LUKE 2:33-40 (THE SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS)
How changed everything is when the fulfillment has come! When the child is born and joy is complete; when night is over and day has dawned; when the battle is fought out and victory is certain; when the agony is over and the jubilation begins; when the work is finished and the reward beckons; when longing is calmed and the benediction says amen—how forgotten, then, the past is, like yesterday,49 short as a sigh, brief as a moment. The person who has experienced this marvels at it and scarcely comprehends it. The person who has not experienced it does not understand what the talk was all about or what it says about the pangs of childbirth, the darkness of night, the terror of battle, the anxiety of agony, the toil of work, the eternity of longing. But if it is really the case that in this regard the individual does not understand himself and one person does not understand another, then all talk about expectancy is indeed a delusion, since the person who rejoices in the daylight of the fulfillment does not even catch a glimpse of the gray mists of dawn, and the person who keeps the lamp of expectancy lighted during the night does not even see the dawn, and the person who blew out the lamp does not care about the one or the other—but the speaker must certainly be in one of these situations himself.
It is, however, very beneficial for a person to understand himself and to be able to speak with himself about expectancy, because expectancy does not come just once like birth, or just once like death, but it does not cease, any more than do day and night, seedtime and harvest, summer and winter,50 and will not cease as long as time separates and divides mortal life. [IV 96] Therefore, if a person thinks that he had expected something only once in his life, whether he now was pleased by the foolish wisdom of the unquestionable fulfillment or consoled himself with the foolish wisdom of the unquestionable disappointment, he will nevertheless, without knowing how it happens, soon take hold of himself in expectancy: in order that the fulfillment may continue, may continue to be what it is, and not secretly conceal what it had never hinted; or in order that the fulfillment may not come and mock his defiant commonsensicality. Every human being is tried this way in the active service of expectancy. Now comes the fulfillment and relieves him, but soon he is again placed on reconnaissance for expectancy; then he is again relieved, but as long as there is any future for him, he has not yet finished his service. And while human life goes on this way in very diverse expectancy, expecting very different things according to different times and occasions and in different frames of mind, all life is again one nightwatch of expectancy, and let no one dare, sagaciously or foolishly, to lose himself and finish out his service in piecemeal expectancy, lest in his security or in his busyness, in his joy or in his discouragement, he forget the eternal, which is waiting every moment and at the end of time, inasmuch as this is one and the same; only the earthly and temporal mind, to its own deprivation, makes duplicitous that which in patience wants to be understood as comforting and alleviating and as rescuing and guiding in earnest.
So let us not fascinate and beguile ourselves, let us not confuse and vex one another by making our petty, transitory expectancies, our momentary states of expectancy, our expressions and moods the rule and the explanation, but let us learn from the past, from what is finished once and for all, where the time of expectancy is not lengthened by our impatience, and where in turn the time of expectancy is not shortened by our impatient joy over the fulfillment. Then even if the discourse and the contemplation are not capable of entirely calming and concealing the laboring thought in the restfulness of the deliberation, it nevertheless will always be beneficial for a person to interrupt the daily worries and the captivating repetition of pleasures, to overcome the misunderstood disconsolateness that wants to listen only to what applies solely to its particular situation, in order to be opened up to something greater, in order to devote himself to the only thing that can become the object of concern in a beautiful and redeeming way. Only when the water in the pool of Bethesda was stirred, only then was it healing to descend into it.51 This is easier to [IV 97] understand in the spiritual sense, because if a person’s soul comes to a standstill in the monotony of self-concern and self-preoccupation, then he is bordering on soul rot unless the contemplation stirs and moves him. Then if he is moved, if he, who lay like a paralytic and invalid, gained the strength in the moment of contemplation to pull himself together but complete healing did not follow immediately, it nevertheless will always be a blessing for him that he was moved and stirred, since only in this is there redemption, sometimes at once, sometimes gradually.
