The name comes first, without drama: 21"he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb." Luke's first note is obedience, a promise made months earlier and kept exactly. Then come two ordinary rites, the redemption of a firstborn and Mary's purification, and a quietly revealing detail. The law required a lamb, unless the family could not afford one, in which case two turtledoves or two young pigeons would do (Leviticus 12:8). Mary and Joseph bring the birds. Luke has told us they were poor without once using the word.
Into this scene of a poor family keeping the law comes Simeon, 25"righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel," with the Holy Spirit upon him and a promise that he would not see death before he had seen 26"the Lord's Christ." He comes into the temple at the very moment Mary and Joseph walk in, and he takes the child in his arms. His words are the ones the church has prayed for centuries: 29"Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation." "Letting depart" is the language of a servant released by his master, and Simeon pictures God as the Master who has finally set his long-waiting servant free.
What he sees in a poor Galilean baby is bigger than his nation: 32"a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel." It echoes Isaiah's word about the servant, "I will make you as a light for the nations" (Isaiah 49:6). Salvation is widening from this small room to every people.
Simeon's second word, to Mary, is hard. 34"This child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel," and 35"a sword will pierce through your own soul also." This is the first time anyone tells Mary what the child will cost her. The son she holds, the one she has sung about as scattering the proud and lifting the lowly, will divide hearts to reveal them. Some will fall over him and others will rise, and his own mother will feel that division like a sword.
Then Anna arrives, a widow until she was eighty-four, who never left the temple and worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer. She and Simeon make a pair, a man and a woman, both old, both given eyes to see what others walking through the temple that morning did not. Where Simeon spoke quietly to the family, Anna cannot stop speaking publicly, giving thanks and telling 38"all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem." The story that began with a priest's mouth opened in praise closes this section with an old prophetess still praising.
Then the family goes home. 40"The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom." Years of ordinary growth follow.
Ask what you have been waiting for, and whether you would recognize it if it arrived in the ordinary shape of a poor family on a normal morning. Eyes that recognize salvation are trained by long watching.
Prayer
Father, thank you for eyes like Simeon's and Anna's, eyes that recognized your salvation because they had spent a lifetime watching for it. Give us their patience and their readiness to speak once we have seen. And be near us, as you were near Mary, in whatever sword still has to pass through our own souls before your redemption is finished. In Jesus' name, amen.