“He was waiting for the consolation of Israel…”

I grew up in the nascent days of television, when broadcasting was not quite a 24-hour thing.  I can remember waking up really early, turning on the “telly” and waiting for some church choir to sing the Lord’s prayer at the very outset of the day’s programming to somehow “bless” what was coming.  Not being a Christian in my very early years, I thought it was little interesting, maybe curious at best.  Next was the national anthem, and then the cartoons began!  Ahh.  I remember the days I’d be sick and have to miss elementary school.  Daytime TV was simply awful, plain and simple.  Stupid half-hour game shows with greedy contestants who acted like freaks or geeks when the won or lost would run continuously like a slowly dripping faucet that just won’t stop.  But turn off the TV?  You’ve got to be kidding.  What else was there to do?  Homework?  No way.  Read a book?  Impossible…I’m sick, remember?  Back in those days game shows had only one winner, and they would give losers a going-away prize.  It was called a consolation prize.  It was usually like dinner for two at Joe Schmoe’s Italian Restaurant or a $25 gift certificate at a laundromat somewhere.  The consolation prize was supposed to make the losers feel better, to take at least some of the sting out of losing.  And most acted like it did.  The winner got to keep all his/her winnings and go on to the next show.  My, how TV has changed!

But it’s that consolation prize that brings us to our focus.  The nation of Israel had had about 1,000 years of fairly consistent revelation from God, beginning with Moses and the Pentateuch.  Later came Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon and major and minor prophets all adding their contributions to the Old Testament.  But then silence…for 400 years!  No new communication, no more revelation for four centuries.  And yet the predictions and prophecies waited centuries to be fulfilled in and by the Messiah.  Each generation of Jewish people hoped, prayed, and waited thinking he would come on their watch.  And one generation after another went to the grave disappointed, wondering who…when…and how…

As Israel waited during this period she found life increasingly troublesome.  Rome was expanding and had sent in her troops to incorporate the Middle East into her empire.  Israel became their most difficult province, and as part of their response, Rome called their land “Palestine,” a thinly veiled reference to the Philistines, which is what Rome thought of the Jews.  It was a deliberate slap in the face.  And while Rome was oppressing from without, the culture was sinking from within.  Descriptions from that time indicate that Israel was perhaps the most demonized place in the entire Middle East, if not all of Asia.

Thus, many began to doubt.  Doesn’t God care?  Doesn’t he know?  Isn’t he concerned about his people?  Has he turned his back on us forever?  But what God was doing was waiting for just the right time.  He had waited another long period of time before responding — when they were slaves in Egypt.  Many generations then lived, slaved and died before he answered.  It had been this way again.  Just as suddenly as Moses exploded onto the scene in Egypt, so did the angel Gabriel in Jerusalem (Luke 1) and ramped up the revelatory process again, speaking to a priest named Zechariah who would have a son named John.  This son would be the forerunner of the Messiah.  The time had come!  It was here…now!  And the Messiah was coming!  Mary received an unexpected visit from Gabriel in Nazareth, finding out she would be the mother of the Messiah.  Incredible!  Things were happening so quickly.  Then a faithful, elderly man named Simeon was in the Temple “waiting for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25). We know nothing else about this man except that he was “righteous and devout,” and that he sought for Israel’s comfort/consolation where the Lord could be found.  “We need comfort, O God.  We need healing, blessed Lord.  We need your touch to strengthen us.”  And God told him he would not die until he saw with his own eyes God’s consolation/comfort in the person of baby Jesus.  And see him he did: “My eyes have seen your salvation …” (v. 30).  This salvation would be the centerpiece in and the wellspring of all God’s comfort available to us in a fallen world.  God does care.  He does know.  He is concerned.  And he turned his face toward you with matchless grace and power and comfort that soothes, strengthens, encourages, relieves, calms, supports and sustains.  And this is always available to you in full, if we only trust him completely.

Believing Jews found their consolation in the midst of Rome’s presence.  What are you in the midst of right now?  Is it keeping you from finding your Consolation?