But what has ever been the object of such expectancy as the birth of the child who now, according to the Gospel just read, is being brought at the age of forty days to the temple to be presented to the Lord! This expectancy was in the world as early as man learned to understand it;52 it became more clear and definite as time went on, as the chosen ones of the generations rejoiced in the vision and from afar hailed the future event,53 the nonappearance of which even made them guests and aliens on the earth.54 Centuries have rolled by, but they, too, are counted; our impatience neither adds to nor subtracts from the long, long period of expectancy. Indeed, how long is a single human being’s life, how many are his days of expectancy if he counts them all together! Then came the fullness of time.55 The expected one, whom the kings from the East came to worship, was born; even though he was born in an inn and laid in a manger, and even though his mother was only a betrothed virgin and his father a humble man of the people, nevertheless the star in the sky was a witness to his birth, the star whose sign the kings followed until they found the child.56 Now the child was forty days old and was to be presented to the Lord. Then that poor family, which through all generations has been called the holy family, went to the temple to bring the child and the humble offering specified for the destitute. Should there be no witnesses at this solemn ceremony? Should not something happen comparable to what happened when the star shone over the cradle? From the Gospel we learn that two witnesses were present, a godly man and a devout woman, Simeon and Anna.57 They were not related to the child by the bonds of family and friendship and were not invited by the parents; they were present in accordance [IV 98] with a higher dispensation and represent something higher. They were both well along in years, tired of living and yet joyous in hope.58 Consequently, they were not concerned about the fulfillment in the same way as the person who meets its coming with a greeting of welcome, but they were like one who bids the fulfillment farewell. What, then, do these two witnesses represent, what else but expectancy? Just as the voice of the prophets echoed once again in the rigorous words of John the Baptizer, so did the patriarchs’ believing expectancy rise up in these two figures in order to stand by in the moment of fulfillment. But they, who were appointed by the Lord himself to represent the expectancy in that hour, certainly were the sort of people who at all times are able to stand their test every time contemplation seeks to understand expectancy and the form of expectancy that is in patience.
The Gospel just read mentions Simeon only briefly but dwells all the more solicitously on Anna, as if it first and foremost wanted to make her the object of our attention. Consequently, let us not misunderstand this hint, but with Anna as the occasion and with her in mind let us speak of:
Patience in Expectancy.
From the Gospel, we learn that at the time of this event Anna was well on in years, in her eighty-fourth year. Her earlier life had passed quietly; only one change is mentioned, the one that made her a widow when she had lived with her husband seven years after maidenhood. Consequently, she had been married only seven years, and now her age was seven times twelve. Her life was broken off early; she had nothing left that could be the object of her caring while her thoughts were with the one dead; she had nothing she could love forth [opelske]59 as a consolation for herself in time, nothing she could love with her whole heart without thereby dishonoring or disquieting the one who had passed away, nothing she could love in such a way that by her very fervency she would gladden the father [husband] in his grave. She was a widow, her life was finished, her expectancy disappointed—she who had expected to live a long time with her husband and to die remembered by a family and relatives. But she was now indeed free; according to Hebrew conceptions, too, a woman is indeed free when her husband is dead; she was indeed free, and in the resurrection there will be no distinction between man and woman.60 Let us not upset the venerable woman with our plans; let us not seek [IV 99] to console with the sagacious advice of people who do not know what inconsolableness is. Eighteen centuries and more have passed; she does not need our help now any more than she needed it then. We shall not hinder her in following the inclination of her heart; we shall not be in a hurry to attire her in the victorious armor of despair or in the mourning weeds of slow deterioration. After all, she is the object of our contemplation, and there are things in life into which we should not seek to poetize our thoughts but from which we ourselves should learn; there are things in life over which we should not weep but from which we should learn to weep over ourselves.61
Her choice is made. It did not happen yesterday or the day before yesterday so that we should be ready with our assistance to get it changed. Her choice is made, and if she has regretted it, the time of regret has been long. She chose to remain faithful to her late husband, as he had been faithful to her, or to say it in another and more truthful way, even though it might not seem as beautiful to her, she chose to remain true to herself; after all, every external bond was dissolved, and only that love bound her in which she had her freedom and without which she would not have known herself again. In this fidelity, her life became very poor in variety, which some people achieve to the point of repulsiveness, but her life became fruitful for the eternal. And whatever you may think of this, my listener, it is certainly up to each individual to decide on his own, so that according to circumstances one choice may be just as commendable in its fervent love as another, but this much is certain—that the woman who is busy consoling herself over the loss of her late husband is hardly God’s choice to appear as the witness of expectancy in the hour when the expectancy of the human race has its fulfillment. She remained faithful to the departed one, and she considered herself well taken care of, as she was indeed, since there is nothing that so forms, ennobles, and sanctifies a person as the memory of one who is dead62 hidden in a sincere heart; there is nothing that next to God himself so uncompromisingly tests and searches a person’s innermost being as does a commemoration of one who is dead preserved in an always present memory; there is nothing that maintains a person’s soul in this kind of persevering and faithful endurance as does the thought of one who is dead, which never slumbers. The living can sometimes be taken by surprise by some frailty or can prompt someone else to be overhasty, but one who is dead is never overhasty. The living can at times make a mistake or influence someone else to make one, but one who is dead is made not of flesh and [IV 100] blood but of the holiest and best thoughts of a thankful memory, which are never in error, since they are purified in the anxiety of losing the one who has gone to glory. The living are quick to appreciate our love, quick to repay in fuller measure and sooner than perhaps was deserved; but the longer the hour of reward is postponed, the more beautiful it is for the one who desires it early and late. Only the day laborer demands to be paid every day; only faithful love serves seven years and seven more for the reward,63 but the person who loves one who is dead serves his entire life for his love.
