My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation | Luke 2:25-32

Intro

According to the internet, the average person spends five years waiting in lines. And of those five years, roughly six months are spent waiting at traffic lights. I didn’t check the math, but waiting is a significant part of life. You wait in your car at red lights and in traffic. You wait on hold with customer service. You wait in line at the grocery store, at the bank, and at airport security. You wait for a package to arrive, for Christmas Day to finally come, or for a loved one to return home.

To wait means to remain in a state of expectation until someone or something arrives. And that arrival changes things: traffic starts to move, you board the plane, you embrace your loved one, you start your career. Waiting is a reminder that things are often not yet the way we want then to be.

And waiting is hard. It’s a given that you will wait—a lot—in life. The question is how you will wait? Will you gripe and groan? Will you cut in line? Will you lose hope and give up? What will waiting do to you? Will you grow impatient and bitter and jaded? Or will you be content, patient, and joyful?

Advent means arrival or coming. As with any arrival, the arrival of the Savior of the world is preceded by waiting. Advent is an annual reminder that we live in a fallen world where things are not yet as they ought to be, and yet not as they were, because Christ has come.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining

'Til He appeared, and the soul felt its worth

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn'

During Advent, we remember the first arrival of Christ and we rekindle our longing for his second coming.

And though another Christmas Day has come and gone, we have one more song in our playlist of Songs for the Savior from Luke 1 and 2. This is Simeon’s song, known as Nunc Dimittis. Those are the first two words of the Latin translation of the song, meaning “now dismiss.” In English, the opening line says, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace.” 

If you have ever grown weary from waiting, if the world’s brokenness and your remaining sin overwhelms you, if your chronic pain or relational conflicts discourage you, or if you're ever tempted to think that God is too slow to fulfill his promises and to act, then you need to pay attention to Simeon and his song.

Luke 2:25-32

25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous 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 And he came in 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 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

How to Wait

Other than the few sentences Luke devotes to Simeon here, we don’t know anything else about this man. But Luke’s brief description is significant. Look at v. 25, where we’re told that Simeon “was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.”

Waiting for the consolation of Israel. Waiting was a defining characteristic of Simeon’s life. To understand what that means, we need a thumbnail sketch of Israel’s history.

Of all the peoples and nations on earth, Israel was unique. 2 Samuel 7:23–24: 

“And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods? And you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O LORD, became their God.”

Israel existed as a nation because of God’s supernatural and sovereign initiative. God chose a man named Abraham, blessed him, and promised to make him into a great nation. When Abraham’s descendants were enslaved in Egypt, God acted to redeem them. Throughout Israel’s history, the One True God repeatedly acted to reveal himself to Israel, to protect Israel, to provide for Israel, to preserve Israel.

But in Simeon’s day, the city of Jerusalem was occupied by foreign invaders—the Romans.  And the Romans were simply the most recent oppressors. After hundreds of years of Israel’s idolatry and rebellion against God, God had used the Assyrians and the Babylonians to judge his people. Exiled Jews eventually returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the demolished temple of God and repair the walls of Jerusalem. But the Jewish people would spend the next 500 years under foreign oppressors: first the Persians, then the Greeks, then the Syrians, and finally the Romans. Under the Syrians, anyone who openly worshiped God was threatened with death. Their temple was defiled and used as a pagan shrine.

By Simeon’s day, Jerusalem was run by the Romans, who meddled with Jewish religious affairs by appointing and removing Jewish high priests at will. The corrupt and greedy Roman tax collectors in Jerusalem were a constant reminder that the Jews were captives in their own city. Instead of freely enjoying the fruit of the land God had promised them, they lived under the heavy hand of their Roman captors. 

For 700 years Israel has been tyrannized by idolatrous, violent empires. For 400 years God had been silent. The mighty works of God in the past were, in Simeon’s day, a faint echo. Surely many doubted whether they ever actually happened. If God was so good, why was He so distant‚ so silent?

All of that is in view when verse 25 says that Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel. That was the world Simeon lived in—a broken world full of unfulfilled hopes and desires, a weary world of waiting for the arrival of One who would make everything right. And Simeon’s encounter with the Christ child offers hope to all who are weary and waiting.

What about you? What are you waiting for? What suffering or evil do you long to be over? What blessing are you longing to receive? My life will be so much better as soon as (fill in the blank). Simeon’s song resounds with good news for you: every desire of your longing heart is satisfied in the arrival of Jesus Christ.

From this text, I want to show you how to wait. I have three points: Wait by faith, Wait in the Spirit, Wait for Christ.

Wait by faith.

