MONDAY October 7th
Luke 2:29-32
‘“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”’
Imagine that you had been brought up in a Jewish home, had been instructed from the torah as God had instructed back in the time of Moses, ‘And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise’, Deuteronomy 6:6–7.
You would have also learnt what was contained in the Psalms and the books of the prophets, there is no doubt that you would have grown up waiting with eager anticipation for the One who had been promised, the One who was to be the Messiah.
Today’s verses reveal to us a man who had been such a person, but now, he was getting on in years, and like everyone else he had been patiently waiting for the consolation of Israel.
But he waited in a different way, because the scripture tells us that the Holy Sprit had revealed to this man, whose name was Simeon, that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ!
Imagine him waking up every morning and thinking to himself, ‘I wonder if today is going to be the day’, and he waited and waited, until one day as he was in the temple, maybe the door creaked as it opened, and as he looked, in walked Mary and Joseph with a child, to do for him according to the custom. And by the Spirit, Simeon immediately knew who this young child was, and immediately blessed God saying ‘Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation. . .’ He had finally seen the One who was to come, not just as the Messiah but also as the means of salvation for the world.
Well, for us, we are waiting for the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, now, we do not know when he is coming again, but are we waiting like Simeon with eager anticipation? Maybe you are reading this devotion, and you have never accepted Jesus as your Saviour, well, allow this devotion to be a word that is to warn you that Jesus is coming again, this time not to die, but to take to himself all who have placed their faith and trust in him. Everyone else will be left behind. Make yourself ready, by coming to believe on him and to accept him.