Sunday Afternoon Tea

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus... such beautiful words of anticipation.  I've been reading the devotional with this as the title and enjoying the various writers so much.  Of course, my ponderings would come back to the subject... Jesus who had been long expected.

I think so often of those who anticipated his coming and knew Him, even as a small babe.  Imagine that day when Joseph and Mary brought their infant son into the Temple as the law demanded. There... in that place... Simeon sees the baby and holds him and he... knows.

This is the One who had been promised.  God had told Simeon he would not die until the One had come.  Now, he could go Home to be with the One who gave the promise.  He anticipated and he knew.

Another... Anna... a woman who had loved and lost and then gave her life to the One Who Created Her.  She had been praying and watching and anticipating and... she knew.  It was Him.  Once young and now quite old, she had lived long enough to see the Promise.

Let us turn our thoughts to the others, those who had been waiting and watching and in the meantime had  made law upon law upon law... extra laws on top of The Law given.  Those who said they were long expecting the One but who... when He came... did not recognize him.

The humble saw and knew and the proud missed the One who came.  The humble recognized the infant God and the proud missed the One who was all grown up and walking on water and raising the dead and turning the water into wine.

Dear Lord, never let me be among the proud and the arrogant and those who make laws which bound Your people more than you ever intended.  Do not let me miss seeing You in the eyes of the poor and the least and the sick and the hurting and those tossed away by society as having no value.

Let me see the need of a Savior in the man who runs the company as well as the man who cleans the floors.  Let me not be blinded by money and power and a person's role in society so much so that I miss sharing You with those who need to hear.

Let me have the vision of Simeon, the heart of Anna, the knowing that we celebrate your long anticipated coming.  Protect my heart from any remnant of the pharisee it would be so easy to become.  For rules are much easier to live with than a heart which breaks for others.

Come Thou long expected Jesus... the Holy Spirit made you known to those who were really, really anticipating your soon arrival.  Let me do the same as I hope for your second Advent, that which you promised long ago.