The Passion of the Christ

 

He agonized in the garden, sweating great drops of blood.

He was betrayed by one of the twelve and abandoned by the rest.

He was arrested and bound and led before a kangaroo court,

where he was slapped, falsely accused, interrogated, lied about, tried, convicted, and condemned.

Peter denied him six times in the courtyard before morning.

The spiritual leaders of Israel spat in his face.

They blindfolded him, punched him, and demanded him to prophesy who had done it.

They mocked him, they cursed him,

and then they sent him to Pilate.

Tried by Pilate, he was found innocent.

Herod treated him with scorn and contempt,

dressing him in a royal robe as a cruel joke.

Pilate tried to release him, but the crowd demanded Barabbas instead.

Pilate had him scourged to satisfy their blood-lust,

but the crowd demanded crucifixion.

The Roman soldiers crowned him with thorns,

beating them into his skull with a rod

before placing the rod in his hand as a scepter.

They too spat upon him, as they bowed in false worship of the king.

They placed a cross upon his shoulders and forced him to walk the Way of Sorrow.

They offered him something for his pain, but he refused it.

They laid him on the cross and drove nails through his hands and feet to hold him there.

They gambled for his clothes.

Dogs licked his blood.

His own mother was forced to watch his torturous dying.

His enemies stood around laughing and mocking and screaming and demanding another sign.

The spirits of wickedness gathered to cheer his impending doom.

The thief on one mocked him as they suffered,

the other begged for mercy and received it.

On the cross that day, Jesus forgave a thief and his own crucifiers,

and looking down through the corridors of time,

he forgave me.

Everything he did that day, everything he suffered, everything he endured,

he did so for me.

Jesus took the punishment for my sin upon himself,

so that I could go free.

Jesus gave his life so that I might live,

and that alone is enough

to compel me

to live for Him.

 

 

 

Simeon: Salvation

 

He took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said:

"Lord, now Your are letting Your servant depart in peace,

according to Your word;

for my eyes have seen Your salvation

which You have prepared before the face of all peoples,

a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles,

and the glory of Your people Israel."

Luke 2:28-32, NKJV

 

After years of waiting, the day had finally come.  Going to the temple in obedience to the Holy Spirit, when Simeon saw Jesus in the arms of Joseph (or Mary), he knew that this was the fulfillment of God's promises, the culmination of a life he'd spent in devotion to God.  Simeon wasn't a priest, and this wasn't the official presentation of the child at the temple.  This wasn't the legal redemption of the first born, nor the purification of the mother.  This was a God-ordained moment of worship and blessing for all those involved.

 

Taking the child in his arms, Simeon raised his voice in praise to God.  The anticipated moment was hear.  Now what would he say?

 

"I can die in peace now, because I have seen Your salvation for all people.  I have seen the light of the world, the light of glory."  Simeon had looked upon the very face of God, and he rejoiced over it.

 

Do we realize that the Jesus we know is that same Jesus that Simeon saw?  Has the depth and power and greatness of the Christ we met in salvation penetrated our reality?  Jesus Christ is indeed the savior of the world, the one who came to rescue mankind from the depravities of sin, from the captivities of satan and sickness and self.  Jesus came with a hand outstretched from the manger to bring hope and help and healing into a world so desperately in need.

 

Yet many times we view him as some kind of eternal Santa Claus, a heavenly benefactor who exists to give us everything we ask for, get us out of our self-made messes, and bless us with stuff we don't need and won't appreciate anyway.  We forget that the reason He came was to give us new life, abundant and eternal life when we believed on Him.  We forget that His invitation was one to be born again, a transformation that readies us for eternity.  The Apostle Paul will later write, "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives within me."  And another place he would say, "I am crucified with Christ, and yet I live.  Not I, but Christ who lives within me.  And the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God."

 

Salvation is not about us getting a better deal out of life, but about us receiving and reflecting His eternal and powerful life from within!  Simeon understood what He was seeing when He met Jesus, and from that moment on He lived as a dead man.  "I can die in peace..."  But still he proclaimed that his salvation was our salvation, the salvation being made available to all of humanity, to everyone who would believe in the power of this child, this infant Jesus, to save.

 

Thank You, Jesus, for the light of revelation and glory that You have shined down on us!