Is Anna, then, not expectant? We are well aware that there were those in the world whose expectancy was not disappointed. They learned early to harden their hearts and now perhaps lifted their heads very proudly in order to look out over those who were bowed down in sorrow. How could that sort of person ever be deceived! And yet if he suddenly were to be reminded vividly of the time when his heart swelled dauntlessly and confidently, rich in expectancy, then he might be shocked at himself and at his disappointed expectancy, because he had never expected that he would ever foolishly carry his head high like the barren fig tree64 that expects nothing. If anyone was disappointed, then certainly it was he, and more incurably than all others. The person who is deceived by the world can still hope that he will not be disappointed some other time under other circumstances, but the person who deceives himself is continually deceived even if he flees to the farthest limits of the world, because he cannot escape himself.
We are well aware that there were those whose expectancies were not disappointed. In busy service they allowed themselves not a moment’s quiet; they fragmented their souls in multifarious expectancies, expected now one thing, now another; they won and lost, arose early and walked long roads. Their expectancies were not disappointed—but the expectancy, yes, that was out of the question. Where indeed was the master who was capable of describing this indefatigable emptiness, or where were the memory and the thought that were capable of summing up such confusion, or where the eternity that had the time to remember such things! Were they not disappointed, disappointed in their expectancy that time could not run out, disappointed by the expectancies that in dissipation had let them forget that the earnestness of eternity was bound to forget all their aspirations and them also, something they could have avoided. Not to be forgotten in the course of time was the lot of very few people, but something more glorious, not to be forgotten in eternity, is given to every human being who himself wills it. Were they, then, not disappointed, is not the person who does not even suspect the disappointment before it swallows and annihilates him most terribly disappointed?
But Anna, however . . . . . My listener, let your thoughts [IV 101] dwell on this venerable woman, whose mind is among the graves and now, although well on in years, nevertheless stands as the eternal’s young fiancée. This tranquillity in her eyes that nevertheless is expectant, this gentleness that is reconciled to life and nevertheless is expectant, this quiet integrity that is femininely occupied with recollection and nevertheless is expectant, this humble self-denial that nevertheless is expectant, this devout heart that covets nothing more and nevertheless is waiting in suspense; beyond flowering nevertheless still vigorous, forsaken nevertheless not withered, childless nevertheless not barren, bent with years and stooped nevertheless not broken—a widow, nevertheless betrothed, “she is in silence”65 with her expectancy. It is beautiful, you may say; if one were able to describe it fittingly, one could sit and grow old contemplating this picture, powerless to tear oneself away from it. But if I were to add, “This is what expectancy looks like,” and go on to say, “Oh, that it might always look like this!”—there might be someone who impatiently would turn away from this same picture. “Is this life’s expectancy—I who expect to win everything, to satisfy my inexpressible craving, who expect that life itself will teach me how much more there is to expect than I suspect? Is this what happens to expectancy? Does one keep the divining rod in one’s hand until it becomes a dry stick, and does one hold this in one’s hand—as the fulfillment?” Now he probably does not need to fear that he will suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, come to be like pious Anna or that without his being aware of it time will sneakily remodel him after the picture that is beautiful at a distance but close at hand is alarming. Anna had not always been a widow either; she, too, had been young, had also known the expectancy of youth. But the person who does not know life’s dangers—his courage is only a scarcely praiseworthy foolhardiness, and the person who does not know life’s deceit—his expectancy is only an intoxication in dreams. As surely as there is danger, so surely is there also disappointment, and not until a person tries his hand at it in such a way that he chooses the better part,66 chooses expectancy, not until then can Anna truly become the object of contemplation. There is something that every person soon discerns in himself, and accordingly he will not go far if he does not discern it; but if this is what we are supposed to learn from Anna, she would scarcely have become unforgettable through the centuries; because life passes away and the lust of it,67 and he who knows nothing better, he himself passes away, just as do life and desire.
