On Sunday we will celebrate the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. The infant Jesus was brought to the Temple by Mary and Joseph, where he was met by Simeon and Anna. Simeon and Anna were old and were devout. They had spent their long lives praying for and waiting for the arrival of the Messiah. God recognised their faithfulness and their patience, and right at the end of their lives all that they had prayed for became reality. They saw Jesus face to face. They held Jesus in their arms.
There are many stories in the bible about patience. Most of these stories are not about people waiting patiently for God but are about God’s patience with people.
Every day we have the opportunity to see the face of God in one another – we do not have to wait until the end of our lives. We have the opportunity to recognise Christ present in the world today, through the faces, words, lives and actions of one another. If we haven’t looked for the face of Christ in another today, we can start tomorrow, and if for any reason we don’t tomorrow we can the next day – that is the patience that God has with people; it is never too late to turn to him, to recognise and appreciate his presence in our lives, revealed to us by each other person we encounter.
Simeon and Anna are models of patience and of never giving up on their hope and trust in God, while God never gives up on us. His patience endures.