Simeon: Obedience

 

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...

Luke 2:27-28, NKJV

 

Simeon had received a promise in the past while pondering over a puzzling portion of Scripture.  The verse itself from the prophet Isaiah--behold, a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a Son--was difficult enough to wrestle with.  To the Jew, a virgin was simply a young girl, and all young girls were supposed to conceive and bring forth a son.  Isaiah could have been writing about his wife, or King Ahaz's wife.  But the child was to be called Immanuel, meaning God With Us, and perhaps Simeon realized that neither Isaiah's sons nor Ahaz's had lived up to such a name.  So what did it mean for him, for his people, in the here and now?  What was the application to be made?  Where was the fulfillment?  As he thought about these things, the Lord God of his fathers spoke to him, informing him that he would not die until he saw the fulfillment of that Scripture.  He would see the Lord's Christ before his death.

 

So having received that promise, Simeon continued living his holy life and continually watched with expectation for the promise of God to come to pass.

 

Then on a certain morning, he was told to go to the temple by the Spirit of God.  Being a man of the Spirit, he was already familiar with the Lord's prompting, and a long life of obedience and trained him to do as he was bid.  Even among those who were not so directed by an audible voice or an inner nudging were well trained in obedience.  When they didn't have an audible voice, they had a law to dictate to them the will of God in every day life.  A young woman had given birth to her firstborn son forty days before, and in obedience to the law, she was coming on the forty-first day to offer the sacrifice for her purification.  One family following the ancient commandments of their God and one old man following a fresh revelation from that same God were about to cross paths.

 

Where will God take us if we will simply be obedient to His words--both the old and the new?

 

There is a growing sub-culture within the church of Jesus Christ that seems to have abandoned the written Word of God while looking for a "right now" word from God.  I have seen people running here and yonder and there looking for a prophet to prophesy over them, to tell them what to do.  I have seen Christians waste their lives and dry up in the pew waiting for God to tell them what He wants them to do with their lives.  All the while carrying a Book that will give them everything they need for life and for Godliness.  But they don't read it.

 

And then there are those who are stuck between pages with no Divine insight or revelation, un-led by the Spirit, untouched and unmoved by the power of the quickened Word.  They read without understanding, without applying, without changing because they are not truly listening for the voice of God in the writings of old.  They are seeking knowledge or doing their churchly duty by reading their chapter or verse of the day, and there is no life for them there.

 

Some have thrown out the entire Old Testament as irrelevant in 21st Century Western Christianity, and some have thrown out all or part of the New Testament for the same reason.  Some have said, "I have a new revelation, another testament" or something else equally spectacular, and sadly people who haven't allowed the living Word or the Spirit of God to guide them have followed right along.

 

What we as believers in Jesus Christ need to do is read what God has written--all of it--and be filled with the Spirit, so that He can lead us both through the words He spoke through the men of old, and the words He speaks to us right here today.  And then we need to obey.

 

 

God's Timing

 

But beloved, do not forget this one thing,

that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years,

and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise...

2 Peter 3:8-9, NKJV

 

I'm not trying to build a doctrine here, but think about this:

 

1 day to God equals 1000 years to us, or 365,000 days.

 

24 hours to God equals 8,760,000 hours to us.

 

1440 minutes to God equals 525,600,000 minutes to us.

 

86,400 seconds to God equals 31,536,000,000 seconds to us.

 

1 year to us equals 86.4 seconds to God.

 

1 day to us equals .23671 seconds to God.

 

In God's timing...

 

...the earth was created 6 days ago.

 

...Jesus was here 2 days ago.

 

...I was born 1 hour ago.

 

...last year was 1 minute 26 seconds ago.

 

...yesterday was only 1/4 of a second ago.

 

When we think that we've waited a long time to receive God's personal promises to us, remember that a lifetime here is about 2 hours to God.  I'm reminded of Abraham, whose 25 year wait for the son of his promise was only 36 minutes on God's watch.  And our wait for the return of Jesus Christ was just a couple of days.

 

So have patience, my friend.  God's ways are not our ways. God's thoughts are not our thoughts.  And God's time is not our time.  He's on the clock, on the job, and He is faithful to keep every single one of His promises to us!  It just takes a little time.