Is Anna not patient in expectancy? Anyone who wants to harvest before he sows or as soon as he has sown, anyone who [IV 102] wants to be victorious without struggling, anyone who wants something but does not want the means is a fool in people’s eyes. Everyone believes that the expectant person needs some patience, and only the person who wants to cast away all patience, he alone is called impatient and childish in his impatience. Some patience! If a person were to go out into the world with this wisdom, he would find scarcely a single impatient person without some patience. Does the Gospel mean to say that all the foolish bridesmaids went to sleep immediately or all at the same time?68 Why should we not assume that there was a difference? Then the first one went to sleep quickly, even before the oil was burned up; but the fifth—she did not attend the wedding either, because she, too, destroyed her expectancy with impatience, and when the oil was burned up she did not think it worth the trouble to obtain new oil in order to sustain the expectancy. If the bridegroom had come a bit earlier, it would not have been known that she was impatient, since she did nevertheless have some patience, just as even the first one had some patience. When the fulfillment comes immediately or quickly, it is so very easy to understand life because one does not learn to understand oneself; but when it fails to come . . . . . Like those bridesmaids, everyone has an original supply of oil with which to sustain expectancy. Now if the fulfillment comes before this is consumed, then everything goes well, and one goes through life without definitely knowing or definitely establishing whether one belongs among the foolish or the wise bridesmaids. The original natural power of endurance can be different in different individuals, but as soon as the fulfillment fails to come for such a long time that this original power is consumed and exhausted, then and only then will it become manifest whether a person has new oil in readiness, only then will his patience in expectancy become manifest. As long as expectancy holds and carries a person, no wonder that he is expectant, but when the last struggle begins, when one must strain oneself to the utmost to hold on to expectancy, then people fall away. How often it is said that no one is to be considered happy before he is dead,69 but how seldom is a troubled person heard to say that one should not give up as long as one is living, that there is hope as long as there is life—and consequently there is always hope for the immortal who expects an eternity.
[IV 103] Now if there were a person who in his distress dared truthfully to say, “I have been given nothing; in the great design of things that provides for all, I was even more forgotten than the sparrow, which does not fall to the ground without God’s will;70 so I will simply not endure it any longer; from this moment on, I will give up all expectancy and let myself fall to the ground.” —Or suppose he did not say it just this way but in his despair nevertheless truly thought he dared to say, “I certainly lost my way, but I turned back again. Nevertheless it was in vain, my expectancy too late; I stretched out my arm, but my foot just slipped; I shouted, but there was no ear to receive my scream. So, then, at this very moment I will give up every expectancy and let myself sink; God must take the responsibility if help comes in the very next moment, when it is too late.” In that case, should we sagaciously think that if we were in such a person’s place we with our ingenuity would probably find a way out where he found none; or should we cause him new pain by ordering him to look around in the world, where there surely would be someone who had waited longer than he for help? Certainly not, but we will say to him, “Forget the past once again, quit all this calculating in which you trap yourself, do not stop the prompting of your heart, do not extinguish the spirit71 in useless quarreling about who waited the longest and suffered the most—once again cast all your sorrow upon the Lord72 and throw yourself upon his love. Up out of this sea, expectancy rises reborn again and sees heaven open—reborn, no, newborn, for this heavenly expectancy begins precisely when the earthly expectancy sinks down powerless and in despair.”
Is this not the way it is? Or would a doubting person [Tvivler] and a person in despair [Fortvivlet] continue to be in the right? Or would he prove to be in the wrong because he disdains the speech of youthful enthusiasm, since it lacks experience, and disdains the speech of experience, since it lacks enthusiasm and has experienced either only good fortune, which cannot help him, or misfortune, but not in the same way he has! The error of the one doubting [Tvivlende] and of the one despairing [Fortvivlende] does not lie in cognition, since cognition cannot decide with certainty anything about the next moment, but the error lies in the will, which suddenly no longer wills but on the contrary wants to make the indeterminate into a passionate decision. Even at the last moment there is a possibility, or rather there is no last moment before it is past. Is this perhaps a shrewdly devised expression, “one can always say,” an expression that captivates the mind and for [IV 104] a short time also the soul, which, however, soon regrets again, yes, is irate, because it let itself be snared in the sophistic subtlety? No, indeed; it is no subtle turn of expression that circumvents the issue, but an observation, yes, an observation that builds up, for what is it that makes the tribulation short—it is time; but what is it that makes the tribulation “brief” (II Corinthians 4:17) even when it lasts a lifetime—it is the expectancy of the eternal and the patience that expects it. And that one can always say it—is this not the eternal expectancy’s victory, indeed, more than victory, over the temporal!
