Forward Movement is an official, non-profit agency of the Episcopal Church whose mission is to create compelling content for Christian living. Since 1935 we have published the quarterly devotional Forward Day by Day, as well as pamphlets, booklets, and books that encourage and nourish people in their lives of prayer and faith.
TUESDAY, February 2 The Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ
EDITOR'S NOTE: 2010 marks the 75th anniversary of Forward Day by Day. To commemorate this milestone, the meditations from February 1, 2010 through January 31, 2011 feature reprints of the most outstanding meditations from our past 75 years. The year each meditation was originally written is included at the end of the meditation. To learn more about our anniversary and the selection process for these meditations, click here. We encourage you also to share your comments about these classic meditations below. Our editor, Richard Schmidt, will be responding to comments for these meditations.
Luke 2:22-40. Now there was a man in
I find Simeon and Anna an infinitely moving pair. In Anna's case, the vocation to love and worship God has replaced all else in her life. One can imagine her: shabby, old, poor, and, in the eyes of relatives and acquaintances, probably rather dotty. Simeon, also old and devout, is longing, as the prophets taught him to do, for the Messianic age to come.
These two are a kind of miracle because, unlike many of us who are rigid with expectation, they know how to recognize their joy when it comes. They might have been so preoccupied with their own piety that they were no longer open to God's revolutionary truth. The one lesson each had learned was how to wait, so that when God filled their emptiness they knew what to make of it.
The long years of waiting must have been painful ones. Human beings are so much bound up in time that we tend to want our joys now, and to grieve inwardly when we don't get them. Simeon and Anna must have drunk from the cup of frustration and doubt. And now, in the joyous encounter with the child Jesus, their hope and obedience have been fulfilled. (1976)
PRAY for Chaplains in the Armed Forces (
Ps 84 or 24:7-10; Malachi 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:14-18
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