Day 21...

A few reflections from The Message, verses from Luke 2

"I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide:"
--Not just for some...not for those who understood beforehand or who could build the temples...but for everyone...and not just for Jews or certain people groups...everybody, covering the earth.

"Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they'd been told!"
--In this moment, Mary is truly a mother...I think of how mother's must ponder and treasure those first moments with their new baby...and those feelings cannot be shared with anyone else, not even the father.  She planted those thoughts and feelings deep within her, perhaps because she knew how special they were...and how she would need them later. 



"In Jerusalem at the time, there was a man, Simeon by name, a good man, a man who lived in the prayerful expectancy of help for Israel. And the Holy Spirit was on him. The Holy Spirit had shown him that he would see the Messiah of God before he died. Led by the Spirit, he entered the Temple. As the parents of the child Jesus brought him in to carry out the rituals of the Law, Simeon took him into his arms and blessed God:



God, you can now release your servant;
release me in peace as you promised.
With my own eyes I've seen your salvation;
it's now out in the open for everyone to see:
A God-revealing light to the non-Jewish nations,
and of glory for your people Israel.


Jesus' father and mother were speechless with surprise at these words. Simeon went on to bless them, and said to Mary his mother,
This child marks both the failure and
the recovery of many in Israel,
A figure misunderstood and contradicted—
the pain of a sword-thrust through you—
But the rejection will force honesty,
as God reveals who they really are."

--Mary and Joseph were simply carrying out tradition as they took Jesus to the Temple and they came across Simeon...imagine holding the knowledge of a Savior and believing it with all of your being...and no one else truly understanding it.  It was if everything had come to pass for Simeon and he had seen what he had been waiting for his entire life.  I sense relief in his words, "it's now out in the open for everyone to see."  We know that Joseph and Mary were told by the angel that Jesus was indeed the Savior they had been waiting for...and they were still speechless and surprised at Simeon's words.  I'm the same way...I "know" things, but when God does things, sometimes I am surprised and speechless.

"Rejection will force honesty."  When we are stripped of comfort, of self, of all we "know," we are forced into an honest place that we couldn't have imagined.  And the refining begins...apparently it started a long time ago.