Can Anna be disappointed in her expectancy; can the fulfillment come too late? Certainly the fulfillment can come too late for the expectant one; if a person expected the temporal and the vainglorious, then the fulfillment can disappoint not merely by failing to come but also by coming when it is too late. What good would it be, if it was power and dominion that the powerless one craved, if they were offered to him at the moment when nature orders him to relinquish them! What good would it be if it was pleasure and enjoyment that his soul desired and the goblet of intoxication was handed to the invalid whom every moment reminds that life passes away and the lust of it? What good would it be if, to a person who now could clasp only with shaking hands, all the world’s gold was given, something he had thirsted for because in his hands it was supposed to be a key to everything! What good would it be—or would it not be like mockery of him, and would it not be most disgusting of all if he did not understand the judging seriousness of the fulfillment, that he still had not renounced the world and had learned nothing over the years, but the fulfillment tempted him, tempted the old man to become a contemptible fool! But you, my listener, you have not placed your expectancy in that which is deceitful even when it comes; your expectancies are not disappointed. You are expecting the resurrection of the dead, of both the righteous and the unrighteous;73 you are expecting a blessed reunion with those whom death took away from you and with those whom life separated from you; you are expecting that your life will become transparent74 and clear to you, your estate in blessed understanding with your God and with yourself, undisturbed by the passion that, troubled, seeks to guess the riddles of providential dispensation. But of course this expectancy is not disappointed, because the time of its fulfillment has not yet arrived. And when the fulfillment does come, it is never mocking, never deceitful, because the good never mocks a human being. If it fails to come, then this is the best for him, and if it comes, it comes with all its eternal blessedness. How [IV 105] could this come too late—then it would itself have to be temporal. Therefore only impatience knows fear, but patience, like love, drives out fear.75 In relation to the temporal and the vainglorious, impatience in a certain defective sense may be true and grounded, grounded in the frailty of that which is the object of expectancy; in relation to the eternal, it is just as beautiful as it is certain that impatience is always untrue.
There is in the world much brooding and pondering and investigating and calculating and talking concerning expectancy and its relation to fulfillment, inasmuch as expectancy is certainly a matter that in many ways pertains to every human being. But in a single word, a word eternity does not understand and recognize, all the wisdom that wants to be only worldly-wise about expectancy can be summed up, however copious this wisdom is from generation to generation. The word varies according to the one speaking, but the word nevertheless remains the same. The person in despair surrenders his soul in this word; the troubled person repeats it again and again, finds relief in hearing it kindly and sympathetically spoken by another; the defiant one, who forgets God, thinks he is able with this word to mock everything both in heaven and on earth, both the fortunate and the unfortunate; the clever one drops it laconically and still thinks he has said a lot; in his joy over the word, the light-minded one does not even have time to allow the understanding to make it duplicitous—it is the word “maybe” [maaskee]. We do not know whether there has ever been a more serious age that did not know this word but rested in eternity’s assurance that it must happen [det maa skee]. We do not know whether a more impatient generation, by repeating that expression of eternal expectancy more and more quickly, itself created impatience’s short, hasty, precipitous, frivolous, arrogant, shrewd, comfortless “maybe.” Fortunate the person who, like Anna, when the earthly expectancy disappointed, said with a mind dedicated to God, solemn as eternity’s language is, confident as eternity’s expectancy is: It must happen. Fortunate the person who, well on in years, in his eighty-fourth year said: It must happen.
From our Gospel read earlier, we learn that Anna never left the temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayer, that she stepped up the very same hour (when the child was brought to the temple) and praised the Lord and spoke about him to all who expected the deliverance of Jerusalem.76 [IV 106] She had lived as a lawfully wedded wife ought to live with her wedded husband; now she was “a real widow who has been left all alone and has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day” (I Timothy 5:5). One who is faithful over little is set over much.77 Anna had not demanded the world’s comfort for the one dead; then heaven comforted her and the recollection of her loss formed her heart to envision the expectancy as being not merely for herself but for the whole nation. As the Gospel says, humble Anna was a prophet. She, who had given up her earthly expectancy and bound her soul to the eternal alone, was taught by this pain to expect the fulfillment that all generations had hailed from afar. My listener, however you judge concerning that which is indeed up to each one to decide on his own in such a way that one who makes the opposite choice can be no less praiseworthy, this much is nevertheless certain—the eyes of the woman who speedily recovers from the pain of the loss of her husband are hardly open to the expectancy that is not the fruit of temporality but that awakens only in the person who gave up the temporal in order to gain the eternal and then found the grace to see eternity as an expectancy in time. Although a widow and left alone, she nevertheless is the favored one, singled out by her expectancy as the one who is called a prophet, a name rarely given among the Jews to a woman because in the view of that people women were regarded as more imperfect than men.
