1 Jn 2:3-11 / Lk 2:22-35
Keeping a promise is rarely easy, and sometimes those who make promises are not equipped to keep them or don’t even intend to keep them. The flood of divorces and the torrents of lawsuits that plague our society are eloquent testimony to the fragility of promises and the unlikelihood of many of them ever being kept.
It can render us cynical and disinclined to trust anyone, perhaps even God. So we need to listen to the words of the old man Simeon in today’s Gospel. Simeon had waited all his life for Jesus’ coming, and he’d never ceased trusting that God would be faithful to his promise of a Redeemer. At last the child came, in the arms of His parents, for consecration to the Lord as the Law prescribed. And Simeon gave thanks, “Now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace; you have fulfilled your word….”
God is absolutely faithful in His love of every one of us. Even when we turn away and do not walk with Him, God does not turn from us. He waits and waits and waits.
Trust that. He is waiting for you now, hoping that you will give His love for you an opening. If you do, He will show Himself to you in His own way and in His own time, and He will give you what you need to walk with Him faithfully.
Trust in Him. Be stout-hearted, and wait for the Lord.