One of those insistent promptings by the Holy Spirit, which this devout man was always alert to sense and quick to act upon, led him to the temple a short time before Mary and Joseph brought the infant Christ to present him to the Lord.  Simeon knew by an inward conviction that this was the Christ, that the moment up to which his life had been leading had been reached and his long quest was over.

Then Simeon took the child in his arms and said, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation…” (Luke 2:29,30).  He had found Christ and so, with his life’s object fulfilled, there was nothing to detain the old man on earth any longer.

Not however for Simeon only, but for you and me and for every soul whom God puts into the world, is this life a quest, a search to find Christ.

So many believe and act as though this life has no particular purpose, or at any rate one purpose for this person and another for that according to his or her ability and place and opportunity.  Yet when we stand aside and watch human life flow past, we see that in the end it resolves itself into a matter of the soul and God.  Our ability and place and opportunity are the setting in which we have to gain our ultimate goal and that is the same for all – to find Christ here so that we may possess him for ever hereafter: to find One whom now we cannot see but only know.