Summary
Every day, old Simeon went to the temple awaiting the Messiah.
“But who may abide the day of his coming and who can stand when he appeareth?”
Simeon loved God and hated God, for a part of him felt that Gad had made him and forsaken him, and so he banished a part of himself from himself.
Simeon was not at home in his own temple.
Mary and Joseph offered two pigeons in the temple: a burnt offering and a sin offering.
Jesus is the sin offering—He atones for the thing we all refuse to do, which is surrender our life.
Jesus is the burnt offering—He is the thing God wants all of us to do, that is surrender our life.
Jesus is the Life, doing what we cannot do; Jesus is the scapegoat; the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
We are the wilderness into which the scapegoat descends.
When the scapegoat comes in from the wilderness, he brings us with him.
He speaks our fears to the Father saying, “My God My God why have you forsaken me” and “Into your hands I commit my Spirit.”
When we lose “our lives” for the sake of Love, we find them… and all things with them.
Jesus is the Decision to Love, given to all humanity, so that all might live.
The Temple is a giant heart and “the Life” is in the blood.
From the throne of the Lamb, Life flows like a river to all creation and returns again as a song of praise.
When Simeon praised God in the temple at the revelation of the Christ, all the parts of him that he had banished from himself came back to him as his new self; all of his scapegoats returned to him as gifts of grace for him; they were the living stones in the living temple; Simeon was at home in his own temple, which is the Lord’s temple, and the new creation.
The Lord whom Simeon sought suddenly came to his temple. “Who will stand when he appeareth?” Old Simeon and you—his body, filled with his blood and dancing in delight (in Hebrew: Eden). You’ll be home for Christmas, for we can count on him.