OUR LORD WHOM WE WAIT UPON

In Luke 2 verse 25 - 32, the story of Simeon is told. Simeon had recieved a promise from God that He would live to see the promised Messiah. And now Simeon was reaching advanced years having waited to see God's promise, when one day, he recognized the baby Jesus' at the temple  to be the long awaited saviour of the world and he made this poignant and profound declaration:

 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace.

For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”

Alongside Simeon, a prophet named Anna,  who, after she had been widowed as a young woman,   had been praying and fasting in the temple every day for about 60 years as she waited for the arrival of the promised Son of God. Luke 2 verse 36 - 38 describes her encounter with the child:

Anna, a prophet, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. Her husband died when they had been married only seven years. 

Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. 

She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.

These two prophets of God waited for many years for the arrival of Jesus to the point of running out the clock on their lives, when at long last, the promise was fulfilled and they saw the one whom all the prophets of old had yearned to see.

In our time, having the knowledge of the perfection attained by our Lord Jesus to gain salvation by His death and of whose salvation we have so freely been made beneficiaries,  should gladly wait upon the Lord all the more.

In Psalm 130 verse 6, we see an example of an eager and expectant soul awaiting the Lord. Our souls should be in the same stance of anticipation as we wait for the Lord to fulfill His promises to us.

My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.

Waiting upon the Lord is our due honor to Him but our Lord, in His graciousness, directs advantages to us as a benefit of our waiting upon Him because we undergo a dramatic metamorphosis in our hearts as described in Isaiah 40 verse 31:

But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Those of us who wait upon the Lord like Simeon and Anna and the Psalmist did, are imbued with strength and stamina and endurance in the spirit where we can travail in the service of the kingdom of God so that where Jesus is, we may also be.

Amen.