Sunday in Octave of Christmas 31.12.17 Waiting on God
Simeon and Anna had great love for God, evident in that they
would be prepared to wait so long for the fulfilment of His promises. (Not
everyone is so patient.) And when He finally
does appear, they recognize Him immediately, even though there are no external phenomena
to announce His presence. (Not everyone could recognize the Messiah just from
seeing a baby!)
Their extraordinary love was fulfilled and rewarded.
God challenges us all to exercise patience in waiting on His
holy will, and to develop the ability to discern His presence.
He wants us to search for Him (cf Song of Songs, the bride
seeking the bridegroom).
God wants us to love Him, and will help us to understand
what that requires.
Think of human lovers, like Romeo and Juliet. You would not
have to tell Romeo that he should spend time with Juliet. He would want to do
that anyway. He would not be trying to wriggle out of the obligation, or
begrudging the time he gives Juliet.
God wants to be with us, but we may not want to be with Him.
Some people do want to be with God – such as Simeon and
Anna, and all those we call saints, and us too, at least somewhat.
The saints inspire the rest of us to find out what they
knew.
God has a sense of understatement. Not everything He does is
accompanied by trumpets.
He is looking for people who are looking for Him, who are
prepared to put in some effort in the quest to find Him.
Situations vacant: people who can love God, who can see
below the surface, who can wait out a crisis without panic, who are willing to
seek a greater desire.
If He is so desirable why do we have to be commanded to love
Him? It is because we are beginners in the matter, and we have to be told what
is good for us.
Eventually we can break free of the command. We don’t stop
keeping it; it is just we no longer need to be told.
To love God on our part becomes as natural as for a bird to
fly.
Taste and see the Lord is good (Ps 33, 8). It is a taste
that is acquired. The command is only to set us in motion. The rest will look
after itself.
A good start is to practise the discipline of prayer,
learning from Simeon and Anna – they prayed day in and day out. And so must we.
Waiting for God to show Himself; waiting for Him to grant us
an increasing desire to see Him, the sensitivity to recognise that presence,
and the patience to keep waiting.
We need His help to do all this. He will stir up in us a
love for Him, and such a desire that if we get to a certain point we can then
go on further.
It might be painful at first, as we are pulled away from our
worldly delights, but it will be great joy if we can battle through all the
distractions.
We have it in us but it is jumbled. We have all sorts of good
thoughts and resolutions (New Year and otherwise), but we are too disorganised
to make it work.
What we have now is the reverse of the situation in Simeon
and Anna’s time. They were in the Temple and God was not. Now He is in the
church and the people are not!
He is waiting for them to come. And what are the people
doing? As in the time of Noah they are eating and drinking, buying and selling
(Mt 24, 38).
But we are here,
and we bring what we have. We are not as humble or as faithful as we should be,
but by the grace of God we will become so. We will learn what it means to love
God, and we will do it.
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