Simeon: Spirit Led

 

So he came by the Spirit into the temple.

Luke 2:27, NKJV

 

The Spirit of God, the Bible says, is our comforter and counselor.  He knows our heart and God's mind, and prays for us accordingly.  He is the one who brings things to our remembrance, who teaches us things we need to know, and who reveals things that are going to happen.  He was present at Creation; He is the active agent of God in salvation; and He continues to be active in the heart and life of the believer.  He is the biggest helper we could ever want or ask for, and He is ever available to us.  If we will just pay attention.

 

Those random thoughts you have about people you don't normally think about?  That might be the Holy Spirit telling you someone needs prayer right then.  Those ideas that surprise you, the suggestions that startle you?  That might be the Holy Spirit giving you something new to do.  Those nagging feelings that you should turn right or left or turn around or go down a certain aisle in the grocery story?  That might be the Holy Spirit directing you away from something, or toward something else.

 

My point is this:  Christian believers have an all-knowing guide through life, and it would be largely beneficial to us all if we learned to be more sensitive to the leading of the Spirit in everything that we do.

 

Simeon was a holy man living a life of fairness to others and faithfulness to God as he waited for the fulfillment of all that had been promised to him and his people.  The Holy Spirit was upon him, the Bible says, and had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah.  I don't know how I might have reacted to such knowledge, but I've got a feeling Simeon took the revelation in stride.  I'm sure it excited him, thrilled him, moved him every time he thought about it.  But I don't think he chased down every mother with a baby to see if that child was the One he was waiting for.  Rather, he relied on the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit to show him.

 

How did his day begin?  With commitment, faithfulness, devotion, I'm sure.  He had responsibilities as a teacher of the law and leader among the elders of Israel.  Every day there were things to do, and I'm sure that Simeon did them well.  God wants His people to be diligent with the business He entrusts to their care.  But at some point on that appointed day, the Holy Spirit spoke to Him.

 

It might have been a nudge, a feeling, a passing thought.  It might have been an audible voice.  But the Spirit of the Lord let Simeon know that the temple was the place he need to be.  So whatever else he had been doing was laid aside as he went to the temple in obedience.

 

For this was the day!

 

Simeon: Assurance

 

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.

Luke 2:26, NKJV

 

I have a friend who told me many years ago that he believed the Lord had shown him he would still be preaching the gospel as an old man when Jesus returned.  I have no reason to doubt him, but the only way I will ever know for sure that he heard correctly is if Jesus returns in his lifetime.  Last year, that man turned 70.

 

We don't know how old Simeon was when he entered the temple in the Autumn of 3 BC.  His still-living father, the great teacher Hillel, was 107.  His son Gamaliel was already a grown man established in his own right as a renowned teacher of the law, a man who would school apostles and defend them a generation later, and die 53 years hence.  So Simeon might have been 70 or 80 years old on that morning that Mary & Joseph brought their tiny Jesus to the temple for dedication.

 

We don't know how long ago Simeon had received his promise.  One tradition tells of Simeon pouring over the Messianic passages in Isaiah, and as he meditated on the thought "a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son" the Holy Spirit revealed to him that he would see it in his lifetime.  How long he waited, we cannot be certain.  And with a father who was already a Centenarian, there might not have been a desperate urgency in Simeon's heart for the arrival of the day.  He had plenty of time.

 

But regardless of how long he had waited, or how much longer he felt he had left, of one thing he was certain.  Before he breathed his final breath, he would see the Christ.  The Messiah.  The Anointed One of Israel.  He had the assurance from God that he would see the Seed of the Woman, the Seed of Abraham, the Son of David, the Prophet Greater than Moses, the Deliverer of Zion, the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.  He had every reason to believe that his eyes would behold Emmanuel, God with Us, God made flesh to dwell among men.  He could hold onto to that promise, no matter how aged he was, no matter how weak and feeble his body waxed, no matter how his eyes dimmed.  He would not see death coming for him until he had seen the Lord of life coming to him.

