God's Plans for Us: Worth the Wait

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church on Sunday, December 27, the First Sunday of Christmas.]

Luke 2:22-40

In today’s Gospel lesson, we learn about the actions and words of four people--Joseph, Mary, Simeon, and Anna. And yet, the four of them are not at the center of things.

At the center of the incidents our lesson recounts is a baby, which seems appropriate on this Sunday when we will see the Baptism of Caroline.

Babies are often at the center of things, controlling the lives and daily schedules of their elders.

This year, my niece and her husband had their first child, a beautiful little boy named Marshall. He is my parents’ fifth great-grandchild, but as we all remind each other, he’s the first baby we’ve had in our family for some time. And so, we all act appropriately loopy over the little guy. Babies don’t really have to do anything to gain our attention or our love.

Luke records different reactions to another baby, the baby Jesus, from the normal ones though.

Among the milling throngs at the temple, few people seemingly notice or care about the child in Mary’s arms.

But two people know that this child deserves and will continue to deserve for all eternity, all our attention, allegiance, service, and worship.

As the text begins, Joseph and Mary bring Jesus to the temple. There, Mary’s purification following childbirth will be certified and Jesus will be circumcised and named. The couple will also bring an offering--a dove or pigeons--to be sacrificed by a priest, these being the sacrifices God had told Moses that Israelites who couldn’t afford a lamb could bring to the temple. Joseph and Mary are doing for this child everything that accorded with Old Testament ritual and sacrificial law.

But soon this young couple will meet two people who will remind them that the baby in their arms spells the end for the need of those laws.

Jesus will become the sacrifice that once and for all, will erase the power of sin and death over anyone who believes in Him.

Several decades later, Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, will point to Jesus and declare: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” [John 1:29]

At the temple, the couple, holding Jesus, encounter Simeon, a man filled with God’s Holy Spirit, the power of God’s life filling his elderly frame, empowering him to tell God’s truth.

Verse 25 in our lesson tells us that Simeon “...was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms…”

Simeon knew about waiting for the unfolding of God’s plans. Most of his fellow Judeans had long ago stopped waiting for the Old Testament prophecies of a Savior-Messiah, so much so that Matthew tells us when wise men came from the East looking for the newborn King, all of Jerusalem was in an uproar at the thought that the baby would upset the lives to which they were accustomed.

But not Simeon! He had believed the prophecies and yearned for their fulfillment, had waited and prayed and worshiped and trusted in God.

Now, in his old age, he sees what long generations of faithful members of God’s people had, according to Hebrews 11:13, only seen and welcomed “from a distance.” He sees the one who, Isaiah had said some seven-hundred years earlier, would “be a light to guide the nations” [Isaiah 42:6] and would bring comfort to His own people [Isaiah 49:13].

He even takes the baby in his arms to offer worship and praise!

All that Simeon had been waiting for was in his arms!

Now, the old man tells God, he can die in peace. “For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” [Luke 2:30-32]

Joseph and Mary “marveled” at Simeon’s words.

But that isn’t all that Simeon has to say. He turns to the young mother who had been forced to deliver this child in an animal stall and tells her to steel herself for the cross the baby would one day bear for us all. Verse 34: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel,” Simeon says, “and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.”

The baby Jesus, God on earth, the foundational truth of the universe, will be (and still is) an uncomfortable presence in a world given over to sin, where human beings want, more than anything else, to be gods unto themselves.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us: “...the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

Jesus, the Word made flesh [John 1:14], exposes the human race as people walking in darkness needing a great light [Isaiah 9:2], but wanting to run from the light or destroy it, wanting to avoid admitting its need for a Savior, wanting to deny that the wages of its sin is death [Romans 6:13], wanting to rid itself of God altogether [Luke 20:14].

Simeon is telling us that Jesus’ rejection and death on the cross are inevitable. But the God of the universe now in Simeon’s arms is also Mary’s baby, which is why Simeon warns her, “And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”    

Mary had told Elizabeth that “all generations will call me blessed” [Luke 1:48]. And so she was. She bore God in her womb and raised Him. To play such a part in God’s plans for saving the world was a blessing! But in this blessing, there would also be grief.

