The Monday After • Dec 22, 2025
Waiting
Darren Carlson
Have you ever waited for something for a long time?
When the Cubs won the World Series, it wasn't just a baseball moment—it was a waiting moment. Fans had been holding their breath from 1908 to 2016. I remember being in the Tokyo airport and seeing people gathered around screens. You didn't have to be a sports fan to feel it. Grown adults were crying. People were telling stories: the disappointments, the near-misses, the decades of loyalty. And when it finally happened, the reaction was basically the same everywhere: It was worth the wait.
That phrase—worth the wait—touches something deep in us. Because we don't just wait for wins and reunions. We wait for healing. For change. For relief. For an ending to what feels unending.
Simeon: a man defined by waiting
In Luke 2, we're roughly forty days after Jesus' birth. Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple, as the Law required. And it's a very ordinary scene—until it isn't.
An elderly man approaches them. He's not introduced as a priest or a public figure. He's simply there. And then this stranger takes the child in his arms and begins praising God.
His name is Simeon. Luke gives him an astonishing "bio":
Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. (Luke 2:25–26)
He was waiting—not vaguely, not passively, but with a holy expectancy. Luke is intentional here: in Luke 1–2, we meet several elderly saints (Elizabeth, Zechariah, Simeon, Anna). Why does God place some of the most important "first witnesses" of Jesus on the precipice of death?
One reason is simple and sweet: there is a unique tenderness—almost a sacred intensity—when someone has waited and longed for something for a long time and finally sees it. Long waiting deepens joy.
Waiting is a Theme in Scripture
Biblical waiting is rarely comfortable. Usually, when people "wait for the Lord," it's because they are in trouble, or tired, or threatened, or confused. Waiting is what faith looks like when you can't fast-forward the story.
Isaiah puts it like this:
From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:4)
And David prays in Psalm 62:
For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken. (Psalm 62:1–2)
Notice what David is saying: My circumstances may shake, but I will not be greatly shaken—because my salvation is not my circumstances. It's my God. Waiting is not pretending everything is fine. It is refusing to find your bottom line anywhere but the Lord.
"The Consolation of Israel"
Simeon was waiting for "the consolation of Israel." That word consolation means comfort, rescue, relief—the kind that doesn't just soothe you for a moment, but restores what has been lost.
Israel had been carrying centuries of ache: oppression, exile, sin, silence.
They were longing for someone who would come and make things right. And if we're honest, that's not just Israel's longing. It's ours.
Many of you carry stories with real grief in them—losses you didn't choose, scars you didn't ask for, consequences you can't rewind. And underneath all of it is a longing that is almost universal: when you think about the story of your life, you want it to be fixed. You want what is bent to be straightened.
You want what is broken to be healed. You want what is heavy to be lifted. So when Simeon holds Jesus, he is not holding a sentimental symbol. He is holding God's answer to that longing.
This child is not merely a helper. He is a Redeemer. Not a cosmetic repair. A deep restoration.
Some of you are waiting right now. Waiting for an answer. Waiting for a relationship to change. Waiting for the pain to ease. Waiting for clarity. Waiting for God to do what only God can do.
Luke 2 doesn't tell you, "Stop waiting." It tells you who to wait for. Simeon's hope wasn't a timeline. It wasn't a political shift. It wasn't the arrival of easier days. It was a Person.
And the Christian claim is not simply that Jesus can help you cope while you wait. It is that Jesus himself is God's Consolation—God's comfort with a backbone, God's salvation with a face, God's rescue in real history.
A few years ago, I spoke with a missionary who was serving amongst Muslims in the middle of nowhere. One evening, a Muslim woman came to her with her child, who had been burned. When the missionary started caring for burns on the child, she turned and told the mother, "I am doing this in the name of Jesus who loves you." After a few minutes of explaining, the Muslim woman said with a laugh, "Oh, that's who he is. I've been waiting for you."
This Muslim woman grew up in folk Islam. When she was 14, she was given as a bride to a witch doctor who was 30 years older than her. She was payment for the witch doctor putting a curse on her father's neighbor for planting crops on his land. The curse worked - the oldest son dropped dead.
One night, shortly after her marriage, a man dressed in white like the sun came to her and told her, "I am the way, the truth, the life. Follow me." She explained, "He showed me scars on his hands and feet. He told me he was God and that one day he would rescue me. He told me one day someone would come and tell me his name." She then turned to the missionary and said, "I have been patiently waiting for you."
Thanks to everyone who has read my book, Witness, a 60-day devotional through Acts. If reading a devotional helps you read Scripture, go get a copy and walk through the book of Acts as you start the year. Each day pairs Scripture with stories of modern believers, drawing parallels to the first-century church.
Thanks for checking in.
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