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Messy Christmas
Scripture focus: Matthew 1-2; Luke 1-2
Waiting for consolation.
That’s what Luke says about Simeon (Luke 2:25) – an old man in the temple “waiting for the consolation of Israel.” Consolation isn’t a word that I often use or even think about. What comes to mind when you think of that word? It’s used several different ways.
Consolation prize – as in, you didn’t win but here’s a prize for you anyway.
Consolation bracket – as in, you lost, but here’s a way you can work your way into the finals if you win EVERY SINGLE match or game until you get there. (which is often pretty unlikely)
Or sometimes you might hear someone say “well, if it’s any consolation to you….” And what might follow is something that may or may not be helpful in the moment.
The dictionary definitions are:
Oxford Dictionary:
the comfort received by a person after a loss or disappointment.
a person or thing providing comfort to a person who has suffered.
Miriam Webster:
Am I the only one who gets frustrated when the dictionary uses the word to define the word?
Console means to alleviate the grief, sense of loss, or trouble of…
Someone was coming to do all of those things – THAT'S the someone that Simeon was waiting for. The One who would alleviate the grief of Israel – whose messy lives involved subjugation by the Romans, the legalism of the Pharisees, and well, just sometimes lives that didn’t go according to plan.
But get this! The Greek word used here for consolation is parakletos – the same word that is used to name the Holy Spirit, the one who comes alongside, the one Jesus promised to leave with all of his people forever!
Simeon was old. He didn’t see the whole life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And as we follow the trajectory of Jesus’s life – full of both miracles and the ordinary, full of joy and sorrow, full of chaos around him and peace within, I wonder if at any point Simeon would have wondered if he got it wrong. John the Baptist wondered it. Maybe he had in his mind a picture of what exactly “the consolation of Israel” might look like – and that wasn’t it.
It might be the same for us…we wait, we long for some sort of consolation in our own lives. The picture we have (or had) isn’t at all how we thought things would play out. How are we consoled?
Our consolation is a person – the God-man who “moved into the neighborhood.” (Eugene Peterson – John 1) The one who has promised never to leave or forsake us, the one who (through the Holy Spirit) is with us IN ALL THINGS! Jesus Christ!
Not a theology, not an idea, not a feeling, but a person.
Perhaps there is an area of life where you need to see Jesus as the consolation of your life. Where do you see Jesus walking alongside you in. your life? What does He want you to know? What words of comfort might He say to you?
Karen Callis
12/2/24
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