Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. (Luke 2:29–32)

Simeon blesses Jesus
These words, usually in a more traditional translation, have found their way into the closing section of many worship services. Yet though Simeon, who spoke them, was close to his departure from this world, he was speaking in celebration of a new beginning—in fact, of the most wonderful new beginning that has ever happened: the birth of the Lord Jesus into the world.
Luke 2:21–32 tells first of the naming of Jesus at his circumcision when he was a week old, and then of his presentation in the Temple at the completion of another thirty-three days, which was the prescribed period for ritual purification of a woman after the birth of a son. This means that at the time of his presentation in the temple, Jesus was forty days old.
When his parents brought him to the temple, a devout man named Simeon was also inwardly directed, by the spirit of the Lord, to come to the temple. There, he took the infant Jesus in his arms and praised the Lord, saying of the child, “My eyes have seen your salvation.” “Salvation” is the meaning of the name “Jesus,” which the child had been given according to the instruction of an angel, as we read in the Gospel of Matthew: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
“My eyes have seen your salvation.” How could Simeon say this of a baby less than two months old? How could this baby be the salvation not only of the Jews, but of the Gentiles as well—meaning the Savior of all people?