Luke draws our attention to Simeon’s faith when he describes him as “righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel” (v. 25). After 700 years of tyranny and oppression, why wouldn’t Simeon think—like too many Christians today—that the world is just going to go from bad to worse? What hope did Simeon have that God would redeem Israel as He had in the past? 

Simeon expected God to act because he believed God’s promises. Faithful Jews who paid attention to the prophets understood that God had not completely and permanently abandoned his people. He had undoubtedly fulfilled his warnings of judgment. But Simeon knew that God would also keep his promises of salvation.

Simeon was waiting for God to do what he had promised—to console and comfort and restore His people after the judgment He had brought upon them for their rebellion (cf. Isaiah 40:1, 57:18). Promises like Jeremiah 33:26: 

“For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.” And Isaiah 52:9–10: “Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” 

Promises of a new covenant: 

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah …. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more”

—Jeremiah 31:31–34

To say that Simeon was “waiting for the consolation of Israel” is to say that Simeon lived by faith. He expected God to fulfill his promises, to remove his judgment, to return with His presence to Israel, and to restore his favor again.

And because he believed God, his waiting was marked by active devotion. This is why Luke calls Simeon “righteous and devout.” Simeon was counted righteous like his forefather Abraham because he shared the faith of Abraham (Gen 15:6). And Simeon’s devotion—his steadfast love for God, his faithful obedience to God, his perseverance in prayer and worship—was the expression of his faith. Simeon worshiped while he waited.  Anyone can get upset about the current state of the world. Everyone can think of ways his life could be better. None of that makes you righteous or produces devotion. Righteousness and devotion come from trusting God to do what he has promised.

Simeon’s appearance in Scripture is brief, but his impact is profound. In Simeon, we see an example of how we are to wait in this world by faith.

Wait in the Spirit.

In verse 25, Luke highlights something else about Simeon: “The Holy Spirit was upon him.” In fact, Luke obviously intends to draw our attention to the Holy Spirit because he mentions the Spirit’s activity three times in rapid succession. Listen: “And the Holy Spirit was upon him. 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. And he came in the Spirit into the temple” (Luke 2:25–27). The Holy Spirit is unmistakably active to empower, reveal, and direct.

Don’t miss the significance of those three verses to Jews living in Simeon’s day! Remember, God has not spoken to Israel for over 400 years. Suddenly, as Luke records, there is a burst of activity from the Holy Spirit. God was once again communicating with His people and intervening in their history. Like seismic activity may signal a volcanic eruption, the Spirit’s activity in Luke 1 and 2 indicated that something massive was about to take place in the story of God. As they would say in Narnia, “Aslan is on the move.” 

And what is the focus of the Holy Spirit’s activity here? Notice that all of the Spirit’s work—filling Simeon (v. 25), revealing to Simeon (v. 26), and leading Simeon (v. 27)—all of the Holy Spirit’s work is directing Simeon to the Christ child. That is what the Holy Spirit always does: He works to prepare hearts to receive Jesus; He announces Jesus; He reveals Jesus; He points to Jesus. Charles Spurgeon said, “It is the chief office of the Holy Spirit to glorify Christ. He does many things, but this is what he aims at in all of them, to glorify Christ.” And Jesus would say it like this: “He [the Holy Spirit] will glorify me” (John 16:14).

Just consider how coincidental vv. 27–28 seem, from a human perspective: “And he came in 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, he took him up in his arms and blessed God.” Simeon just happened to be in the right place … at the right time … to run into the right child … according to a word he had previously received from the Holy Spirit. Luke is shockingly silent about the details we would naturally want to know. How did Simeon recognize Mary and Joseph? Or what did Simeon say that caused them to hand their baby over to this stranger? We’re simply told that Simeon was led by the Holy Spirit. 

What if Simeon hadn’t been in the temple on that day? Or what if he was in the temple but he was looking the wrong way when Mary and Joseph slipped by in the crowd? Or what if he (embarrassingly) mistook some other baby for the Messiah? 

None of these questions seem to be of any concern to Luke. Everything is explained by that phrase, “And he came in the Spirit into the temple.” What seems coincidental from our human perspective is not coincidence at all. It’s God breaking 400 years of silence to point to this baby, born to save the world.

Of course, Simeon was unique in one sense. He had a personal promise from God that the Messiah would arrive on earth in his lifetime. But Simeon’s faith in Jesus—like your faith—was the result of the Spirit’s work. Just as the Spirit led Simeon to Christ, the Spirit leads you to Christ.

Waiting can be hard. But when you wait by faith, you don’t wait alone. The Spirit of God will empower you, sustain you, uphold you, and lead you. As Peter writes, “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10).

