SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS SERMON

 

             Living with Purpose

                                            Luke 2: 25-35

 

  Pastor Robyn Hogue    December 29, 2013               Skyline Presbyterian Church

We’re only two days away from New Year’s Eve, and I can feel the anticipation (or dread) growing, depending on your point of view.

I heard one guy say he already dreads the New Year. He said, “The holidays aren’t quite over and already I’m about 90 days ahead on my calories and 90 days behind on my bills.” Some of us can identify a lot with this guy.

But there is no real reason why one day on the calendar should bear more significance than any other day of the year. Yet still, we invest the changing of the year with a great deal of meaning. It is a time of hope, of planning and of vision-casting. And, of course, it is a time for resolutions. Ready or not, it is time to set, review and revisit our purpose.

There is a minor character in the Christmas drama named Simeon. We do not know a lot about Simeon. Everything there is to know about him in the Bible is recorded in Luke chapter 2:25-35. He was a righteous and devout priest who spent his life waiting for the consolation of Israel. He lived and survived by the constant hope that he would not die until he could see the Messiah. On this in-between Sunday, maybe we can find a clue about how we too can live.

Simeon LIVED WITH PURPOSE

The ultimate dream of his life was that someday, before he died, he would see the Messiah face-to-face. Stephen Covey, in the immensely popular book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says the second habit we ought to embrace is to always begin with the end in mind. Some of you use that in business or in your personal lives. Always begin with the end in mind. Covey went on to say that everything is created twice. The first creation is always the creation that we have in our mind.

A man dreams of opening a business. Before he open the door he defines what he hopes to accomplish, whom he hopes to serve and what niche in the market he might find. After he has done that, then, and only then, he is ready to say, “Come on in.”

The best thing that a person can do, continues Covey, is to write a personal mission statement. Articulate in a simple sentence why you are here on earth and what you hope to accomplish in a lifetime. Then, when you fulfill that purpose, you will know your reason for being has been fulfilled.

The personal mission statement of Bill Gates was, “a computer to be on every desk in every home.” For Simeon it was “seeing the Messiah with my own eyes before I die.” That was his singular reason to live: “To see the Messiah.” What is your reason for living? What do you hope to accomplish? What is the singular thing that will be your mark on the face of the earth? What is your reason for being?

Michelangelo, so the story goes, was once seen by friends pushing a heavy rock through the town square. Some of his friends inquired, “Michael, why are you laboring so over that rock?” Michelangelo replied, “There is an angel in this rock waiting to come out.” You see, he had a reason for living.

For four hundred years there had been no word from the Lord. Simeon had lived through the Roman invasion and Pompey’s massacre of the priests. He had seen the holy of holies destroyed. He had watched hope sag like a wet rag. Through it all, he hung on to a revelation. He hung on to hope. He hung on to a promise, “I will not die before I see the Messiah.” That was reason enough to be alive.

Hope does that for us. Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible. People of hope have discovered the vast difference between living and marking time. Have you discovered the difference? Do you know the difference between just taking up space and living for a great spiritual ideal? Simeon lived with purpose and we can, too.

Simeon LIVED WITH PATIENCE

When Estee Lauder started her perfume business she had to persuade a cosmetic buyer to place her product in stores. So at 9:00 a.m. one morning Ms. Lauder walked into the American Merchandising Corporation and asked to see Marie Watson, a cosmetic buyer. The receptionist informed Ms. Lauder that Ms. Watson was busy and she would need to come back another day. “I’ll wait,” replied Ms. Lauder. At lunch time Ms. Lauder was informed that Ms. Watson was still busy. “I’ll wait a little longer,” replied Ms. Lauder. At 5:15 p.m. Ms. Watson walked out of her office and said to Ms. Lauder, “Well, come in, such patience must be rewarded.” The rest, as they say, is history.

How’s your patience? Someone recently told me that patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears. That’s a good definition of patience. When the Lord handed out patience, I was in the other line. I am often an impatient person. When I come to a traffic light that is turning from yellow to red, I am sure I can make it through most of the time. Larry says it is red. I’m convinced it is just orange. Statistics say that the running of red lights costs us seven billion dollars a year and saves us an average of fifty seconds. How are you at patience?

My sister learned some things about patience in her cancer treatment a few years ago. She discovered why people of the medical profession call consumers “patients”. All you do is wait, and wait, and wait.

She discovered something in that period that has changed her life. She discovered either you can take those waiting moments and complain about them or you can transform them into something spiritual. She started doing something in waiting rooms that I had never done before. She started praying for people when their names were called. She called them by name in prayer. She would observe their relatives and friends and their long faces of worry as they waited. She would offer a prayer for them, too. What do you do with your time of waiting?

Have you learned a great purpose and usefulness for your patience? You see, Simeon watched and waited for a lifetime. Here, we get a hint of how he did it. He went to the temple. He kept the rituals.

It is one thing to be a part of a community on its high and holy days. It is another thing to be in the routines and the daily challenges. It is in the normal course of an ordinary day that commitments are made, love is spoken, gratitude is expressed, and life is lived. If we want to be at the right place doing the right things when the Messiah shows up, we need to be doing them all the time. That makes all the difference. Simeon lived with purpose and he lived with patience to see the Messiah.

Simeon LIVED WITH POWER

Simeon lived with the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was upon him. It was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. Moved by the Spirit, he went to the temple. Simeon did not possess the Spirit, he was possessed by the Spirit. That makes a lot of difference in life. Our task is not to get God to fit in our box and on our schedule. The task of life is to embrace God’s time and see it from God’s perspective. The task in life is not to get God squeezed into our mold, but find ourselves surrendering to the direction and the call of God’s timeframe.

The Bible has two words for time in the New Testament. One is chronos, from which we get the word chronology or calendar. Chronos time is time measured by the ticking of the clock. Each second is exactly like the one before it. We get a sense of chronos time every time we struggle with insomnia; unable to sleep. All we hear is the relentless ticking of the clock in the middle of the night when it seems as if it takes eternity for an hour to pass. Chronos time is a church member who was dragged to church today and is saying somewhere deep in your heart, “Is she ever going to finish? Is this sermon ever going to be over?” That is chronos time. 

There is another word in the Bible for time. That word is kairos. It is expectant time. Kairos time is a young mother eight and a half months pregnant, waiting any day to deliver. Kairos time is the four year old saying, “Please, please, please, can we open the presents, yet?” Kairos time is John Calvin, Martin Luther and John Knox restless with a Church that has lost its mission, saying some things have got to change. In a time like that, in a significant, dramatic moment, God became a human being.

Galatians 4:4 says, “In the fullness of time, God sent His Son, born of a woman.” In God’s time, Christ was born. Your task and my task is not to fit God into our agenda, but to make our agenda God’s agenda. As Deitrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Everything has its time, and the main thing is that we keep step with God and do not keep pressing on a few steps ahead or lag a few behind.”

Old Simeon has lived in anticipation of God’s moment. Then, in that kairos time, when the time was “just right,” there came a young peasant mother and a carpenter to the temple to fulfill the ritual of their Jewish heritage. As they came toward the altar, the old priest got a gleam in his eye. The One for whom he waited was now before him. In God’s time. In God’s time.

Will you seek the Lord this week and see if there is any course correction that you need to take in order to live with more purpose, more patience and more power?