We’ve been in a focus this Christmas season on the Holy Spirit’s role on the Christmas story, which is often overlooked. In every message we’ve seen the Holy Spirit’s impact where there was a supernatural conception within the virgin womb of Mary that led to the virgin birth. The Holy Spirit’s visitation with Mary and Elizabeth, her relative who was the mother of John the Baptist, or the Holy Spirit empowering John the Baptist’s father, Zacharias, to really proclaim the reason for Jesus and John’s birth.
Today, we look at another example of the Holy Spirit’s role in the Christmas story as we see the waiting is over for a man that has been longing to see the Messiah before he died. (Read Luke 2:25-28.)
Thursday, December 17, 2015—a lot of Star Wars buffs woke up with a special tingle of excitement within their being because, at last, the force was reawakening and Star Wars was coming back into movie theaters all around the land. There was a buzz of excitement. At last the waiting was over.
And on Christmas morning, there will be children dashing from their beds to the living room or family room or wherever the presents are to see what gifts they have gotten. And what they’ll be thinking when they can finally get out of bed is ‘the waiting is finally over.’
About two thousand years ago there was an elderly man by the name of Simeon, and the Lord had made it clear to Simeon that he was going to see face to face the long-awaited Messiah of the Jewish people. He was not going to die until he had seen the Messiah. And at this point in Simeon’s life, he had become an old man, so he knew that it was going to be happening soon. He was not going to live much longer. And that’s the encounter we see today when in Simeon’s life—at last, the waiting would be over.