And the same is true for us.

When we dare to take Jesus as our Lord, to live in our Baptismal covenant, along with the new life that He offers, it spells the death of our old selves. As, day by day, we continue to surrender to Jesus, we will grieve over self-centered ambitions and self-driven ways, even as we thank God for the blessing of eternally belonging to Him. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously put it, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

Mary has probably barely absorbed Simeon’s words when Anna appears. She is a prophet. She’s a member of the Israelite tribe of Asher, one of the tribes taken into exile by the ancient Assyrian Empire.

But, despite everything, a few of their number had continued faithfully to follow God, had returned to the promised land, and had waited for the coming of the Messiah.

Anna, like Simeon, continued to trust in God even when those around her had given up on faith.

Like Simeon, she knew the importance of waiting for God to fulfill His plans in history. The believer knows that every passing year when Jesus hasn't returned to finally establish His kingdom, is an opportunity for more to come to repentance and new life from the God revealed in Jesus.

When Anna sees Jesus, “she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem” [Luke 1:38].

At the end of these remarkable events, we’re told that Mary and Joseph took their child back to Nazareth, where He would grow strong, be filled with God’s wisdom, and have God’s grace upon Him.

The waiting then, wasn’t over.

It would be decades before Jesus’ death and resurrection.

But those events--Good Friday and Easter Sunday--were worth the wait.

Even today, on the other side of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, we are called, like Simeon and Anna, to wait with trust and hope in the midst of days we can't understand or explain, believing that God has what is best for us in mind.

And, like Mary and Joseph, we are called to do the everyday tasks of life that God calls each of us to do, all to God’s glory.

To me, this, in fact, surfaces one of the primary takeaways from today’s Gospel lesson: Following Christ isn’t, in this life, the glorious, flawless, brimming with success and easy procession that the false teachers on TV make it out to be. Waiting trustingly for the unfolding of God’s plans for our lives--as individuals and as believers in Jesus--is something we go at each day as we follow Christ above all else: as we do our duty to God, our families, and our communities; as we worship and pray and learn to know God better through His Word.

Mary, Joseph, Simeon, and Anna all must have had times when their faith was tested, when prayers seemed futile, when grief worked at driving a wedge between God and them. But our text tells us that they remained steadfast in focusing on the Lord they actually held in their arms and attended to that day in the temple.

Many years after the events in today’s Gospel lesson, the apostle Paul would tell a young pastor, Timothy: “Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” [2 Timothy 4:8]

Everyone loves babies, I think. (Except, maybe when they cry?) But the baby Jesus is the only Child Who can change our eternities, giving us life with God. For a needy world, He was worth the faithful waiting exhibited by Simeon and Anna.

And for all He has in mind for us, He is worthy of waiting for all that He has in mind for us in ways no less faithful...and no less certain of His good plans for us. Amen

You Can't Hurry Love

[This sermon was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Luke 2:22-40
We spent part of Christmas day with my extended family. A highlight of our time together came when our niece, Katelyn, and our son, Philip, pulled out their laptops and played music for us. You might not have wanted to have seen us jamming to Phil Collins’ cover of the old Supremes song, You Can’t Hurry Love!

You remember it. I love the part that says:

You can’t hurry love
No, you just have to wait
You got to trust, give it time
No matter how long it takes

I don’t know about you, but those words ring true. Not only when it comes to love, but with so many other things in life, waiting is something we do a lot.

We wait at the grocery store, in the doctor’s office, and at restaurants. Kids are tortured with waiting for Christmas. Engaged couples wait for their wedding days. Expectant parents are forced to wait for the arrival of their little ones. We wait to hear whether we’ve been hired, laid off, promoted, demoted, or ignored in our work lives. We wait for colleges to tell us whether we’ve been accepted. We wait for test results from doctors. We do a lot of waiting.

And if waiting causes us to be impatient, well, the song reminds us that there are some things, like love, that can’t be hurried. Sometimes, you just have to wait.

Simeon and Anna, two elderly people who appear in today’s Gospel lesson, knew all about waiting. Simeon, we’re told, had been “looking forward to the consolation of Israel” for years.