Is Anna, then, not expecting? If she is not expecting, then who is? A prophet is occupied with the future in a way different from that of an apostle or an angel, to say nothing of the mass of people. But the future is indeed the very object of expectancy. Yet not everyone who is expectant is on that account truly expectant in the deeper sense of the word, since this depends on the object of his expectancy. Although it is a very beautiful commendation to say of a person that he is expectant, so that the one of whom it is said distinguishes himself by his expectancy, just as the hero does by the feat he performs, the poet by the art he practices, the research scholar by the truth he discovers, the philanthropist by the sacrifice he magnanimously makes—a person can also be censured for being expectant. If someone were to expect, early and late, something that did not pertain to him apart from his curiosity, or if someone were to set aside what is assigned to him, what requires his best talents and his daily attention, in order to swagger around as the chosen instrument of expectancy, or if [IV 107] someone were to expect that which truly pertains to him but which his deadened will had thoughtlessly transformed into an object of expectancy, who would then wish to be expectant in this sense! One who expects in this way is not educated by his expectancy, either—on the contrary, his nature degenerates. He wastes the power of his soul and the content of his life in calculations and the irascible unwholesomeness of probabilities; his proud achievement disintegrates and he is decomposed into empty noise; his energy is deadened in cowardly superstition, which finally becomes plunder to the crafty, an object of ridicule to the sensible, an anxiety to the serious-minded; he expects everything and forgets that, whatever God gives, he “gives not the spirit of cowardliness but the spirit of power and self-control” (II Timothy 1:7).
Just as it is required of the expectant person, if his expectancy is noble and worthy of a human being, that he seek this spirit of power and self-control, and that, just as his expectancy is laudable, he must also be one who is properly expectant, so in turn will the object of expectancy, the more glorious and precious it is, form the expectant person in its own likeness, because a person resembles what he loves with his whole soul.78 Now, who would be capable of cataloging the countless expectancies that with regard to the individual could all be seemly and worthy; but who would deny that in the eminent sense of the word there was only one expectancy in the world, the expectancy of the fullness of time, and this was precisely the object of Anna’s expectancy. If anyone is expecting, it is Anna, and although this expectancy, once fulfillment has come, never repeats itself, it will still be beneficial for a person not only to keep a close watch on himself, lest he be lost in the impatient service of expectancy, but also to pay heed to his expectancy so that he dares own up to it even when his mind dwells on the expectant Anna’s one and only expectation. One and only since we extol her because she had only one, and we extol her again because her expectation was truly the one and only. Worthy she stands, then, beside Simeon, who desired to see nothing but what he saw and then to go home in peace. Blessed are the eyes that saw what he saw and saw it in the way he saw it;79 even though a person became as gray-haired as Simeon and as aged as Anna, yet it is blessed to be the expectant one who expects and sees the expected one, in whose place no other one shall come!80
Is Anna not patient in her expectancy? Even though in the world we hear at times of someone who expects nothing at all, even though such a person is sometimes thought to have [IV 108] attained the proper assurance, because he craftily made it impossible for himself to discern the loss, yet it is also admitted that this wisdom is of later origin and that no one has it in early youth. Originally, then, like every other human being, he was expectant. With a smile or with tears, one confesses that expectancy is in the soul originally. As long as it is a strident enthusiasm, an unclarified confidence, an inner effervescence, we extol it as the beautiful or childish advantage of youth, as a birthright one nevertheless gives away in the distress of life for a mess of lentils.81 As long as the happy mentality of youth jubilates in good fortune and satisfaction, it is admittedly appropriate to want to be joyful and happy; but when the opportune hour of happiness wants to be purchased and at a high price, then a later wisdom comes along, and a person does not even want to be happy, wants to be dejected, wants to be unhappy. When does this happen? It happens in the time of distress, or we could also express it another way—it happens when it becomes apparent that patience and expectancy correspond to each other. Why not abbreviate the difficulty, then, by discarding expectancy? And yet it is so that patience and expectancy correspond to each other, and not until these two have found each other, find and understand each other in a person, not until then is there like for like in the friendship that is to be continued; expectancy in patience is like a good word in the right place, like a golden apple in a silver bowl,82 and not just a dead magnificence but like a treasure that is invested at interest.83
Who is it, then, who judges whether a person is patient? Is it time? Not at all, or only in a certain sense, because someone may be patient and have been patient and still did not see his expectancy fulfilled. In the profoundest sense, it is the expectancy itself, its essence, that determines whether a person is patient. The person whose expectancy is truly expectancy is patient by virtue of it in such a way that, upon becoming aware of his impatience, he must not only judge himself but also test his expectancy to see whether this explains his impatience and to what extent it would be wrong to remain patient; if that was possible, he ought to give up the expectancy. Only the true expectancy, which requires patience, also teaches patience. But true expectancy is such that it pertains to a person essentially and does not leave it up to his own power to bring about the fulfillment. Therefore every truly expectant person is in a relationship with God.
