Moved by the Spirit, [Simeon] went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
    you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation…” – Luke 2:27-30

Thursday evening Rebekah and I finished viewing a three-part series on the life of Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669). I love and appreciate all kinds of creative artwork, from the famous to the unknown, but Rembrandt is among the handful (Rembrandt, Turner, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Monet, Gustav Klimt, Andrew Wyeth) whose work literally takes my breath away.

As the documentary came to a close the narrator showed one of the last paintings Rembrandt completed, pondering on the fact that Rembrandt would not have known it was his final self-portrait. Or maybe, internally processing the fact of his own frailty, somewhere inside of himself he had a hint or an inkling and this unconsciously informed his work?

The commentator wondered how an artist knows when a painting is finished? A brushstroke here, a highlight there, then standing back – palate in hand – to realize, “yes, this work is complete….”

The same is true of a life. Not so much finished as complete. Rebekah has often made the observation – especially when a memorial service is for a younger person – that a human life cannot be measured against some arbitrary standard length and described as “cut short.” A life is lived, and that life is a complete experience.

My brother Geoff died at 57, my dad lived to be 94 – but they both lived full and complete lives.

Rembrandt died in his chair in his studio, and – remarkably – the painting he was working on, there on his easel, depicted Simeon in the Temple, the moment in Luke’s Gospel where the old man declared, “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation…”

God is in a sense painting a masterpiece in and through all of our lives. We are not sure when a brushstroke, or a shading, or a shift in perspective will signal that the complete story has been told. But I do know that I am invited to constantly be in the presence of my Master – The Maker – and I can pray, “Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me….”

“For we are God’s masterpiece,” Paul wrote in Ephesians. “He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Eph 2:10).

Still working on it – DEREK