And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 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. And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to carry out for Him the custom of the Law, then he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said, “Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace, According to Your word; For my eyes have seen Your salvation, Which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, A Light of revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.” And His father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about Him.
Luke 2: 25-33

SEEING CLEARLY
Simeon is the kind of person we all wish we could be: righteous and devout, the kind of person to whom the Holy Spirit reveals things. God comes to him in Spirit, God tells him something, and Simeon hears.

But the most important thing we see in Simeon is not that he’s a good, religious or even godly man. It’s that he knows what is missing from his life—what he needs to look for. Simeon is looking for God’s consolation.

Simeon has good reason to expect something new, a great comfort and deliverance from God. After all, God promised the Christ long before, and all the Jews should have been looking for Him. But life goes on. Years pass. Babies are born. Old people die. Expectation dulls. People believe God’s promise in their heads, but hope fades in their hearts.

Except for in Simeon’s heart. Simeon is one of those people who trust God enough to know His promise of salvation is real: he believes what he has not yet seen. And God rewards his faith. It is Simeon’s faith that gives him ears to hear the Spirit, and eyes to see salvation. I suspect it is through Simeon’s eyes that Tanya Butler created her painting, with its vivid colors and stark lines, its glowing babe. Simeon can see more clearly than most of us. That is, what he can’t yet see is as vivid to him as what he can see; he has eyes to see spiritual things, things belonging to heaven that most of us are blind to. In the same way, the painting makes a very old and faded story vivid for us; this is good because the promises of God can easily fade in our hearts, but when we look at the painting we see anew the baby, we experience the love and the amazement that surrounds him.

Babies, babies. Parents who love them, parents in awe of what God has made using their bodies. Parents who want to seal God’s promise of deliverance onto their sons’ bodies.  Parents with babies milling around the temple, waiting their turn, nervous, vulnerable, in love with the tiny being they hold, the miracle repeated tens of thousands of times over generations. Priests. Rituals. An old man. Mary and Joseph. Jesus. Just another Jewish baby being brought to the temple on the eighth day.

But no! Instead of just another baby, Simeon sees in Jesus Salvation, Light and Glory. In Behold Your God, we hear with our own ears, brought back to life through the musical imagination of the St. Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Church choir, the words of Simeon. We know the story; we listen as Simeon voices his experience of deep consolation brought by the tiny baby in his arms and gives glory to God for the deliverance that Jesus is. And we, too, are consoled (by the tenor).

Works of art—music, painting, literature—allow us to see with new eyes. With Mary and Joseph, we are amazed. With Simeon, our eyes have seen salvation, light, and glory. With the baby Jesus, we are consoled by God, so that we can stop searching and know the peace he has already given. Amazing!

A post scriptum on Melville’s Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, the story begins with a different, modern, elderly man, a lawyer, who tells us of his singular experience on Wall Street with a worker named Bartleby, who has sometimes been interpreted as a Christ figure. Bartleby sacrifices himself in an act of seeming martyrdom—he’d rather die than lose his self. His refusal to get swallowed up by the evil material world around him is an act of resistance on the part of an individual oppressed by a legalistic system of money and bureaucracy. Yet while his actions amaze the elderly man, they cannot deliver anyone, not even Bartleby himself, from the miserable, individualistic, materialistic life of Wall Street. His death is a reminder that no man’s martyrdom can validate this life, and that this life is indeed without hope. The lawyer ends his story without having seen anything that could save him or anyone else from his meaningless life—“Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!” If only the lawyer, and all of us, could be amazed by what is truly amazing…a God who was born and died so we can live.
Amy Obrist, Assistant Professor of Modern Languages

LORD, let us have clean hearts ready inside for the Lord Jesus, so that He will be glad to come in, gratefully accepting the hospitality of those worlds, our hearts: He whose glory and power will endure throughout the ages. Amen
Origen