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Simeon's Promise

Russell Moore does it again (although sometimes I wish he conformed to my viewpoints more!)

https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/12/anxiety-christmas-apocalypse-revelation-russell-moore/

The essay is about one of my favorite episodes-Simeon and Anna meeting the baby Jesus and his parents in the temple. An excerpt, from the end:

That’s where I realized just how similar the warm, bright Christmas story is to the dark, scary middle of the Book of Revelation. Every Sunday, I remind my church-folk (and myself) that the “scary” parts of Revelation are actually good news. God is pulling back the veil so that what’s hidden is made plain.

The kingdoms of this world are shaky and tottering. The way of Caesar, the way of the Beast, seems right now to “work.” For the first-century church, the word from Patmos is a call to overcome: not by fighting like the Devil against the ways of the Devil but by remaining faithful, enduring through suffering, and waiting on the God of Israel to make all things new.

The Apocalypse doesn’t deny that dangerous days are coming, but it makes clear that they are limited—“a time, and times, and half a time” (12:14). On the other side of the sword that cuts through Mary’s heart at the cross (or those that cut off the martyr’s heads in first-century Rome), there’s a weight of glory that cannot be described adequately with words. We can free ourselves to risk heartbrokenness because a broken heart is the beginning of the story, not the end.

 

 

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