Simeon. Luke 2 :25-35 , Isaiah 49

The day I met you was my birthday.   I was 49.   No longer in my prime to be sure but still ever optimistic that one day I would get to meet you.   You see, years before I had had a dream.  In the dream I was standing in the courts of the temple surrounded by crowds of people.  The sun was shining and in the dream I remember feeling excited, as though something was about to happen.   Then suddenly the crowds in front of me parted and a lamb walked towards me.   I remember thinking that it must have been one of the sacrificial lambs which had escaped from its enclosure pen....... but then the lamb spoke to me.   It said ' I am who I am.  Messiah and Saviour and Lord.  You have been faithfully waiting for me and now I am here.  You shall surely see me in the land of the living. '  Then the lamb began to shine so brightly that I couldnt bear to look at it and I woke up praising God and shaking.   For days after that I walked about in a daze and people wondered what had happened to me.   I couldn't tell anyone - how could I put into words what I had seen and heard?   It was holy.   It was crazy.   In those days people were flogged for uttering blasphemy - and my dream would surely be viewed as blasphemy by the priests and Pharisees.     So I kept quiet, but I held the promise close to me.   I would see the Messiah one day.

So, on my 49th birthday the day started as normal.  I woke early and went to morning prayers.   As is the custom on birthdays I turned to the chapter of the prophet corresponding to the number of my years and began to read.  The passage was about the coming Messiah and I was reading aloud when I came to these words  :

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
    to restore the tribes of Jacob
    and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
    that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

I stopped reading.  Those words seemed to burn into my spirit and all of a sudden I was back in the dream I had had years before, watching the lamb come toward me through the crowds.   I think I must have shouted out, because the men around me looked up and frowned at me disrupting their devotions.  In a flash of revelation I understood that the dream and the scriptures and the fact that it was my birthday all conspired to make this a very special day - perhaps THE day.   I stood up and rushed out of the synagogue heading for the temple.  I felt a burning desire to be there, in the place where I had seen the lamb in my dream.   

When I arrived in the temple courts the scene was exactly as I had seen it in the dream.  The sun was shining, there were lots of people milling about.  I stood at the edge of the crowd waiting, with a sense of anticipation and fear and excitement - wondering if I was going mad.   As I waited, the scripture I had read was going round in my mind.    ' A light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth'.   What sort of mighty king was going to rise up to overthrow the Romans and rescue the whole earth?    People jostled me and I started to feel rather warm in my prayer shawl.   Then, all of a sudden, just as I had seen in my dream, the crowd in front of me parted and I saw a young couple with a newborn baby moving towards me.   My spirit jumped.   I stepped forward.  I had no idea what I was going to say or do, or how this young couple would react to a mad old man blocking their path.   They stopped in front of me and I looked at the face of the young girl who was carrying you.  She was serene and calm in the midst of the bustle of the outer court and something in her demeanour calmed me.  I smiled at her and asked if I could see you.  She looked at her husband, who knodded, and then handed you into my arms.   I hadnt quite expected that.

I looked at you and you looked up at me.  You were blissfully unaware of what was about to happen to you at the hands of the priest.  As your parents watched on  and as I began to pray quietly for you, in a moment of complete clarity I saw you as a young man, being cut once again at the hands of priests and my heart broke for the pain I felt as I looked into your innocent face.   I turned again to your mother - so happy and peaceful and naive, and asked if I could bless you and pray for you.  She smiled, glad to agree.   I lifted you high to God and said

'“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
    you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
30 For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31     which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
    and the glory of your people Israel

Hot tears ran down my cheeks as I handed you back to your mother and I couldn't help but gently tell her something of the pain I had seen in your future.  She nodded, her eyes cast downwards, as though she already knew that you carried a destiny far beyond that of a peasant boy from the country.  Your father placed a protective arm around the two of you and you moved off across the temple courtyard to the place of circumcision.    I remained where I was for a long time, weeping for both joy at the meeting and sadness at the revelation that you were indeed a sacrificial lamb.   Now, many years later, I wonder what happened to you and I sometimes wonder if I was mistaken on that day.   And then I go back to the Torah and read it in the light of what I experienced that day and I am reminded that God has a plan. That Messiah is promised.   And I know deep in my soul that I have already met Him.