First Sunday After Christmas, 12/27/2015

Sermon on Luke 12:22-40, by Andrew Smith

²²And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord
²³(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”)
²⁴and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”
²⁵Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
²⁶And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
²⁷And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law,
²⁸he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,
²⁹ “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,according to your word;
³⁰ for my eyes have seen your salvation
³¹ that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”
³³And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him.
³⁴And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed
³⁵(and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
³⁶And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband
seven years from when she was a virgin,
³⁷and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.
³⁸And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
³⁹And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.
⁴⁰And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.

Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Happy sixth day of Christmas to you. I can’t promise you six geese a laying, but I can offer you the gift of God’s grace in the Word today. The text for the sermon is the Gospel reading for today and I’ll be referring to it as we go, starting with verse 22, “And when the days for their purification according to the Law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord.”

“Fulfilled.” The word keeps coming up in the Gospel of Luke because the Old Testament is like a thousand rivers each rushing together over a long distance, deeper and faster until they crash over one great water fall of God’s grace to which ever river of revelation pushes. Just consider that metaphor for a minute. Snow that melts in Ohio or Minnesota eventually winds its way through the streams and rivers into the Great Lakes and eventually down over Niagara Falls on its way to the sea. The Old Testament is much like that, multiple streams of revelation all pointing to one single great rushing in of God’s grace, Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the unveiling of every divine plan; he is the answer to every holy mystery! When Luke says “fulfilled,” the Holy Spirit opens mysteries, tells us the secrets of eternity as the tributaries of the Law and the Prophets wind through space and time and rush together all at once and we see all of God’s divine glory in the forty-day old baby boy Jesus.

Luke saw the rivers clap together in one small unstoppable outpouring. One river rushing in from the prophet Daniel. “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.” (Da 9:24) Luke heard that river rushing toward him. In 1:23, he said, “And when [Zechariah’s] time of service was fulfilled, he went to his home. (Lk 1:23) Then in chapter 2, verse 6 Luke says, “And while they were there, the days were fulfilled for her to give birth.” (Lk 2:6) In the verse just before our reading for today, he writes, “When eight days were fulfilled, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” (Lk 2:21) And then in our text, in verse 22, “And when the days were fulfilled, the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.” (Lk 2:22–23) The operative word here is “fulfilled.”

Luke had done his math. From the time of Gabriel’s appearance to Zechariah until the annunciation to Mary was 6 months or 180 days. From the annunciation until Jesus birth was 9 months, or 270 days. From the nativity of Jesus until his presentation in the temple was 40 days. 180 + 270 + 40 = 490 days or 70 weeks. The passage from Daniel that so many try to make into a prediction of the end of the world, was in fact about Jesus arriving in the temple. At the temple at 40 days Jesus was dedicated to the Lord just as all first born males in Israel had been. In Jesus was the end of sin. Luke describes what Zechariah saw rushing together that day. The fulfillment of Daniel’s otherwise enigmatic 70 weeks.

Luke saw another river rushing in from the prophet Malachi. “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. ²But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.” (Mal 3:1-2) That was one our Advent texts. So take that text and now read verse 27 of our reading today, “And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law.” (Lk 2:27). The Lord Jesus entered his holy temple. How did anyone endure the day? The temple in Jesus’ day was only a cartoon temple, a caricature of the real thing. Jesus was the true temple. When the glory of the Lord entered again the temple, there should have been a meltdown, a cosmic implosion, like a supernova star consuming half a galaxy. The Lord came to His temple as it was foretold. How did anyone survive the day?

Verse 25, “Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.” (Lk 2:25) By the Holy Spirit Simeon saw more rivers, sweeter waters coming toward him than all the prophets who had come before him. And he saw all those rivers come together in his arms, because he had been waiting for the consolation of Israel. He had the consolation of Israel in his arms; he saw the light of revelation for the Gentiles, he cradled in the crook of his arms the glory of the people of Israel! How did he survive? Simeon survived because that word translated as consolation is parakleysin, It has the same root as paraklete, the advocate or comforter which we know to be the Holy Spirit. Simeon saw the river coming from the prophet Isaiah “Comfort, comfort, you my people, says your God.” (Isa 40:1) And again from chapter 61, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me… to comfort all who mourn.”

Simeon’s eyes say the river coming from the prophet Haggai. “’The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.’” (Hag 2:9) Simeon saw it. Solomon’s glorious temple in which dwelled the presence of the Lord in fire and smoke was long gone along with the rest of that Jerusalem. It had been destroyed centuries earlier by the Babylonians. All of the sacred things from that temple were gone. How could the glory of the latter temple that Haggai foretold ever be as great as the temple of Solomon in which the Lord dwelled personally? The ark of the covenant from Solomon’s temple was missing. The all-important mercy seat, the lid to the ark where the Lord dwelled in glory for the protection of His people, it was long gone. The tables of the Law stored inside the ark were gone. No jar of manna, no flowering rod of Aaron. In this latter temple there was nothing but the work of men in stone and gold. There was no atonement for sin.