Such an expectant person cannot let his expectancy slip into [IV 109] forgetfulness and then when fulfillment comes think that all this long time he has been patient in expectancy. This deception is possible only through the external, which, itself deceptive, teaches the person to deceive himself. In relation to what truly pertains to a person and consequently in relation to true expectancy, this is impossible, since then the fulfillment will never come, because the possibility of it dies out proportionately as the actuality of the expectancy dies out.
Such an expectant person cannot feed and satisfy his expectancy with probabilities and calculations, because only in patience does he enter into a relation to expectancy, and this begins precisely when probability is fleeting. Probability, however, is only a deceitful advantage over expectancy, which has none. One seemingly comes close to the fulfillment quickly, indeed, very close; suddenly it withdraws. Patience, however, leaves its expectancy up to God and in this way is always equally close to the fulfillment, however foolish this may seem to the earthly understanding.
Such an expectant person cannot delude himself with apathetic dullness, as if it were patience when he also became accustomed (because he did everything from habit) to occupying himself with his expectation but its concern did not awaken his soul. No, anyone who expects what truly pertains to him cannot thereby become indifferent to it, since then he no longer grasps that it truly pertains to him, and neither does he then expect that which truly pertains to him. He cannot become apathetic in habit, since at all times he is just as close to the fulfillment.
The true expectant person keeps company with his expectancy every day. It arises earlier in the morning than he himself, is up and about sooner, goes to bed later in the evening than he himself; the inner being, to whom expectancy belongs, does not need as much sleep as the outer being. His concern is the same every day, because his innermost life is equally important to him at every moment. Yet he does not consume his soul in impatience, but in patience he offers his expectancy; in patience he sacrifices it by submitting it to God.
If this discourse about patience and expectancy is perhaps obscure, then we shall eulogize Anna and confine ourselves to her; she is not difficult to understand. She was a widow of eighty-four years who did not leave the temple; serving God night and day with fasting and prayer, she preserved her expectancy “in all patience and forbearance with joy” (Colossians 1:11).
She did not leave the temple. Yet she was not in the temple [IV 110] with the fulfillment but only with her expectancy. This the expectant person takes with him when he goes out into the streets and alleys at the fourth hour, and at the eleventh hour, and at cockcrow; or he sits still but lets his thoughts go out, listening for the soft footsteps of the fulfillment, watching for the distant cloud in the desert, for the mist on the moor that changes shape with every breeze and changes the expectant one. But Anna did not leave the temple, not only because she waited to see the fulfillment come to pass in that holy place, since then she probably would have climbed the temple tower or consulted the wise men, those versed in the stars and in the Scriptures, but because her expectancy was in God and she was always equally close to the fulfillment, although no probability came and went, visited her in order to comfort, or brought discouragement along with it.
Serving the Lord, because, as you see, she was indeed the Lord’s handmaid, but she was also serving her expectancy, and this service was the same. The expectant person does not willingly serve someone else, and people forgive him if he abruptly stands up, if he does not share in their joy or does not help in time of need; after all, he is serving his expectancy. Through this service, he gains the fulfillment. But Anna served another, in whose hand surely lay the fulfillment, just as the fulfillment of every expectation lies in his hand, but she received no enlightenment, and while the days passed and added years to her age until she was very aged, she nevertheless was always just as close to the fulfillment.
With prayer and fasting, but the person who prays and fasts accomplishes nothing, since prayer is idle talk on earth, even though it “works in heaven,”84 and fasting consumes earthly energy and gives no strength to endure in expectancy. —Yet impatience is an evil spirit “that can be expelled only by prayer and much fasting.”85
Night and day. Indeed, this is how the expectant one perseveres, night and day, but does it always in prayer and fasting. The hunger of impatience is not easy to satisfy—how, then, through fasting? The demands of impatience certainly use many words and long speeches, but in prayer it is very sparing of words. Temporal patience has provisions on hand for a long time, doggedly perseveres, seldom rests, never prays, but Anna continued night and day. Even though impatience says that it is no art to pray—oh, just to collect one’s mind in prayer at a specified time and to pray inwardly, even though for only a moment, is more difficult than to occupy a city,86 to say nothing of persevering night and day and preserving in prayer the inwardness of heart and the presence of mind and [IV 111] the quietness of thought and the sanction of the whole soul, without being scattered, without being disturbed, without repenting of one’s devotion, without anguishing about its being a prinked-up deception, without becoming sick of all one’s praying—but Anna, serving the Lord with prayer and fasting night and day, did not leave the temple.