In his times of prayer, God had promised Simeon that he wouldn’t die until he had seen the Messiah.

Anna, a woman widowed after seven years of marriage, was, by the time we read about her in Luke’s Gospel, eighty-four years old. In Jewish thinking, she’d lived through twelve Sabbath years, looking for the consolation of Jerusalem, the holy city.

During the course of their long lives, Anna and Simeon had seen others give up on God and God’s promises of a Messiah, an Anointed King who would reconcile God and sinners and rule with justice. Some had defected from the faith, worshiping other gods or philosophies or ways of life. Others decided they needed to force God’s hand; they thought that armed rebellion against their Roman conquerors was the way of achieving God’s promises. But not Simeon and Anna. They waited for God.

What are you waiting for today? A clean bill of health? Buying or selling a house? A job? Whatever you and I may be waiting for, we can learn how to wait from the examples of Anna and Simeon.

First, we can learn from Simeon. Simeon waited by relying on God’s Holy Spirit.

There are some Christians today who trivialize the Spirit, turning Him into a cosmic rabbit’s foot. I attended a Sunday School class years ago. A woman there said that because God knew what a hassle it would have been for her to call a repairperson, she’d prayed in the Spirit and God had healed her refrigerator. That struck another class member, a particularly faithful woman who had endured one tragedy after another, yet held on tightly to Christ, as silly. God is interested in every aspect of our lives, of course. But we trivialize the Spirit when we turn Him into a good luck charm who, we think, insulates us from the common trifles of everyday life.

There are other Christians who make an even bigger mistake than trivializing the Holy Spirit, though. They believe that God the Holy Spirit has gone out of business. Such folks have never met Bob. Bob, not his real name, was a member of one of the congregations I served as pastor before coming to Saint Matthew. Long story short, Bob had shown up at our church one day, not knowing exactly why. His attendance was erratic at first, then became more regular. People sensed that there was something wrong in Bob's life, though they couldn’t put their finger on what. We found out later that many of us, for reasons we couldn’t explain, felt compelled to pray for Bob. I got a desperate call from a relative of Bob’s one night. He was holed up in his house with a gun, threatening to kill himself. I called the local law enforcement folks and arranged to meet them at Bob’s house. I was terrified about going to see Bob. But when I arrived, all those prayers—no doubt prompted by the Holy Spirit—had clearly invited the Holy Spirit into the situation. Bob readily agreed to go to a local hospital. Layers of issues were uncovered in his life. We kept praying. It took months of intense work on Bob’s part. But he experienced healing.

Whatever you’re waiting for, you can rely on God. Each day, I ask God to fill me anew with His Holy Spirit, allowing me to see what I need to see, do what I need to do, and say what I need to say. All of my mess-ups and sins in this life have resulted from my not praying that prayer or some version of it, from relying more on myself than on God.

The things that you and I are called to do each day--as friends, parents, grandparents, workers, students, classmates—those things are too important for us to depend only on ourselves. One of my favorite passages from Proverbs in the Old Testament says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.” Simeon lived this and in the course of a lifetime dependence on God learned to await and see the fulfillment of a promise that he would see the Messiah. We wait by relying on the Holy Spirit.

We also wait by doing the things that believers in God have done for centuries, the things that Anna did. She worshiped, prayed, and fasted. In other words, she kept her eyes on God by engaging in the commonplace Christian disciplines. Because she did this, she was ready to see what others couldn’t see in the small baby brought to the temple by an impoverished couple from the insignificant village of Nazareth. In the baby Jesus, she saw the consolation of Jerusalem. Her disciplined waiting was rewarded!

Like Anna and Simeon, you and I wait for the blessings of God through lives spent in active reliance on God’s Spirit and in an attentive, daily relationship with God exemplified by regular worship, Bible reading, prayer, and service and giving in Christ’s Name.

By the time Jesus was born, many of His fellow Jews had decided that the promise of a Messiah was so much religious hot air, dismissing belief in God or the Messiah in much the same way many people do today. But in our second lesson, Paul says, those folks were misinformed. They didn’t appreciate that we need to wait for God’s decisions about the right time. “In the fullness of time,” Paul says, “Jesus was born.” You can’t hurry love, especially God’s love. God acts. But God acts only when the time is right.