When Simeon’s eyes beheld the poor couple from Galilee coming to offer sacrifice in the temple according to the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons,” his eyes saw the glory of the Lord and his eyes saw the sacrifice. He knew it was not Mary and Joseph who would redeem their son with the humble sacrifice of pigeons. Simeon knew their son would redeem them, because He was the sacrifice. Simeon’s eyes saw the ark of the covenant for the first time as he held in his own arms the Mercy Seat, not the three hundred pound gold lid with angels wings outstretched, a mere forerunner to the real thing, but rather the 12 pound reality whose tiny arms would grow to stretch out in atonement for all the world’s sin. Simeon saw and could endure it because the Lord came in mercy once again in the flesh of His own Son, Jesus born of Mary. In Jesus, the Lord gives peace. Simeon saw the face of the Lord and lived! And yet it was enough for him that he asked to die. “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word.” (Lk 2:29)

We just sort of assume Simeon was old but the Bible doesn’t tell us how old he was. We assume he’s old because now that he’s held the consolation of Israel in his arms, he’s ready to go. He talks some older people talk. How do we talk? “I only want to see God after I’m spent doing everything else.” Right? And so after we have received the Lord’s true body and blood we sing Simeon’s song from the heart, don’t we?

“Lord, now you let your servant go in peace, according to your word.

Cause this is well and good and all,

but there’s a lot more important stuff

than communion on sale at the mall.

I hope the service is over soon, though it’s been divine,

and I thank you that church fit into my pla-a-a-ans this time.

We’re not ready to die because we’ve just barely come alive our eyes barely opened we’re still too blind, too distracted, preferring to play in the stagnant mud puddles to look for the deep rushing waters emerging out of the prophets bearing their gifts, presenting to us the Lord of our salvation. Lord, have mercy.

He does! Simeon was ready to die because those rivers he read, those rivers he knew, once he saw them clap together at long last, he longed to be released from this life shadows and types, of stone models of the true temple, of gold precursors of the Mercy Seat, and of animal rehearsals for the sacrifice of the blessed Son of God for the sins of the whole world, who offered himself once for all, Jesus Christ the propitiation for our sins. Simeon’s eyes had seen the real thing; he had bathed in the rushing torrent of the great waterfall of God’s grace in Christ that had come together from ever river of revelation from God. Simeon had seen the real thing and he was finished.

And how is it that his eyes could see? Why did the Nunc Dimittis pour out of him like the after splashings of a great waterfall? Mary and Joseph certainly looked like any other poor pious couple coming to the temple. Jesus certainly looked like any other 40 day-old son of Israel. He could see because the Holy Spirit was upon him. He could say, “For my eyes have seen your salvation,” because God opened his eyes to see it. Yes it was a miracle. But there was something else too. How did Simeon have the Holy Spirit upon him? By the Holy Scriptures.

Just like at the end of Luke’s Gospel were the two men on the road to Emmaus could not see that it was Jesus, alive from the dead and walking along the road with them until He opened the Scriptures to them and showed them the rivers of revelation that always were meant to join together in him, it was then that their hearts burned within them and they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread.

The Holy Spirit does not blow in over the mountains. He comes through the Scriptures. It is there we see the rivers of God’s revelation come rushing together toward salvation, joining together in the Virgin and taking on our human flesh by the same power of the Holy Spirit. In human flesh Jesus restores the perfection of created human nature from Eden. In Jesus who lived perfectly a life through which we are given credit. See today what Simeon saw, the forty day old Jesus presented to the Lord as holy, on your behalf, as if the whole human race was offered there and called holy before the Lord. See Jesus being sacrificed in your place, buried in your grave, and rising from the dead in order to guarantee your resurrection. Recognizing Him in the breaking of the bread we sin, “Lord now let your servants go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared.” Yes, it’s a miracle. With opened eyes see in humble bread and simple wine, Christ’s body and blood, given and shed for you.

Like Simeon, with opened eyes, depart in peace, because you have seen your salvation, you have seen every river of God’s revelation come rushing together and overflowing in the great waterfall of God’s grace in Christ Jesus pouring all over you. When you do, it will pour out of you too. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.

The Rev. Andrew Smith
Cookeville, Tennessee, USA
E-Mail: Cookeville, Tennessee, USA

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