Simeon's Story, Luke, 2:25-38

Shalom, and good morning. I am Shimon, or you may have heard my name as Simeon. I have something wonderful to tell you this morning. Absolutely wonderful. But just so before we get started here, let me tell you where it begins. I have just had something wonderful happen, but I have to tell you the start of it. And it starts In the city of Nazareth, oh, a town maybe is better. Nazareth, near Galilee. This Nazareth is a little tiny town, not very big. If it's got anything, it's one of anything.

It's a little dirty place. But people get busy there and they live their lives. And this little town, if it wasn't for the dust and the dirt and the donkey dung, there would be no town at all. But in this dirty, dusty, donkey dung little town, there was a man and a woman, oh yes, young, named Joseph and Mary. They were descendants of David, although you couldn't tell by the way they lived and the place they lived. Everything was fine and normal.

Joseph and Mary had been engaged to be married. But one day, after they were engaged to be married, betrothed as we would say, the angel Gabriel came to Mary. The angel Gabriel spoke to Mary, and Mary was of course very concerned and frightened initially. The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee called Nazareth, to this virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.

And coming in, he said to her, greetings favored one. What a way to start. Okay, the Lord is with you, but she was very perplexed at this statement, and you'd expect that, right? And kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. The angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Of course, Mary was quite concerned about this and didn't know quite what to think of it.

But the angel went on, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. Mary said to the angel, how can this be, since I'm a virgin? The angel answered her, that's a good thing, isn't it?

Okay. And the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason, the Holy Child should be called the Son of God. And behold, even your relative Elizabeth also has conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, the bondslave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her. Mary, of course, had lots to think about after this. As a matter of fact, a lot of it was beyond thinking. Well, and she pondered it. Now, I'm telling you this because I remember it like they were there yesterday. Wait a minute, they were there yesterday. Okay, all right.

Anyway, so Mary has something to tell Joseph. So she comes up to Joseph, who greets her with great joy and smiling. And she says, Joseph, I'm pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph says, you're kidding, right? No, I'm not. Oh. You're kidding, right? Yeah? Joseph, I am not kidding. Oh, Joseph had a lot to think about, as Mary had had.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. It happened like this. His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, and before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.

Now, at the time, and even to this day, there are two courts, a court of Rabbi Hillel and a court of Rabbi Shammai. And in the court of Hillel, you could get a divorce and no questions asked. That's where Joseph was planning to go. Now, Hillel and Shammai had opinions on other things too. Hillel, for example, said that you should start with just one candle and end with all of the candles lit during this feast of dedication. You may have heard the Hebrew word Chanukah, dedication. Shammai, on the other hand, went the other way. He says you start off and you start off with all the candles and you go to none, or to the last one. Wait a minute, you're getting me distracted. Don't do that. You know I've got a story to tell you and I must tell you.

Okay, now, Joseph went to bed that night and as it would happen, when he'd considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. So this angel of the Lord appears And he said to Joseph, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. He would be Yeshua, the Savior. and he'll save his people from their sins.

This is wonderful news. This is long promise to Israel. This will be the one. It was this baby that I was told I would see before my days ended. This baby, this one. So the next morning, Joseph gets up in this dusty, dirty, donkey-dung little town of Nazareth. And he greets Mary and he says, Mary, Mary, guess what? You're gonna have a baby and we're gonna name him Jesus. And she says, I know. I know, Joseph. I've told you.

So in this little donkey-dung, dirty little town, town of Nazareth, by the way, I've never been there. I hope I never go there. But in this little town is where they were and they remained betrothed and as far as they knew, everything would be nice and normal and calm and they would continue and get married in Nazareth. That's what they thought. However, while Joseph was busy carrying out his carpentry duties and preparing a place for the two of them to live, some Roman soldiers had a different idea. Caesar Augustus had come out with a decree.

Oh, just a minute. The beard filters out the bugs. It's really good. OK. All right. Now, so the Roman soldiers come in, and they have this decree. Of course, when the people in Nazareth saw the Roman soldiers come in, it was never a good thing. But this time, it was a decree. There was a Roman census going to be taken.

Each one must go back to the home of his forefathers. In this case, all the descendants of David must go back to Bethlehem. That included Joseph, And that included Mary. So, as the decree was read, they knew they had to comply. They knew they had to go down to Bethlehem. And you know, when the Roman soldiers say something, you really had better do it. or else you'll have a holiness you weren't counting on, right? All right.

