It is striking to observe how the description of Simeon's character
expresses the aim of the whole Old Testament Revelation. All that
was meant by the preceding long series of manifestations through all
these years was accomplished in this man. For hearken how he is
described--'just and devout,' that is the perfection of moral
character, stated in the terms of the Old Testament; 'waiting for
the Consolation of Israel,' that is the ideal attitude which the
whole of the gradual manifestation of God's increasing purpose
running through the ages was intended to make the attitude of every
true Israelite--an expectant, eager look forwards, and in the
present, the discharge of all duties to God and man. 'And the Holy
Ghost was upon him'; that, too, in a measure, was the ultimate aim
of the whole Revelation of Israel. So this man stands as a bright,
consummate flower which had at last effloresced from the roots; and
in his own person, an embodiment of the very results which God had
patiently sought through millenniums of providential dealing and
inspiration. Therefore in this man's arms was laid the Christ for
whom he had so long been waiting.
And he exhibits, still further, what God intended to secure by the
whole previous processes of Revelation, in that he recognises that
they were transcended and done with, that all that they pointed to
was accomplished when a devout Israelite took into his arms the
Incarnate Messiah, that all the past had now answered its purpose,
and like the scaffolding when the top stone of a building is brought
forth with shouting, might be swept away and the world be none the
poorer. And so he rejoices in the Christ that he receives, and sings
the swan-song of the departing Israel, the Israel according to the
Spirit. And that is what Judaism was meant to do, and how it was
meant to end, in an _euthanasia_, in a passing into the nobler
form of the Christian Church and the Christian citizenship.
I do not need to remind you how terribly unlike this ideal the
reality was, but I may, though only in a sentence or two, point out
that that relation of the New to the Old is one that recurs, though
in lees sharp and decisive forms, in every generation, and in our
generation in a very special manner. It is well for the New when it
consents to be taken in the arms of the Old, and it is ill for the
Old when, instead of welcoming, it frowns upon the New, and instead
of playing the part of Simeon, and embracing and blessing the
Infant, plays the part of a Herod, and seeks to destroy the Child
that seems to threaten its sovereignty. We old people who are
conservative, if not by nature, by years, and you young people who
are revolutionary and innovating by reason of your youth, may both
find a lesson in that picture in the Temple, of Simeon with the
Infant Christ in his arms.
II. Further, we have here the slave recognising and submitting to
his Owner.
Now the word which is here employed for 'Lord' is one that very
seldom occurs in the New Testament in reference to God; only some
four or five times in all. And it is the harshest and hardest word
that can be picked out. If you clip the Greek termination off it, it
is the English word 'despot,' and it conveys all that that word
conveys to us, not only a lord in the sense of a constitutional
monarch, not only a lord in the polite sense of a superior in
dignity, but a despot in the sense of being the absolute owner of a
man who has no rights against the owner, and is a slave. For the
word 'slave' is what logicians call the correlative of this word
'despot,' and as the latter asserts absolute ownership and
authority, the former declares abject submission. So Simeon takes
these two words to express his relation and feeling towards God.
'Thou art the Owner, the Despot, and I am Thy slave.' That relation
of owner and slave, wicked as it is, when subsisting between two
men--an atrocious crime, 'the sum of all villainies,' as the good
old English emancipators used to call it--is the sum of all
blessings when regarded as existing between man and God. For what
does it imply? The right to command and the duty to obey, the
sovereign will that is supreme over all, and the blessed attitude of
yielding up one's will wholly, without reserve, without reluctance,
to that infinitely mighty, and--blessed be God!--infinitely loving
Will Absolute authority calls for abject submission.
And again, the despot has the unquestioned right of life and death
over his slave, and if he chooses, can smite him down where he
stands, and no man have a word to say. Thus, absolutely, we hang
upon God, and because He has the power of life and death, every
moment of our lives is a gift from His hands, and we should not
subsist for an instant unless, by continual effluence from Him, and
influx into us, of the life which flows from Him, the Fountain of
life.