This is key: When we wait on God and wait with God, we learn what it means to totally depend on God and we see God do good things, sometimes even in the midst of bad things.

Shortly before his death, Father Henri Nouwen, the one-time scholar who spent most of his last years serving the severely mentally and physically handicapped and later, persons dying from AIDs, wrote a book called Sabbatical Journeys. There, he tells about some friends of his who were trapeze artists. They were called The Flying Roudellas. They told Nouwen that there’s a special relationship between the flyer and the catcher on the trapeze. The flyer is the one who lets go and the catcher is the one who catches.

When the flyer swings above the crowd, the moment comes when he or she must let go. The flyer arcs into the air. The flyer’s job at this point is to remain as still as possible and wait for the strong hands of the catcher to grab hold. One of the flying Roudellas told Nouwen, “The flyer must never try to catch the catcher.” The flyer must wait in absolute trust. The catcher will catch him, but he must wait.*

No one would say that while the trapeze flyers wait, they’re doing nothing. Waiting can be hard, excruciating work, in life as well as on the trapeze. But whatever blessings or good things you await in this life or the next, learn the lesson of Anna and Simeon: Keep your life focused on God and rely on God’s Spirit. Learn to depend on God completely. God won’t disappoint you.

*Thanks to this source.

Living in the Already/Not Yet (A Look at the Bible Lessons for This Coming Sunday)

These notes are mostly provided to help the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, where I serve as pastor, to get ready for Sunday worship. But because the Bible lessons we use will also be read at most churches in the world this coming Sunday, I hope that they'll help others as well.

First Sunday of Christmas
December 28, 2008

The Bible Lessons:
Isaiah 61:1-62:3
Psalm 148
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:22-40

The Prayer of the Day:
Almighty God, You wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and yet more wonderfully restored it. In Your mercy, let us share the divine life if the One Who came to share our humanity, Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

General Comments:
"Adoration and telling are the focus of today's reading about Simeon and Anna, who are overwhelmed with joy at the sight of the Christ child," one resource notes of the Bible lessons. That's true. But the Gospel lesson from Luke, along with the other lessons for the day, also point us to the faithfulness of God in fulfilling promises and the need for us to be faithful in waiting for their fulfillment, trusting in God's timing. More on that as we look at each passage.

Another common theme of the Bible lessons for this Sunday is that salvation and righteousness are gifts from God. We can't attain them by fulfilling religious laws, though there's nothing inherently wrong with religious rites. They can be ways of expressing gratitude to God. God gives us life with Him freely. We simply grasp it with faith or live and die enslaved to the law of sin.

Isaiah 61:10-62:3
1. Most contemporary scholars say that these words were given by God to the person we call Deutero-Isaiah (or even Trito-Isaiah), a prophet who lived about two-hundred years after the original prophet Isaiah, but whose way of thinking about faith was marked by similar notions.

If, as thought, this passage was written after the Babylonian exile of God's people, the perspective would be of someone whose fondest prayers of return to the promised land have been fulfilled, yet without the kind of restoration of joyful faith and allegiance to God among all the people. Isaiah lives with an already/not yet perspective. Of God's faithfulness, he's certain. But God's dominion over His people's hearts is not yet complete.

2. The passage begins with a resolution to glorify God for salvation and righteousness. We would do well to make similar resolutions as we prepare to enter the new year.

3. Also in v. 10, the clothing Isaiah says he will wear--provided by God, will be comparable to the clothing worn by brides or grooms on their wedding days. Two points:

a. Salvation and righteousness are gifts from God. We cannot resolve to obey God's laws and achiever salvation or righteousness. They're gifts from God. The only resolution we can make--and then with no hope of fulfilling it without God's help--is honor God for giving.
b. God intends to have an intimate relationship with us, like the relationships of wives and husbands.

4. Isaiah switches metaphors in v. 11. Here, God is a farmer who has planted righteousness--in the people of Israel--and God will cause it to sprout. As it grows, the whole world will see it.

