Prayer Is Waiting with Desire

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Sunday

Today’s Gospel lesson features two “righteous and devout” individuals, Simeon and Anna, who have grown old while patiently awaiting the coming of the messiah. Their faith is finally rewarded when they encounter Jesus as a child.

Biblical scholar and theologian Richard Bauckman has a poem in which he describes the waiting process as travelers stranded in a train station. “The hardest part of waiting is the not doing,” he observes before warning, “waiting too long the heart grows sclerotic.”

Whatever the state of his heart, Simeon is overjoyed (so Luke informs us) when he encounters Jesus, declaring,

Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;

for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.

Anna, meanwhile, “began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Bauckman characterizes their prayers as “waiting with desire,” concluding, “eyes will see what hearts await.”

Wait and See (Simeon and Anna)
By Richard Bauckman

In the drab waiting-room
the failed travelers, resigned, sleep
on the hard benches, inured
to postponement and foul coffee.
Hope has given up on them.

There are also the impatient,
pacing platforms, and the driven,
purple with frustration, abusing
their mobiles, for the hardest part
of waiting is the not doing.

Truly to wait is pure dependence.
But waiting too long the heart
grows sclerotic. Will it still
be fit to leap when the time comes?
Prayer is waiting with desire.

Two aged lives incarnate
century on century
of waiting for God, their waiting-room
his temple, waiting on his presence,
marking time by practicing

the cycle of the sacrifices,
ferial and festival,
circling onward, spiraling
towards a center out ahead,
seasons of revolving hope.

Holding out for God who cannot
be given up for dead, holding
him to his promises – not now,
not just yet, but soon, surely,
eyes will see what hearts await.