 

What a prospect!  What a promise!  I have been fascinated by the idea of the Lord's return almost my entire life.  I grew up in a home that believed in the Rapture of the Church and the Second Coming of Christ.  I grew up hearing my Dad repeatedly proclaim, "Son, you don't have to worry about growing up, getting married, and having children.  Jesus is coming back before then!"  It didn't bother me so much when I was a child, but as a grown man, single and pastoring my first church, with a heart's desire to find a bride and raise a family of my own, that statement began to chafe me a might.  One night after pouring my heart out to my Dad about all that the Lord had promised me for the coming year, Dad made his little declaration about the return of Christ and I got so frustrated with him that I practically shouted, "I've heard that my whole life, and I'm tired of it!"  Dad didn't even respond.

 

Later, my mother and I shared a deeply personal conversation about the future the Lord had shown us, a future in which Jesus returned--not for all of us, but for my Dad alone.  He never put it that way, but we believe he knew from the day that he was saved in 1976 that he was not long for this earth.  His childhood, youth and young adulthood had been spent in serious rebellion against both God and man, with a special kind of bitterness between him and his mother.  He had known the truth as a child and turned away, running from the Gospel until it finally caught him at the age of 27.  And for the next 22 years, he lived his life for Jesus to the fullest extent.

 

So when he died unexpectedly at the age of 49 following a routine knee surgery, it did not shock us.  We were not caught off guard because the Lord had shown us in advance what He was going to do.  And I doubt it caught Dad off guard either.  Sure enough, Jesus returned before Dad saw me married to the mother of my children.  And in his final hours, when Mom thought he was talking in his sleep, Dad was heard to say, "You got to honor your Mama."  The promise of God is true, Honor your Father and Mother, that it may be well with you, and that your days may be long on the earth.

 

I have received promises too.  Promises of a future that have not fully come to pass.  I have assurances from the Lord, and I know I can trust them, for He who promised them is faithful and true, and He will perform it.  I have no doubts about the promises of God.  And when Jesus really does show up for me, either in the clouds calling my name, or standing by my bedside to lead me from this world to the next, His promises will still be sure.

Simeon: Waiting

 

And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon,

and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel,

and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

Luke 2:25, NKJV

 

 

Four Thousand Years before this point in the Gospel story, a promise had been given to the Mother of All Living that from her would come a Seed that would crush the serpent's head.

Two Thousand Years before, a promise had been given to the Father of a Multitude and his Princess that in the Child of Laughter their Seed would be called, that through them and theirs, God would bless the entire family of Man.

And at some unknown point in the Century before, a promise had been given to Simeon ben Hillel, son of one great teacher, father of another, a scholar and teacher himself about whom history recorded very little.  But he enters the Gospel story with a Spirit-inspired description of his character:  he was just and devout, and he was waiting.  And the Holy Spirit was upon him.

The Consolation of Israel, their salvation and redemption comfort and restoration, their triumph over evil and their enemies, was the long held hope of the Jewish people.  Whenever things got bad (as things always were for the Jews, and still are for that matter), old Jewish grandfathers and grandmothers would remind their wide-eyed and fretful grandchildren that God had always seen them through before, and that God was going to see them through now, and one day, the Messiah would come to deliver them from all of their troubles.  That was their hope.

That was Simeon's hope.  As a righteous man, fair in his reasonings, devoted and committed to serving his God, his faith and confidence were firmly placed in that which he had not seen in the natural, but which he looked for by faith.  And he was a man touched by the very Spirit of God, empowered, overshadowed, comforted and assured by the everpresence of the Most High upon his life.  He knew that no matter how long the wait, his Savior was coming.

Two Thousand Years after, a promise has been given to the Bride of Christ, the Body and Church, the adopted Children of God, that our consolation is coming.  We have been promised a place at the table, a position in the kingdom, an inheritance incorruptible, and eternal life besides.  We have been promised that our Lord who left this earth for the right hand of the majesty on high will one day return in clouds of glory.  We have been promised that one day He will speak our name and call us home, either from the ground upon which we walk, or the ground beneath which we lay.  We have been promised rescue from the Tribulation that comes upon the whole earth, salvation from wrath, rest from our labors, escape before the coming judgment, and supreme shelter in the time of trouble.  We have been promised a home eternal in the presence of the Lord.  And still we wait for that day.

May we, like Simeon, await that day in justice and devotion, with the Holy Spirit upon us until we meet Jesus in the air!