eyes. Day in and day out, he is waiting and wondering, living in hope, and, if you will, living on a prayer. Cue music.

From the text, it sounds like the Holy Spirit nudges him along, timing it so that he enters the Temple in time to cross paths with Mary, Joseph, and 40-day old Jesus (the rite of purification was designated for 40 days after birth).

After years of praying, longing, and waiting, Simeon catches sight of this few-week old baby and knows in his heart that somehow God is at work in this tiny human. I imagine the peace that flooded his heart as his wondering, questioning, and hoping, finding the answer in a tiny outstretched hand wrapped around his pinky finger. The song he sings out of his joy is beautiful and articulate, but I wonder if that song only came out of a time of silence and with a sigh of relief breathed through smiling lips. I see Simeon’s eyes twinkling as he holds the infant and coos, speaking praise and blessing over him. God’s promise has come true before his very eyes.

Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, as also been holding on, waiting for good news. She had been married for 7 years, but when her husband died, it seems she effectively took up residence in the Temple, fasting, praying, and worshiping full time. Perhaps in her grief, she decided to devote herself to praying for her community, not only her family, friends, and neighbors, but for her county, her people, and the world as she knew it. It sounds like a beautiful act of love springing from a difficult and painful personal loss. With the options for women limited, when her life situation changes, she found a way to give her life to faith and trust in God. In those decades of worship, prayer, and fasting in the Temple, I wonder how many people she interacted with and how many lives were touched by her simple acts of faithfulness?

When she runs across this trio, her heart has been prepared over years of prayer and in relationship with the living God to recognize good news when she sees it, right where it is to be found. She erupts into praise and I see her moving around the Temple, more quickly than she has in a long time, filled with renewed energy and enthusiasm as she bounces from person to person telling them who this infant is. She doesn’t feel 84 years-old anymore, but a sprightly 20 or 30 as she covers every inch of the Temple, pointing back to Emmanuel – God with us.

Simeon and Anna are both advanced in age. They have seen a lot in their lifetimes. They’ve experienced personal joys and tragedies, celebration and loss. They’ve also experienced and witnessed the cruelty of their Roman oppressors and the poverty, struggles, hopes, longings, and frustrations of their people. Through it all, they have worshiped and prayed, praised God, interceded for themselves, their neighbors, and their people, and kept walking in the ways of God passed down from their forebears. They’ve held onto hope even when they had no idea what form the realization of God’s promises might take.

They’ve been preparing their whole lives to welcome God’s redemption, so when they see it, they recognize it easily.

They have been playing the long game.

They have been playing a waiting game.

In our culture of instant gratification, we often think everything has to happen immediately. Progress needs to be visible within moments of starting. Resolutions to quandaries need to come overnight. Change is something enacted in the moment it’s spoken of.

But substantial things take time. The things that make an impact – that are beautiful, lasting, and worth something – those things take patience, perseverance, persistence, and prayer. We may be tempted to look at the moments of recognition in Simeon and Anna’s lives as flashes of brilliance, but they were built on a foundation of decades of being seeped in communication with God and learning to notice God in daily life. Even these flashes of insight would have been missed without those foundations.

As much as we want to, we cannot skip the slow work of waiting. Unfortunately, we don’t miraculously skip ahead to a place where all the things we hope for come true. There’s usually a lot of anticipation, expectation, and longing, as well as letting our hearts’ desires be known to God. And then there’s the daily work that we are called to while we are waiting, patiently persevering in the tasks we’ve been called to in our roles as children, parents, siblings, workers, neighbors, citizens, stewards of the land, etc. It may not seem glamorous, but that’s where the magic happens – that’s where we are being formed into people who notice the miraculous things God is doing around us and in us all the time.

For many, the past few weeks have been full of shock and despair, anger and an absolute whiplash it’s hard to keep up with. Hearing once again about Simeon and Anna’s faithfulness over the course of their lifetimes fills me with hope and a fire in my belly to continue living with patience, perseverance, persistence, and prayer. To continue showing up day in and day out, spending time with God, living with love and compassion, serving my neighbor, encouraging the downtrodden, generously giving what I can where I can of attention, money, and time…

This is slow, hard work. And I know that we might not always see the fruits of our labor. We may be frustrated with how inefficient or ineffective it seems. Still, I have to trust that as the Spirit rested on Simeon and gave him eyes to see the dawn of hope born in his lifetime, and the Spirit re-energized Anna to move to share the good news with everyone she came across, this steady, persistent, lifelong work is precisely what we’re called to.

May the Triune God grant us what we need to take on this work and to receive with twinkling eyes, joy-filled smiles, and a spring in our step the hope God is bringing even now.

© Annabelle P. Markey