5. My inelegant paraphrase of 62:1a is: "For the sake of God's people, I won't shut up." Instead, Isaiah says, "I will keep talking about how God vindicates faith in Him, in spite of adversities and seeming irrelevance, waiting for the day when God's vindication and power will be as bright and obvious as blazing sun at dawn or a roarng torch fire!"

Isaiah has seen signs of God's faithfulness: the Babylonian exile has ended. But to a people beaten and uncertain in their faith, it's not yet obvious the extent of God's power and grace. They will see, Isaiah is certain.

Psalm 148
1. The last five psalms are The Hallelujah Chorus* of the book of Psalms, the Old Testament's worship song book. Each of these five psalms, Psalms 146 to 150, begin and end with "Hallelujah!," a Hebrew phrase that means, "Praise the LORD!"

As several commentators point out, the Psalms seem to move climactically toward these final five songs. The earlier psalms contain laments and pleas, among other things, with praises becoming more and more prevalent through the songbook until you come to these psalms, which are all about praising God.

2. Also pointed out by many commentators is the fact that vv.1-6 call for the heavens, including inanimate objects, to praise God, while vv.7-12, call for the earth, including men and women, old and young, to praise God.

The Biblical emphasis on radical theocentrism and utter dependence on God are both seen in this psalm's call: "praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted."

3. About the phrase "you waters above the heavens" in v.4, an explanation is in order. The ancient Hebrews thought they lived on a flat planet. They pictured the Earth as a gigantic dome, carved out of primeval chaos (see Genesis 1) by God. The sky above and the earth beneath held back the waters that would otherwise swamp the planet.

Galatians 4:4-7
1. Throughout this letter to the first-century church at Galatia, the apostle Paul draws a distinction between two ways of life:

a. The life of slavery to the law, a performance-based life in which, whether in the eyes of God or others, we are enslaved to the judgment of others.
b. The life of freedom through God's grace given in Jesus Christ.

In Galatians, Paul refutes the so-called Judaizers, who claim that one must obey Jewish ritual law in order for one to receive forgiveness and eternal life through Christ.

As Paul points out in Romans 4:1-3, even Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism, received life and the promises of God not on the basis of his ability to act righteously, but as a gift from God in which all he needed to do was trust in God. Jesus and His family were, as our Gospel lesson from Luke, emphasizes, scrupulous in keeping the law of God. There's no indication though that they did so in order to achieve righteousness or salvation, but only to live in gratitude for these gifts from God.

2. In v.4, Paul says that God acted at precisely the moment of God's choosing, the moment right from God's vantage point, to enter the world in the person of Jesus. This is an example of what the New Testament Greek calls the kairos, God's time. This contrasts with the chronos, the chronological time under which we live and which we seek to bend to our control. God doesn't operate on our timetable, a fact which has tried the patience (and grown the faith) of millions of believers over time. The Biblical writers wouldn't be the first to ask God, "How long, O Lord...?" But in waiting for the kairos, we also learn complete dependence on God.

3. Also in v. 4, Paul shows that Jesus was born "of a woman" as a human being under the laws that constrain and convict human beings. Later, this same Jesus, Who had never sinned, would also bear our sins, our conviction for sin, in order to liberate us from the consequences of sin: death and separation from God.

4. God's Spirit comes to us (v.6), making it possible for us to call out to God as Abba!, Father, a relationship not possible for slaves, but given as a gift of grace through Christ. That's why Christ was born into our world! That's why v. 7 tells us that the Galatian Christians--and all the baptized, that we are now children of God, fully restored, heirs of righteousness and eternity. (A little Psalm 148 seems in order here!)

Luke 2:22-40 (Verse-by-Verse Comments)

²²When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³(as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”),

their purification: The reference is to both Mary and Jesus. Forty days after the birth of a son, a woman was to be purified at the temple, eighty days after the birth of a daughter.

