Simeon (in the Temple)

Scripture: Luke 2:25–35; Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 49:6; Exodus 13:2; Leviticus 12:6–8

And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ (Luke 2:25–26). Luke gives us three facts and a promise: he was just, he was devout, he was waiting, and the Spirit had told him he would not die until he had seen the consolation of Israel. That promise shaped his entire remaining life.

And he came by the Spirit into the temple (2:27). When Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the Temple for the rites of purification and the presentation of the firstborn, fulfilling the requirements of Exodus 13:2 and Leviticus 12:6–8, the full observance of the law, Simeon came in the Spirit at the same moment. He took the child in his arms, and the prayer he sang has been sung in the evening offices of the Church ever since. "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel" (2:29–32). This prayer is the Nunc Dimittis, from the first words in Latin: nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, now you dismiss your servant, Lord. It is one of the three canticles embedded in Luke's birth narrative.

Simeon then blessed Joseph and Mary, and said to Mary: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" (2:34–35). The sword: the sign that was spoken against would one day cost the mother everything she loved to watch. Simeon was the first person in the New Testament narrative to speak prophetically of the crucifixion, not by naming it but by naming what it would cost the woman standing before him, holding her newborn. "A sword shall pierce through thy own soul also." At Golgotha, Mary stood at the foot of the cross and watched.

Simeon's identification of the child as "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel" draws directly from Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6, the Servant Songs: "I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth" (Isaiah 49:6). Simeon recognized in the infant the fulfillment of the Servant's commission, the one who would be both the consolation of Israel and the revelation to all peoples.

The Sanctum holds Simeon as the figure of faithful waiting, a lifetime of devout expectation that was not disappointed. He is the man who did not die before the promise was fulfilled. His Nunc Dimittis is among the most sung texts in Christian worship, and the Sanctum reads him as the archetype of the soul that waits on YHWH's word without shortening it, and finds at the end that the word held.

Simeon's prayer is not the prayer of a man who is glad to be done. It is the prayer of a man who is free to go because he has seen what he came for. The consolation of Israel, the comfort YHWH promised his people through the prophets, was in his arms. The aged prophet who had held the promise his entire life finally held the one who would fulfill it, and what he held was an infant who could not yet walk or speak. He recognized him anyway. "For mine eyes have seen thy salvation." The Sanctum reads the Nunc Dimittis as one of the purest statements of faith in all of Scripture: not hope, not anticipation, but sight, the completion of a vigil that was now done.

Simeon's song quotes Isaiah's Servant Songs deliberately. The Servant of YHWH in Isaiah 42 and 49 is called to be "a light to the nations", the Hebrew goyim, the Gentiles, the peoples who were not Israel. Simeon identified the infant Jesus as that Servant and addressed him as the light who would lighten the Gentiles and be the glory of his own people Israel. He held in his arms the answer to the question the prophets had asked: who is the Servant? The Sanctum notes that this identification was made at Jesus's first appearance in the Temple, before any teaching, any miracle, any ministry. The aged prophet knew him before any public work had been done, by the Spirit who had been upon him all along.