Was Anna disappointed in her expectancy; did the fulfillment come too late? Her expectancy was for something that was to occur in time. Consequently, the outcome must decide whether the fulfillment came or whether the end was a disappointment. Would Anna at this point actually become just as disconsolate as all the talk that is heard about the outcome, which, just like the outcome, always comes trailing after?
The outcome showed that her expectancy came to fulfillment; consequently, she was not disappointed. But in what sense was she not disappointed? Did she herself perhaps amount to something through her expectancy—for example, like the person who was impoverished and again became rich, the person who was toppled and then elevated again, and in a certain sense was elevated because of his expectancy, insofar as he himself had not given up being his own co-worker—did the widow perhaps marry again? My listener, why are you almost ashamed that I mention this word? After all, the expectancy did not arise in her soul when she began her eighty-fourth year; it goes far back in time to the days when she made the choice she acknowledged in her last hour. Is it I who presumptuously mock the venerable woman, or if this had been her expectancy, would not the fulfillment come to her as the most dreadful mockery? Praised, therefore, be Anna; she stands there venerable and highly exalted. Although ordinary human speech becomes silent at the sight of her, the most profound expression in language must call her in the strictest and noblest sense: the expectant one. And does this not also show that the outcome could not disappoint her by coming too late!
And even if it had failed to come, she still would not have been disappointed. The fulfillment came; at the same moment, just like Simeon, she desires only to depart, that is, not to remain with the fulfillment and yet in another sense to enter into the fulfillment. If the moment of the fulfillment had not come in time, will you then deny, my listener, that she nevertheless entered into eternity with her expectancy and went to meet the fulfillment.
By failing to come, the outcome could not essentially deceive her, and by coming too late it could not disappoint her. Do you not believe also that this was Anna’s understanding when the fulfillment came, which certainly could have come [IV 112] long before she was eighty-four and nevertheless could have come as the fulfillment of her expectancy. Do you think that she regretted the many years, do you think that her joy perhaps cast the regret into forgetfulness, or do you not think that her joy was precisely those many years in which she had been faithful night and day to her expectancy! And was not the reward able to compensate her richly and inordinately even if she had become ninety-five, yes, even one hundred, years old! She did not amount to something through her expectancy; the fulfillment did not pertain to her temporally in that way any more than the expectancy had. But inasmuch as the expectancy of the age, of the nation, of the generations, of the human race, of Adam, and of millions came to fulfillment, devout Anna stood alongside Simeon as the witness of the expectancy, and thus they stand unforgettable for all time!
What if Anna had been a mother, what if the one dead had remained with her, what if for the second time she had experienced in a still more beautiful sense being called mother—a person does not desire more than this to be deemed happy, but what if Anna wants more? Well, then, what if Anna, herself aged and with her aged husband, had watched the third generation grow up, what if the child now being presented had been thrice removed, what if her husband had been standing by her side instead of Simeon, what if she herself had expected only this fulfillment, in order then to go to her rest, what if three generations had called her mother and this beautiful name had been spoken again and again in as many ways as possible, what if three generations had never forgotten her? —And now! Anna had experienced the pain of life and had sown with tears,87 had lost her husband early, since then had remained childless and forsaken; then in her eighty-fourth year she came forth in the temple, concealed the expectancy of all ages in her devout figure, and so she stands, always remembered as the witness of expectancy. —Blessed is the one who became poor and forsaken,88 blessed is the barren one,89 blessed is the one who lost the world in such a way that expectancy’s desire for it never awakened in his soul, blessed is the one whose expectancy walked through the gate of death into the eternal in order to apprehend his expectation until he saw it with earthly eyes and did not desire to see it anymore in time.
People often lament that life is so impoverished, existence so powerless in all its magnificence, that it seeks in vain to take the soul by surprise or to captivate it in wonder [Beundring90], [IV 113] since to wonder at nothing91 is the highest wisdom, and to expect nothing is the highest truth. The child is astonished at insignificant things. The adult has laid aside childish things;92 he has seen the wondrous, but it amazes him no more; there is nothing new under the sun93 and nothing marvelous in life. If, however, a person knew how to make himself truly what he truly is—nothing—knew how to set the seal of patience on what he had understood—ah, then his life, whether he is the greatest or the lowliest, would even today be a joyful surprise and be filled with blessed wonder and would be that throughout all his days, because there is truly only one eternal object of wonder—that is God—and only one possible hindrance to wonder—and that is a person when he himself wants to be something.