An Individual’s Christmas Present
Many of us have received many Christmas presents under the tree over the years but like me, you’ve never received one with the name “God” on the gift tag. Sure, we’ve been “given” many gifts by God including hope, peace, joy and love that we’ve been talking about in our recent sermon series. You probably consider your spouse a gift from God….if not, I have some excellent marriage resources I can recommend! You probably consider your children a gift from God….if not, see above comment only insert “parenting” for “marriage”…but I digress. At the time of Jesus’ birth, God gives a special present to a man named Simeon. Let’s read about that below:
25 And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 27 So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, 28 he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said: 29 “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, According to Your word; 30 For my eyes have seen Your salvation 31 Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, 32 A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.”
Tomorrow we’ll look more into what Simeon actually says but I think it’s very interesting that Simeon has a promise from God to see the Christ, or the Messiah before he dies. Why would God do that? Why give Simeon this gift? Ultimately we don’t know the answer to that question…except that God loved Simeon. God wanted to do something for Simeon. Perhaps Simeon was especially interested in Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah. Don’t know; doesn’t really matter. The point here for me is that God cared and loved Simeon enough to give him this present.
I think God is still doing these kinds of things for us. No one is going to write about it and people will not read about it, but God is still giving gifts to us…because He loves us. Please keep your eyes open for God’s gifts. You won’t get a wrapped present with a tag but you’re still getting gifts.