What Simeon Understood about Following Jesus

We remember Simeon as the old man who had somehow been enabled by God’s Spirit to recognize the Messiah when Mary and Joseph brought the baby to the Temple.

Scripture tells us that Simeon had been prompted by God’s Spirit to go to the Temple that very day that Mary and Joseph came to the Temple with Jesus in their arms. Jerusalem was a big city, and there had to be dozens, if not hundreds of people in the Temple that day

Imagine Mary and Joseph’s surprise when the old man took the baby in his arms (with Mary’s permission, I’m sure), looked to the heavens, and uttered these now-famous words:

“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.” (Luke 2:29-31, ESV)

What kinds of questions surely swirled through their minds as Mary and Joseph heard these words from the lips of a stranger!

But stranger still were the words that Simeon turned and spoke directly to them:

“Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” (Luke 2:34-35, ESV)

In those few words (fewer than 100 in our translation), Simeon captured both the good news and the bad news about following Jesus.

The good news is that if you are a disciple – if you are following Jesus, if all of your life is about bringing every aspect of your life into obedience to Christ – Jesus is changing you, remaking you as profoundly and as thoroughly as someday he will remake all of creation.

In your life, Jesus is demonstrating what salvation looks like. Your life is a light to outsiders who don’t know him.

The bad news, though, is that it is going to hurt. Simeon’s words to Mary – “a sword will pierce through your soul” – would be fulfilled in the unspeakable grief Mary would know in seeing her son suffer so deeply at the hands of evil men.

Yes, Simeon was right. The arrival of Jesus on the stage of human history was good news. And it is good news that since Jesus took over your life, God’s Spirit is about the task of your formation in Christ. If you could see now what God is making of you, you would be thrilled. And you would say, with a sigh, “That’s the kind of person I’ve always wanted to be.”

But the bad news is that it’s going to hurt. CS Lewis used the language of HGTV to describe that process:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to?
 
“The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
 
The prophetic words of Simeon resound with Christ-followers two thousand years later. It is both wonderful and painful to follow Jesus.
 
So don’t be discouraged if the process feels like three steps forward and two steps back. He’s got this. Remember that He is making out of your life a version of you that you could never imagine, much less manufacture.

Persevere in both trustful obedience and obedient trust.
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor