How can you not be drawn into the grateful expectation of Simeon as he realized that he held the long awaited Christ-child in his arms? Captured in the artist’s rendering is a story of culmination, of waiting, of being prepared by the Holy Spirit for this long anticipated event. Who was he? Who is Simeon and what can we learn from him in this brief passage about his life? He lived in Jerusalem and, as described in Luke 2:25-32, was a righteous and devout man – a man who cautiously and carefully observed the Jewish law and who had been waiting for the consolation of Israel; the promised Messiah,…