Again, the slave-owner has entire possession of all the slave's
possessions, and can take them and do what he likes with them. And
so, all that I call mine is His. It was His before it became mine;
it remains His whilst it is mine, because I am His, and so what
seems to belong to me belongs to Him, no less truly. What, then, do
you do with your possessions? Use them for yourselves? Dispute His
ownership? Forget His claims? Grudge that He should take them away
sometimes, and grudge still more to yield them to Him in daily
obedience, and when necessary, surrender them? Is such a temper what
becomes the slave? What reason has he to grumble if the master comes
to him and says, 'This little bit of ground that I have given you to
grow a few sugar-canes and melons on, I am going to take back
again.' What reason have we to set up our puny wills against Him, if
He exercises His authority over us and demands that we should regard
ourselves not only as sons but also as slaves to whom the owner of
it and us has given a talent to be used for Him?
Now, all that sounds very harsh, does it not? Let in one thought
into it, and it all becomes very gracious. The Apostle Peter, who
also once uses this word 'despot,' does so in a very remarkable
connection. He speaks about men's 'denying the despot that bought
them.' Ah, Peter! you were getting on very thin ice when you talked
about denial. Perhaps it was just because he remembered his sin in
the judgment hall that he used that word to express the very utmost
degree of degeneration and departure from Jesus. But be that as it
may, he bases the slave-owner's right on purchase. And Jesus Christ
has bought us by His own precious blood; and so all that sounds
harsh in the metaphor, worked out as I have been trying to do,
changes its aspect when we think of the method by which He has
acquired His rights and the purpose for which He exercises them. As
the Psalmist said, 'Oh, Lord! truly I am Thy slave. Thou hast loosed
my bonds.'
III. So, lastly, we have here the saint recognising and welcoming
the approach of death.
Now, it is a very singular thing, but I suppose it is true, that
somehow or other, most people read these words, 'Lord! now lettest
Thou Thy servant depart in peace,' as being a petition; 'Lord! now
_let_ Thy servant depart.' But they are not that at all. We
have here not a petition or an aspiration, but a statement of the
fact that Simeon recognises the appointed token that his days were
drawing to an end, and it is the glad recognition of that fact.
'Lord! I see now that the time has come when I may put aside all
this coil of weary waiting and burdened mortality, and go to rest.'
Look how he regards approaching death. 'Thou lettest Thy servant
depart' is but a feeble translation of the original, which is better
given in the version that has become very familiar to us all by its
use in a musical service, the _Nunc Dimittis_; 'Now Thou
_dost send away_' It is the technical word for relieving a
sentry from his post. It conveys the idea of the hour having come
when the slave who has been on the watch through all the long, weary
night, or toiling through all the hot, dusty day, may extinguish his
lantern, or fling down his mattock, and go home to his little hut.
'Lord! Thou dost dismiss me now, and I take the dismission as the
end of the long watch, as the end of the long toil.'
But notice, still further, how Simeon not only recognises, but
welcomes the approach of death. 'Thou lettest Thy servant depart in
peace.' Yes, there speaks a calm voice tranquilly accepting the
permission. He feels no agitation, no fluster of any kind, but
quietly slips away from his post. And the reason for that peaceful
welcome of the end is 'for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.' That
sight is the reason, first of all, for his being sure that the
curfew had rung for him, and that the day's work was done. But it is
also the reason for the peacefulness of his departure. He went 'in
peace,' because of what? Because the weary, blurred, old eyes had
seen all that any man needs to see to be satisfied and blessed. Life
could yield nothing more, though its length were doubled to this old
man, than the sight of God's salvation.
Can it yield anything more to us, brethren? And may we not say, if
we have seen that sight, what an unbelieving author said, with a
touch of self-complacency not admirable, 'I have warmed both hands
at the fire of life, and I am ready to depart.' We may go in peace,
if our eyes have seen Him who satisfies our vision, whose bright
presence will go with us into the darkness, and whom we shall see
more perfectly when we have passed from the sentry-box to the home
above, and have ceased to be slaves in the far-off plantation, and
are taken to be sons in the Father's house. 'Thou lettest Thy
servant depart in peace.'