Waiting Hope-fully with Simeon (ft. Gemma Ryan) | Advent 2025 E1
John Mark Comer Teachings
Practicing the Way
4.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What does it mean to wait with hope? Gemma Ryan explores the story of Simeon—a man who waited decades for the Messiah—and invites us into three transformative questions: What are you waiting for? Who are you becoming as you wait? And what is sustaining you in the waiting? She shows us how waiting isn't passive but active, and how our seasons of in-between can become the very places where God refines and transforms us.
Key Scripture Passages: Luke 2v1-7, 22-35; Psalm 130; Isaiah 40; Galatians 4v4
This podcast and its episodes are paid for by The Circle, our community of monthly givers. Special thanks for this episode goes to: Kathleen from Dallas, Texas; Shailaja from Cranbury, New Jersey; Edward from Pacific Palisades, California; Jeremy from Shoreview, Minnesota; and David from Hove, East Sussex. Thank you all so much!
If you'd like to pay it forward and contribute toward future resources, you can learn more at practicingtheway.org/give.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the John Malcolm of Teachings podcast. |
| 0:06.7 | My name is Yinka Dawson and I'm your host. |
| 0:09.4 | Each week we feature teachings by John Mark or other voices in the formation space. |
| 0:14.4 | It's great to have you with us. |
| 0:17.0 | Happy Advent friends. |
| 0:18.4 | We know the holiday season can be quite full, |
| 0:21.6 | so over the next few weeks we're featuring teachings from John Mark, |
| 0:24.6 | our teaching fellows and other friends to guide us through the four traditional themes of Advent, |
| 0:30.6 | hope, peace, joy and love. |
| 0:34.6 | We've also created an Advent meditation guide to help you and your community reflect |
| 0:39.6 | together during this sacred season of remembering Jesus' coming and anticipating his return. |
| 0:45.9 | If you haven't checked it out yet, visit Practice in the Way.org slash Advent Meditations. For the |
| 0:52.9 | first week of Advent, we're featuring a teaching on hope from Gemma Ryan. |
| 0:57.0 | Gemma served for several years as an associate pastor at Oak's Church, Brooklyn. |
| 1:02.0 | She now lives in Ireland, works as a spiritual director, and is one of our teaching fellows at Practice in the Way. |
| 1:08.0 | In this teaching, Gemma explores the story of Simeon and Luke 2 and asks three |
| 1:12.7 | transformative questions, what are you waiting for? Who are you becoming as you wait? And what is |
| 1:19.8 | sustaining you in the waiting? Here's Gemma. Good morning, everyone. It's good to see you this morning. It's good to be with you. As Tyler said, we are continuing this new series that we're in this short Advent season. And the series is entitled, Hopefully. And one of the things that I love about the season of Advent is that we get to talk about |
| 1:46.6 | a theme that is universal, something that we can all relate to, something that we've all experienced, |
| 1:52.9 | something that we've all wrestled with the pain of, and that is waiting. Being human means being |
| 1:59.9 | acquainted with waiting. I was talking to my now five-year-old |
| 2:04.1 | daughter the other day about waiting and I asked her, what's the hardest thing to wait for? |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 14 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Practicing the Way, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Practicing the Way and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.