Seeing Salvation :: Luke 2:22-40

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The Word for our meditation today comes to us from our Gospel reading in Luke 2 ...

And when the days of their purification were to be fulfilled according to the Law of Moses, they brought him into Jerusalem to stand him before the Lord ... and to give a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” 


If I didn’t know better, I might gloss right over this. So Let me paint a picture for you. There is no small detail here ... Jerusalem is huge. ... 2,000 years ago, it was a hustling-and-bustling city with nearly 80,000 people. The Jewish historian Josephus estimated there were 6,000 Pharisees. The temple complex Herod built was about the size of nine city blocks. Thousands are coming to offer their sacrifices. Merchants lined up selling their animals for the sacrifices. Priests are going to and fro performing their religious duties. Members of the Sanhedrin are gathering along Solomon’s portico to discuss politics. Rabbis are in various corners teaching. 

Now into all of that commotion enters one unassuming couple ... a carpenter and his young wife ... holding their 40 day old baby boy. They have come to fulfill what is written in the Law of the Lord that every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. 

You’d think everything in today’s reading is business as usual in Jerusalem.

1.

But hold on. There is nothing normal about today. The fullness of time has come. And there is at least one man who realizes the significance of this moment. Behold, Luke says. That is, open your eyes and see. Behold! ... there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon. 

Can you see the epiphany of this moment? 

One of the great things about the Gospel according to Saint Luke is the wonderful detail he provides, especially with all the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus. Even better is the character development that he provides. The evangelist is grabbing our attention. 

Now, he doesn’t tell us much about Simeon. But he does tell us that Simeon is righteous and devout, that Simeon has been waiting for the consolidation of Israel, and that the Holy Spirit was upon Simeon. This is because the fullness of time has come. Maybe an apt way of summing up Simeon’s character would be to say that he was singing the refrain to the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” long before it was ever written ...

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel ... Shall come to thee, O Israel!

All the centuries of waiting for God to fulfill his promise of a Savior are being brought to their culmination in this one man ... Simeon ... who was waiting in the temple, waiting for the fullness of time to come. ... Waiting ... patiently that God would finally deliver comfort, comfort, O My People. 

2.

Today is the fullness of God’s time. Simeon has been called by the Holy Spirit to bear witness to the presence of salvation in the temple. 

The world will try to convince you that you can find the spirit. But it’s not true. The spirit finds you. And today it has found Simeon. Luke explicitly points out that not only was the Holy Spirit upon Simeon ... but that on this day he entered the temple in the Spirit. In other words, this was explicitly the work of God, not Simeon’s. Simeon didn’t make a choice for God. 

I can only imagine the bubbling joy Simeon must have felt. Saint Luke reports this joy in two short speeches. First, he delivers a blessing and then a prophecy. The blessing you should know pretty well ... we often sing it here in the Service of the Sacrament. God had made a specific promise to Simeon that he would not die until he had “seen” the Christ. Now that he had, he breaks forth in song ... 

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. 

Do you realize how fitting those words are for us to sing after receiving the Lord’s Supper? Some, of course, might say we haven’t held Jesus in our arms and our eyes haven’t seen him. But actually, we’ve done one better than Simeon, because in Lord’s Supper, Jesus not only comes to you ... he gives himself to you ... he bids you to eat and drink. In this most mysterious sacrament, your eyes see his salvation. Not only that, you will hold the Lord in your hands ... his body, his blood. ... You will taste and see that the Lord is good. Jesus delivers to you the forgiveness of your sins through his Holy Sacrament. 

What joy will fill our temple every time we receive the forgiveness of sins from our Lord! Here, you receive his promise ... the forgiveness of your sins. Here, Jesus comes into your temple and gives you eternal life and salvation, for where the forgiveness of sins is there is life and salvation. 

As we struggle in this life with pain and disease and sin and death, it is terribly difficult to keep this in mind. We need a new heart and nature ... like Simeon ... to recognize it. And so God comes always. Listen again to those words that he spoke directly to Mary: 

Behold ... there it is again ... the epiphany of this moment ... this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed.

That is to say, Jesus was born to die and to rise. Jesus is appointed for the fall and rising of many. Now that Jesus has obeyed the Law fully, coming into the temple in the fullness of time ... our Immanuel, our God with us ... will save his people from their sins. 

At times, his own family will deny him. His friends will turn their backs on him. He will be mocked and spit upon. He will be slandered, and bullied. He will be beaten to a bloody pulp. And even after being found innocent of all the charges he faces ... not just acquitted, but innocent ... because he is the one who knew no sin ... the people will nevertheless demand that he be executed and that a guilty man be set free in his place. 

To be sure some people ... even those among us ... will praise Jesus for as long as they think he does what they desire, as long as they think he allows them to be what they want to be, sin be damned. But as soon as he sets out to be Christ to them, demanding that they go and sin no more, demanding that they repent for the kingdom of the heavens is near, there is nothing but desertion. Our sins are deep ... we are proud, arrogant, abusive, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, slanderous, and lovers of pleasure ... among so many other sins. 

The very people who have waited for the consolation of Israel will discover that this Jesus is not the kind of Savior they had in mind. He is not just a bread king, and a giver of bling. He is not just another Solomon who offers words of wisdom ... golden rules. He is not just a new Moses who will teach them a better way to live. 

Jesus is God in the flesh who fulfills all of the Law of Moses. 

Instead of hearing the Gospel today. 

You who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, Jesus has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. 

That was the purpose for his coming: to take away your sin, my sin, the world’s sin ... yesterday’s sin, today’s sin, tomorrow’s sin. He takes all sin to his cross so that your sin dies with Jesus. Jesus takes your sin to the grave, so that it will never be seen or heard from again. Jesus then gives you his righteousness, through the baptism he pours upon you. 

For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all people. 

A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the glory of God shines forth through the life, the death, the rest and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Jesus has come to the temple to save his people from their sins. He does it today through his means of grace ... through baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. Even we sometimes doubt that God would choose to secure our salvation in such a manner, we see the salvation he prepared for us. 

Don’t keep this news to yourself. 

Go tell it on the mountain. Go tell it on the lake. Go tell it to the cities and communities of the world around you. The world needs to hear about the consolation of Israel. Jesus ... the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world ... has come and is coming and will come.

That’s the reason we celebrate his birth year after year. So ...

Rejoice, Rejoice, for Emmanuel has come to you, O Israel! 

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