Anna and Simeon lived 2000 years ago as aging members of an oppressed people under the rule of Rome, the most powerful and brutal nation in the world. The world at that time was, as it is today, a broken world; a world where conflict and violence, suffering and death were the norm; a world wherein its inhabitants suffered individually and collectively from a profound sense of meaninglessness, emptiness, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger and despair.
It was a world described in Ephesians 2:12 as “without hope and without God”, a world perishing under the corrupting impact of mankind’s sin, a term that represents our rejection of God’s purpose for and rule over our lives, and God’s judgement on that sin which would ultimately result in men and women being confined to Hell forever (Matthew 25:41).
And yet it was a world of men, women and children whom God created to love, as well as for them to know and love Him. And thus in anticipation of man’s sin, God, in the ultimate expression of His love, planned from the foundation of the world to redeem, to rescue from His judgement and reconcile to Himself, hopeless people from this world who would turn from their sin, trust in His love, and pursue their hope in Him as the object of their deepest love and source of their greatest joy (Matthew 22:36-38).
We are told in Isaiah 9:6-7 and John 3:16 that this plan and promise of redemption would be accomplished by God the Son coming into this world as man to, at great cost to Himself (2 Corinthians 8:9), accomplish everything necessary to justly forgive men and women their sins, and restore them to the glorious relationship with God for which man was created.
This promise was made by God initially in the Garden of Eden after Adam’s rebellion against God, the consequences of which are found in our present messed up world. The promise was made at that time in somewhat cryptic terms (Genesis 3:15). However, the promise of a redeemer, a savior, a Messiah became more distinct and explicit throughout the Old Testament, particularly in the prophetic book of Isaiah, and also in Micah 5 and Daniel 7.
Anna and Simeon had devoted their whole lives to God, spending much of their life in the Jewish Temple, which represented the presence of God, awaiting the fulfillment of His promise. Anna had actually lived there for over seventy years, and when she wasn’t praying and fasting she would have been helping with temple activities. Simeon’s sincere devotion resulted in him being promised by God that he would not see death until He saw the fulfillment of the Messianic promise.
And it is this day, described in Luke 2:22-38, that both would experience up close and firsthand the fulfillment of that promise. A young couple, Mary and Joseph of Nazareth, came to the temple on this day, 40 days after their son Jesus’ birth, to fulfill the Jewish law regarding first born males. God gloriously rewards Simeon’s hope and devotion as Simeon takes into his arms the very one who, as God the Son, spoke into existence the whole world, and who now as a man would redeem it. Anna’s lifelong devotion and hope are fulfilled as she not only gets to meet the promised Messiah, but has the privilege of being the first evangelist, proclaiming to the Jewish people that their redeemer had come.
And to what end has He come? We are told very simply and succinctly in 1 Timothy 1:15, that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. And just how would he accomplish such an infinitely valuable, infinitely glorious task as a man?
As a man He would live a sinless life, fulfilling all of the righteous requirements of the law, so that all who would repent (turn from their sin) and believe in Him would be justified, declared righteous by God, raised to spiritual life by God the Holy Spirit, and live now and forever at peace with God as His beloved children (Romans 5:1-11).
His sacrificial death on the cross would perfectly satisfy divine justice so that the sins of all who would repent and believe could justly be forgiven, set free from sin’s power and penalty and one day from its presence forever (Colossians 1:12-14).
His bodily resurrection to newness of life would give a living hope to all who repent and believe; that even though they may die, they will live again one day in the glorious relationship with God and one another for which we were created, ultimately in new physical bodies, conformed to the perfections of His glorious resurrected body (John 11:25-26).
His ascension into Heaven to the right hand of God the Father provides all who have repented and believed an intercessor in Heaven, who will be with them and strengthen them during times of trial and temptation while in this world, to keep us from again succumbing to Satan’s lies and being condemned with the world (Jude 24-25).
His future second coming will put an end to sin and death within His creation, as He will establish a new heavens and new earth in which all of the hopes of His children in Him are fulfilled and God is glorified in us and through us forever (2 Peter 3:13).
I will look more closely at each of these aspects of our Savior’s redeeming work in upcoming posts.
Grace and Peace ×