Text: Luke 2:22-40 

“Fall and Rising” Luke 2:22-40

Simeon had waited a long time for this day, a long time. The Wind had blown him into Jerusalem years before to wait for the Consolation of Israel. So he waited. And watched. He knew the prophesies that had blown down from the desert mountain to Moses and the prophets, born of God’s mysterious Spirit—who is that desert Wind Himself, Simeon always knew.

Consolation was what Simeon watched for, awaited. What the Paraclete gives (whose Name is “Consoler” in the Greek Simeon spoke). Simeon was a just and devout man. Not by anything he’d done, but by what the Spirit had shown and promised him. By the Consolation of Israel, all Simeon’s sins would be put away, and life in God’s Kingdom, in His Presence would be Simeon’s then forever. It was something to watch for. Something to wait for.

The years rolled by. Simeon attended to his vocation, but made time each day to go to the Temple in Jerusalem, to drift with the crowds gawking at the marvelous building Herod the Great was building. He would walk through the dust of the construction lit up with the beams of the late afternoon sun, take in the smells of the incense and the offerings burning on the altar, the spices of the fragrant offering and the oil burning lamps making a heavy aroma that covered the smell of the pilgrims from many distant lands all thronging to the Seat of the Presence of Israel, jostling Simeon as they pressed toward the Desert God who’d first spoken to Moses so many centuries ago, to be seen and heard by Him whose Glory once filled this place, but hadn’t been seen like Solomon saw it for many a long year, not since Ezekiel saw the Glory depart Solomon’s temple, just before Nebuchadnezzar knocked it to the ground.

Simeon meditated on the glory of Israel, the Kabod in Hebrew. God’s radiance, His majesty, His splendor, the light that lit heaven, that shone before the sun, moon, and stars were made. That led the children of Israel in the desert in a pillar of cloud by day and fire at night. That filled the tabernacle of Moses, and lit the temple of Solomon with an unearthly radiance so bright, everyone hid their eyes from it and shook before it. Only Moses could look on it, and it made his face shine in such a strange and supernatural way, the children of Israel made him veil his face when that happened, after Moses glimpsed the back of the Kabod on Mt. Sinai.

Strange days, those ancient times, Simeon thought as his steps echoed off the fresh stone walls of the temple meant to bring back those glory days. Ezekiel saw the last of those days as the Kabod left the temple in disgust at the people’s pagan and syncretistic ways. Too much like the nations, blending, melding with their idols and ditties and worship. Not separate, not holy (the word “separate” and “holy” are the same word in Greek and Hebrew). So God’s glory took off and the people were left to captivity in Babylon, and a long time with the glory out of sight.

But Isaiah said the Day would come when the Glory would return. Jeremiah and Ezekiel too—though they spoke mostly of the dark and un-glorious times—also foretold the Day would come when the Kabod would return to the temple and be seen again by the People. Simeon was one of those people and he was waiting for that day.

Years before, the Spirit, the wind of the Desert God had blown favorably towards Simeon and shown him in the clearest, most vivid picture in his mind, a living, moving vision of him, Simeon, seeing himself the Glory of Israel, the Consolation, the Restoration, with his own eyes, before he died. And he saw in this vision for an instant what Moses saw, the Kabod, the doxan the Glory of Israel shining as Moses and Ezekiel saw, coming to the temple and filling, resting upon, yet emanating from a little baby carried by a couple peasants. He could never figure it out, but the Spirit made him understand that this was Israel’s Glory and Consolation, this Child, and Simeon would see Him before he saw death…

That particular day started off like every other the last few years. After attending to his duties, Simeon took his afternoon walk to the temple as the sun slanted low over Jerusalem’s old quarter and he wound his way through the serpentine streets of the City of David to the Temple mountain. But the Wind of the Desert God seemed to be blowing him that way, that day, and seemed to be showing Simeon that today was the Day, the Day he would see…

We can’t know how exactly Simeon recognized the Child among so many in the temple. Something about his vision, surely, the Light, the Face… but see and recognize Him, Simeon did!

Years of waiting went into the poetry that flowed from Simeon’s lips as he was drawn to the Child, and lifted Him from His mother’s arms, wrapped Him, for a moment, in his own arms, and spoke the words that we speak still in our Divine Service: “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word: for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a Light into revelation for the Gentiles, and into the Glory of Your people Israel…”

We hear Simeon’s words so often in the liturgy that their mystery and majesty are often lost on us. Simeon says he is walking out of that temple that day in Peace, as the Spirit promised him. Because now his eyes have seen what Moses and Elijah and Ezekiel and Isaiah saw—the Kabod, the Glory of Israel once more shining among them. In this little Child, Simeon saw the Light of the ancient Kabod, which meant new life, an eternal, divine Kingdom, better than old David’s. In this Child was the way back into the Glory of Israel, into the Presence of the Desert God whose very presence is holiness, life, light, endless joy, as Moses and the fathers found.

Luther once said that a man who has an everlasting kingdom will dance through life with joy. That’s what Simeon got that day—the Way back, into the Kabod, the Glory in which Israel, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel found an everlasting Kingdom of Light and Life.

But we don’t often pay attention to the less poetic words Simeon spoke to His parents as to how we get there: “See! This Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoke against—yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

When Isaiah saw the Glory of God in heaven, it nearly killed him. It is a light that vaporizes all that is sinful and unholy, like a laser beam. It swallowed up Dathan and Korah and the rebels who tried to stand up against it, direct, and control it for their own purposes. It would have killed Isaiah without the angel’s intervention. It scared the beejeebers out of the children of Israel.

Simeon could hold Him though, for the same reason Moses could—the Desert Wind of His Spirit had blown through them, swept them clean by the Divine Service of the Word.

When you take up the Christ Child in your arms, when you hold Him in your hand in the consecrated Host, it’s like holding the sun in the sky. There will be some setting with Him before there’s rising. But for all, like Simeon, who wait for the Consolation of Israel, it is the most blessed fall and rising, for holding onto Mary’s Son, we hold the Life and Glory of Israel, Who upholds us, and never lets us go except in Peace, in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Pastor Kevin Martin