A son eight days old was to be circumcised and given his name, also at the temple. Jesus, of course, required no purification, but as He emphasized when He was baptized, Jesus sealed His connection to the human race by fulfilling all righteousness.

as it is written in the law of the Lord: The Old Testament passage is Exodus 13:2, 12. First born males were especially consecrated to God.

every firstborn: Of course, in ancient times, it was firstborn males who were dedicated. But this birth order stuff is significant, even today. When I was a senior in seminary, we were required to take a class called Senior Integrative, ostensibly designed to help us integrate the diverse strands of our four-year seminary experience--classwork in the areas of systematic theology, Bible, ministry and practical experiences like hospital chaplaincies and a year-long internship with a congregation--into something like a cohesive theology for living and doing ministry. A professor asked us one day, "How many of you are the oldest children in your family?" Something like 80% of those present raised their hands. "It's never less than this," the professor said, remembering his three decades of teaching at the seminary.

Here is a fascinating report from CNN on the impact of birth order on careers.

²⁴and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons: This was the sacrifice offered by the poor.

²⁵Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him.
looking forward to the consolation of Israel: Like the writer of our lesson from Isaiah, Simeon expected God to act to console His imprisoned people.

the Holy Spirit rested on him: The Holy Spirit wasn't a new invention at Pentecost when He brought the Church into being. The Spirit always rested on those who put their trust in the God of the Bible.

Luke puts a heavy emphasis on the guidance of the Holy Spirit to those who believe. You see it in both the Gospel and the second volume of history, the book of Acts.

The Galatians text says that it's by the power of the Holy Spirit that we confess faith in Christ.

²⁶It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, ²⁸Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, ²⁹“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; ³⁰for my eyes have seen your salvation, ³¹which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, ³²a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah: There's no indication here that Simeon had sought this promise from God. It's perfectly possible that he may have regarded the promise as a burden: each day that it wasn't granted was a day when this old believer was kept from eternity with God.

My own view, based on reading Scripture and on personal experience, is that people who seek specific assurances from God or particular spiritual gifts are usually disappointed. Their requests (my requests) too often are selfishly-driven, even if only for the sake of pride and a sense of being spiritually together.

Paul's letters to the Corinthians upbraided the members of that first-century church for that kind of pride and for seeking specific gifts from God. As Paul says there, God parcels out gifts as God sees fit...especially when we don't want them.

Guided by the Spirit: Simeon lived in such constant communication with the Spirit that he knew when he saw the child of this impoverished couple that Jesus was the long-awaited consolation of Israel.

Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace: At Saint Matthew, we sing Simeon's words every Sunday. It should be pointed out though, that Simeon's words are more accurately translated than they are in the Nunc Dimittis we sing. Simeon speaks in the present tense: He doesn't ask God to dismiss him in peace; he says that he is being dismissed in peace. Having seen the consolation he'd been promised, Simeon could now die.

Simeon saw this in an ordinary baby! By the guidance of God's Spirit, it remains possible for us to see how God is working in ordinary people and circumstances.

all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles: The promised Savior isn't just for the Jews, but all people! Simeon understood this.

³³And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him.
Even knowing what had been revealed to Mary, according to Luke, and to Joseph, according to Matthew, Simeon's words had to have stunned them.

³⁴Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
the inner thoughts of many will be revealed: How we react to Jesus is the only measure of our eternal destinies.

³⁶There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, ³⁷then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. ³⁸At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
There was also a prophet, Anna: Anna is the other portion of a matched set in the temple on the day of Jesus' circumcision. She too, affirms Jesus' identity as the Savior. If Simeon underscores Luke's emphasis on the Holy Spirit, Anna underscores his obsession with prayer. She was a woman of prayer.

One other thing: To this point in the Gospel, the angels (including Gabriel), the embryonic John the Baptist and his mother Elizabeth, Simeon, and Anna have all given witness to the identity of Jesus. In ancient Jewish thought, only three witnesses were considered necessary to affirm the truth of testimony. Early in his gospel, Luke gives the testimony of more than enough witnesses that Jesus is the Messiah, God-in-the-flesh.

began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem: Anna does as the shepherds did before her. She told everyone about the Child.

³⁹When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.
Compare and contrast with a similar verse regarding John the Baptizer, Luke 1:80.

Mary and Joseph did nothing to "force the hand of God." They had the promises. Now it was time to wait. When God gives us orders, sometimes the orders are to march and sometimes they're to stand down. Much of the Christian life is spent in waiting, which isn't passivity but obedience, while God moves toward the kairos moment.

*Here are the lyrics of The Hallelujah Chorus.