Day 1: Hope with Gemma Ryan

Being human means being acquainted with waiting. We all know the pain and discomfort of waiting. And we're all desperately in need of learning what it is to wait with hope.

Advent is a season for waiting. And it's actually a gift to us because it gives us permission to slow down and to sharpen our awareness around what we're waiting for and how we're waiting for it.

We're going to take a look at Simeon to help us explore these ideas.

We meet Simeon when Mary and Joseph take the baby Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to consecrate him to the Lord. Simeon was waiting. In verse 25, we read that “he was waiting for the consolation of Israel.” Simeon was waiting for this promised Messiah. But the time has actually come. Simeon just doesn't know that yet. He is in a place of in-between.

And when we find ourselves in these places of in-between, there is a danger that we take on a posture of indefinitely preparing to live, rather than living: “When I have my baby, I will feel so happy.” “When I have this job, I will feel fulfilled.” “When I meet the person I'm going to marry, then I'll feel complete.”

We often associate waiting with being a very passive thing, a kind of hopeless state where circumstances are completely out of our hands and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.

But in Simeon, we do not see someone who is passive. He is active in his waiting. Verse 26 says, "It had been revealed to him by the spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Messiah." So Simeon waited with God's word, and therefore he waited with a sense of promise. He believed that God's word would be fulfilled.

Simeon wasn't waiting wishfully. He was waiting hopefully. Hope is the foundation of waiting, and our hope is based on the goodness and faithfulness of God.

Our hope is not in circumstances working out the way we want them to. Our hope is in a person: Jesus. And our hope is based on his word that he will never leave us or forsake us. That he is always redeeming, always good, always working for our good.

Do you believe that?

Everything in us wants to resist waiting. And yet waiting is actually the very thing that transforms us. Sometimes the change we're waiting for seems so external, but the change that is most necessary is actually internal.

So who are you becoming as you wait? Is it growing you? Is it diminishing and depleting you?

Let's take another look at Simeon. Verse 25 tells us a very important factor about how Simeon waited. The Holy Spirit was on him.

On this man's life, there was a powerful anointing and manifest presence of the Spirit of God, bringing revelation and comfort, enabling him to wait. And I think one of the reasons why waiting is so hard and exhausting is that we often try to do it in our own strength. But waiting well requires dependence on the presence and power of God.

One of the Greek words for waiting is paromeno. Meno is the Greek word for abide that we read in John 15 when Jesus calls us to abide in him. So in this Greek word for waiting, I hear the invitation of Jesus to stay with me even in the struggle, even in the confusion of waiting. Would you remain in me, endure with me? Because if you do, you will bear the fruit of waiting.

It is the indwelling Spirit of Christ through the Holy Spirit who sustains our hope, who enables us to wait actively in expectation. This is how we keep our hope alive.

And on the day when Mary and Joseph were due to present Jesus to the temple, we’re told that Simeon, moved by the Spirit, went into the temple courts. So he was simply going about his ordinary day, being present to the Spirit of God within him, and sensing a nudge to go to the temple courts.

And God causes him to arrive at the right place at exactly the right time. And the Holy Spirit within him says, "There he is. This is the one you've waited for."

Simeon can now face death or life because he has tasted the peace that can only be found through embracing the Savior.

He has waited, and he has now experienced what he waited for, the fulfillment of the promise that is not just for him, not even just for his peace, but for the world. And his joy surpasses anything he could have imagined.

Ultimately, we can wait because we know a God who also waits.

All of our waiting is held in the great waiting of God.

God has been wherever you are, and he alone has the power to sustain you and strengthen you, and comfort you until the fullness of time has come in your life.

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Gemma Ryan is a Practicing the Way Teaching Fellow and spiritual director based in Ireland. She formerly served as Associate Pastor at Oaks Church Brooklyn.