This should greatly encourage you when waiting seems hard. You never need to wait in your own strength. You don’t even believe in your own strength. Your faith is a gift from God and a work of the Spirit! So wait in the Spirit.

Wait for Christ

This is the focal point of Simeon’s song. 

“And he came in 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, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

‘Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,

according to your word;

for my eyes have seen your salvation

that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

and for glory to your people Israel.’”

—Luke 2:27-32

In a moment, Simeon’s waiting was finally over. His hopes were fulfilled. He could die in peace!

But think about this! When Simeon says (v. 30), “My eyes have seen your salvation,” what did his eyes actually see? Did Simeon see the consolation of Israel? Did he see Israel restored to her former glory? Did he see the people of God released from their captors? Did he finally see a faithful king like David sitting on the throne in Jerusalem?

He saw a tiny, helpless, eight-day old baby that fit in his arms. And yet he could look at that baby and say, “My eyes have seen your salvation.” The consolation of Israel, and the object of Simeon’s faith, and the focus of the Holy Spirit’s work, and the fulfillment of every promise of God, and the joy of every longing heart is Jesus himself. Even as a baby, Jesus was (and is) the fullness of God’s salvation, come in flesh. He is the visible, tangible, appearing of God’s grace in history. As Paul writes, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. … For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:15, 19–20).

Jesus, who existed forever as God and took on humanity at a point in history without losing any of His God-ness—Jesus is God’s promised salvation. As we sing,

Israel’s strength and consolation,

hope of all the earth thou art;

dear desire of every nation,

joy of every longing heart.

Jesus himself is the object of our faith. Unlike Buddha or Mohammed, Jesus does not merely exemplify the ideal life or teach us his philosophy on how to be better people. Jesus himself is the object of our trust and the source of our salvation. To experience God’s salvation, you don’t merely follow Jesus’ advice, you cling to Jesus. Every legitimate longing and desire finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus.

And with Jesus’ arrival on earth, the light of God’s glory has come into this dark world. In v. 32 Simeon says that this salvation, “prepared in the presence of all peoples,” is “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” Jesus is both the consolation of Israel that Simeon had waited for and the revelation of God’s salvation to all the nations of the earth. In Jesus, God’s promise to restore Israel is fulfilled. And in Jesus, God’s promise to bless “all the families of the earth” through Abraham is fulfilled.

But how would Jesus accomplish the consolation of Israel and the salvation of the world? This text points to two ways. Think of them as two sides of the same coin.

First, Jesus accomplished salvation by living in our place. This entire scene unfolds in the temple (v. 27): “And he came in 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” (Luke 2:27). We see earlier (v. 21) that Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, as the Law prescribed (Lev 12:3). And Luke 2:22-23 says, “And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord’).”

All of these details are vital, not trivial. As a man, Jesus perfectly fulfilled God’s righteous law. Galatians 4:4-5 says it like this: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” From his birth, he was blameless so that he could be a spotless sacrifice for sinners. When you trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins, God covers you with the perfect righteousness of Jesus and counts you as righteous.

Second, Jesus accomplished salvation by dying in our place. Simeon hints at the shocking way in which Jesus would ultimately achieve the consolation of Israel and the salvation of the world in vv. 34–35: “And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.’” Led by the Spirit, Simeon prophesied about the death of Jesus. Who could have imagined that God’s ultimate deliverance would arrive as a weak baby who would ultimately triumph over the enemies of God through his humiliating death? 

Yet this is exactly what God foretold! Simeon’s song echoes Isaiah 52:9–10: “Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” Just four verses later, God says about the Messiah, “His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind” (Isaiah 52:14).  And a few verses later: “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3).

While many expected consolation through a conquering king, listen to how God’s Savior would comfort his people: “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4–5).

The wrath-bearing, sin-canceling death of Jesus was the only way to make the world right. Jesus’ death purchased the consolation Simeon and the Jews longed for.  Jesus’ death makes unrestricted access to the Father possible for the nations. And Jesus’ death assures you, if you are united to Christ by faith, that one day your waiting will be over and your longings will be fulfilled.

Let your unfulfilled desires and weary waiting point you to Christ.

Conclusion

Some of you have never seen Jesus as glorious. God is inviting you to behold His salvation today. This Jesus that Simeon looked at and held is now displayed to us through the Word of God. Simeon said, “My eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples” (Luke 2:30–31). Just as Simeon saw Jesus because He believed God’s Word, so you can see Jesus by believing God’s Word today.

Some of you have grown weary trusting in God and waiting for Him to act on your behalf.  Look at Jesus today and know that God is not slow to act, as some understand slowness. He came in “the fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), and he will come again “on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed” (2 Thessalonians 1:10).

He has given you his word: “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).