And I knew these things, I knew them because the prophet Isaiah said, oh, listen now, house of David, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. I knew these things from the prophet Isaiah, the Lord's prophet.

Yes, the records of where Joseph and Mary were descended from King David, both of them, was kept right on the west end of the north side of the inner temple area. And so you could tell that they were descendants of David. I also read from the prophet Micah I knew that they were going to go to Bethlehem because prophet Micah wrote this but as for you Bethlehem Ephrathah too little to be among the clans of Judah from you one will go forth for me who will be ruler in Israel his goings forth are from long ago from the days of eternity I knew it would be Bethlehem the one just south of Jerusalem, not the Bethlehem close to Nazareth nearby. And so it had to be that one, it had to be the city of David. And I knew that this little tiny infant to be born would be, he was from long ago, from days of eternity, this would be God in the flesh. I knew it. It had to be. That's what I read in the scriptures.

And they do not make a mistake. So Joseph and Mary went from Nazareth. Oh, they had to avoid Samaria. But they went from Nazareth down the Jordan River Valley, down into Jericho, way, way below sea level, and up to Jerusalem, a steep climb, and then down to Bethlehem.

Oh, about 6,000 paces of a Roman soldier to the south. And so they had to make that journey along water and along land, and among the trees and out in the open. And it took, oh, four or five days at least. It may be a little longer because Mary was very much with child, with the child that was God's own son. And so they traveled and they camped, sometimes traveling day, sometimes at night, whatever they could accommodate. And they traveled through areas that were forested and areas that were open, areas of water and areas of none.

And as they went from Jericho up to Jerusalem, the road was steep. And as you can see, nothing along that roadway. And they got to Jerusalem. Oh, I was so close to them, but didn't know at the time. I was so close because they went through Jerusalem on their way to Bethlehem, and they passed through the city streets and narrow byways. And as they left Jerusalem, they headed south to Bethlehem, about 6,000 strides of a Roman soldier from Jerusalem to the city of Bethlehem. And as they traveled, They came closer to Bethlehem, the city of David. This Bethlehem that had been there long, long ago. And so they traveled. And as they got closer into Bethlehem, you would have thought, ah, we're heading to a place we recognize. We're heading to extended family here.

But that wasn't to be that easy. You see, everybody was coming to register according to the decree of Augustus Caesar. That was one thing. The other problem was that Mary was pregnant and great with child. And it wasn't a good time. The timing was not right. It was rather shameful that she was there in that condition.

They looked around for a cataluma, as they call it, a place next to the house. And it would be kind of like a cave thing, sort of to keep the animals. And it would usually be in the same area. with no separation from where the rest of the family lived. And the law said, or at least that's the way we put it, that you had to have a division between those areas in order for it to be legal to have one family and another in the same place, even though they were related.

Well, Joseph looked, and nobody had room in their Kataluma, even though there were probably hundreds of them in Bethlehem. They looked, and looked, and looked, and were turned away again and again. Joseph was very sad, and frankly, he was getting rather desperate. But, they did finally find one place where they could be in the Kataluma.

And so they set about to have this precious, promised, holy child in the Kataluma. Now, when the child was born, they did as all good Jewish parents would do. They would wash the baby in olive oil and in salt, and wash him really good with that. all the way around, and then when the baby was washed in olive oil and salt, and then wrapped the baby in swaddling clothes, strips of cloth that they would bind tight, because as the story goes, if you bind those clothes tight, it makes the baby's bones grow strong and straight. And then they laid him in a manger, a manger carved out of the stone.

And that's what happened that night. And it wasn't so very long ago. And so Joseph and Mary and this holy child were there in the Kataluma with a child being laid in a manger. Well, there were in that area shepherds, of course. And shepherds in that area would raise sheep, often to be used for sacrifices in the temple. Oh, this was exciting. And so these shepherds, and you know they'd been shepherding for a long time, even King David, a thousand years before, Even King David had been a shepherd boy in this same area. He's the one that flew Goliath. Wait a minute, you're getting me distracted again. Okay, enough of that. My story has to continue. Okay. The shepherds were out at night, as they often were, watching over the sheep. You had to watch over them because there would be wild things that would like to eat them. And so there would be shepherds watching over their flocks at night.

