Two Old People Who Waited Their Whole Lives

When the baby from the feeding trough was eight days old, Mary and Joseph gave him the name the angel had chosen: Jesus. Weeks later they carried him up to Jerusalem.

God's law said a firstborn son belonged to the Lord and a new mother must bring an offering, so they were taking him to the temple. (A family with plenty of money brought a lamb. A family without much brought two pigeons. Joseph had two pigeons in a basket, and they cooed and fussed the whole way.)

In Jerusalem lived an old man named Simeon. He loved God, and he was waiting for the day God would comfort his people. The Holy Spirit had told Simeon something nobody else knew: he would not die until he had seen the Lord's Christ, the promised King.

So Simeon waited, while his beard went white and his knees began to creak on the temple steps.

That morning the Holy Spirit led him up to the temple courts. If you had been standing there, you would have seen an old man hurrying through the crowd, past the priests and the bleating sheep, straight toward one young couple with a basket of pigeons.

"May I?" he asked, and held out his arms. Most mothers do not hand their baby to a stranger, but this stranger was smiling and crying at the same time, and Mary let him.

Simeon lifted Jesus up and praised God.

"Lord, now you can let your servant go in peace, just as you promised! My own eyes have seen your rescue. You made it ready for every people on earth: a light for the nations, and glory for your people Israel."

Now Simeon was ready to die.

"A light for the nations?" Joseph whispered to Mary. "Our baby?"

Simeon blessed them, then looked at Mary, and his voice grew serious. "This child will make many in Israel fall and many rise. Many will fight against him, and the hidden thoughts of their hearts will come out. And a sword will pierce your own heart too."

Mary did not forget those words.

Then a prophet named Anna came hurrying over. When she was young she had been married for seven years, and then her husband died. She had been a widow ever since, and now she was eighty-four. Anna never left the temple. Night and day she prayed and fasted. (Fasting means going without food so you can pray harder. At eighty-four! Some people get grumpy when lunch is ten minutes late.)

Anna took one look at the baby and thanked God. Then she found everyone who was waiting for God to set Jerusalem free.

"He has come!" she told them. "The one we've been praying for. Come and see!"

Two old people, two lifetimes of waiting, and both of them saw God's promise come true on the same morning.

But Simeon held him for just a little while, and the rescue he sang about had barely begun. The baby went home and grew. When he was a grown man, he walked back into this same city on his way to a cross. Mary stood near it and watched her son die, and the sword Simeon had seen coming went through her heart.

On the third day the tomb was empty. Then the light Simeon sang about began to spread, out of Jerusalem and across the sea, to people who had never heard of him. It is still spreading.

The old man's arms held Jesus for one morning. Jesus has been holding his people ever since.