And something happened that had never happened to these shepherds. These shepherds had an angel of the Lord appear to them that night. And the angel of the Lord that appeared to them The angel of the Lord came with other angels, but the angel announced to the shepherds that today, in the city of David, right nearby, a Savior is born, who is Christ the Lord. Wow, the shepherds, oh, they had never seen such a thing, but such a pronouncement, such a pronouncement they had anticipated for centuries. Generations of traditions said, ah, this, the lamb, was to be born here, right near us. And we are privileged to have this announcement. So the shepherds went in to Bethlehem, the city of David, that very night. And they went searching around, where is, where is the child born? Where is the child born? And now there's a problem with this. Lambs are cute.

Shepherds, not so much, okay? Not so much the shepherds. And besides that, they hang around with sheep, right? And so they smell like sheep. That's the problem. So nobody really wanted the shepherds coming by. And can you imagine having somebody come by desperate to have their child born in your Cataluma? And then these shepherds come, how disruptive. It can't get any worse than that. Ah, shepherds. But the shepherds who lived in the out-of-the-way places like this and the way they smell, that's what you'd like. Well, they came into the city of Bethlehem. They came in and knocked on all the doors and disrupted half the town, I'm sure.

And they found where Mary and Joseph and the child were staying and where the baby had been born. There where the baby lie in a manger. The shepherds all came around in great awe of this little tiny thing that had been born. this little tiny thing that had been announced miraculously to them by the appointment of God's angels. So in Bethlehem, the city of David, a wondrous thing happened that night. A wonderful thing. Now, the time would come the time would come when Mary and Joseph would have to take the baby Jesus up to the temple.

Now that was 6,000 soldier strides about north to Jerusalem. And so they go on that roadway. Oh, it would take them a few hours maybe. They'd go on that roadway and they'd head to Jerusalem. They may have started early in the morning and likely did, I think, because there was much to do there at the temple. And they were about to have a disruption that they perhaps weren't counting on. Gotta strain some more bugs here. Ooh, that one's a little salty. Okay, okay.

And so Mary and Joseph came up with the baby Jesus into the temple area. And as they came up into the temple area, they came up a stairway into the back park. And as they came into there, yeah, it looked like this. If you were a bird flying, it would look about like that. They came into this temple courtyard, the outer courtyards, but it wasn't the courtyards that they really came for. What they came for was to go beyond these courtyards and the colonnades and to go into the inner temple, because there was the place they had some things to do. They had things to do like they had to present Jesus to the priests there at the temple and present him and he would be recorded in the records for all the genealogies that were kept there at the temple. And they had to look and say, yep, he's a male, right? Because the males would come at a different time than the females. And so that was necessary.

But there was another important thing to happen, and that is the law allowed that you could give a sacrifice of lambs or turtledoves. And the turtledoves were for those who could not afford anything else. And so Mary and Joseph, being from the dirty, dusty, donkey-dung little town of Nazareth, could only afford the turtledoves. And so that's what they bought to be sacrificed. And so the presenting and the sacrifice had to take place there. And that's why they were required to come. And of course, Joseph was a very righteous man and wanted to abide by every detail of the law of Moses.

Well, when they were there for those required events by the law, it was there in the colonnades outside where I saw them. Now at first, I only suspected these might be the ones. I would stand around the temple, day by day by day, because the Lord had promised to me that I would see the Lord's Christ before my days were ended. And so I looked. I looked for that child. I looked for their parents.

And as I came up To Mary, I said, I said to both of them, I said, are you of the house of David? Both of them answered, yes. And are you coming here to present this baby? and offer the required offerings according to the law of Moses? Yes. And was this baby born in Bethlehem? Yes, they both answered. And Mary, are you a virgin? Her eyes got very big, and his eyes did too. Yes.

This is the one. The one that God promised. This is the very one. The one that he said I would see before my days were ended. This is him. This is him. At first I was speechless. I couldn't say a thing. But then I was overtaken by awe. And all I could do was to sing. And that's, in fact, what I did.

Oh, my Lord, sleeping in your mother's arms, this little one, this little one. Your mother is keeping you covered and warm. this little one this little one come let me hold him oh bless you lord i will depart in peace my eyes have finally seen thy salvation the glory of israel the light of the nations. Mary will be weeping, a sword pierces her soul, for this little one, God's only son.

The darkness will be fleeing, a rising light, in this little one, the kingdom will come. Come, let me hold him. Oh, bless you, Lord. I will depart in peace. My eyes have finally seen thy salvation, the glory of Israel, the light of the nations in this little one. Salvation has come in this little one. Come, let me hold him. Oh, bless you, Lord. I will depart in peace. My eyes have finally seen thy salvation, the glory of Israel. The light of the nations The light of the nations My eyes have finally seen Thy salvation The glory of Israel The light of the nations This little one In this little one