Sermon for 1st Sunday after Christmas: "Waiting With Simeon"

 + 1st Sunday of Christmas - 12.31.23 +

Series B: Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:22-40

Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church

Milton, WA

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Anyone with children or grand-children has heard these words before…before Christmas, before a birthday, before something highly anticipated: I. Can’t. Wait.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Adults aren't much better. Amazon same-day shipping isn’t fast enough. The buffering bar keeps spinning while I’m streaming Netflix. And heaven forbid we get stuck at a red light. Yes, the great hymn writer, Tom Petty was right about us…the waiting is the hardest part.

In our day and age of fast-food, high-speed 5G networks, and instant access to the internet with a touch of our phones, we have lost the art of waiting. 

And yet Scripture has a lot to say about waiting. 

In Psalm 130 we hear…My soul waits for the Lord; my soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. (Psalm 130:5-6)

Psalm 40: I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. (Psalm 40)

Psalm 27:14: Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! (Psalm 27:14)

Towards the end of his life Jacob cried out…I wait for your salvation O Lord. (Genesis 39)

St. Paul echoes our anxious waiting as we and all creation groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:22-23)

Today on this 7th day of Christmas we find ourselves like Simeon. Waiting. 

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel

Simeon was waiting… Not twiddling-his-thumbs or yawning away the hours, but the kind of waiting that knows that, sooner or later, God will make good on his promise. And this was the Lord’s promise: before he saw death, he would see the Lord’s Christ. The Seed that Adam longed to see sprout. The Rest Noah longed for. The everlasting on David’s throne. The child born of a Virgin whom Isaiah prophesied. This One, Simeon cradled in his arms.

Simeon knew a thing or two about waiting. For…The Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

Waiting…always comes before consolation. Noah and his family waited over a year to walk on the dry ground of a new creation. Israel waited over 40 years to finally cross the Jordan to the Promised Land. 

Simeon is the Old Testament in one man, watching for the fulfillment and consolation of Israel. That’s the pattern. Waiting, then consolation. 

Simeon is a wonderful picture of our life in this fallen, broken world. A life so often marked by waiting.

What is that you find yourself waiting for this morning? What is it that you wait for in the New Year that is nearly upon us? Resolutions you are pondering? Goals for the year ahead? A new job? Better economy? 

Perhaps you find yourself, like Simeon, waiting for consolation. A good report from those tests the doctor did before Christmas. Healing from a sudden or prolonged illness. Reconciliation from a strained or broken relationship with family or a friend. Waiting with someone in hospice care. Waiting for despair to lift, for an anxious heart to calm, for a moment of quietness in a busy, noisy world. 

Whatever our waiting may look like - and it’s different for all of us - there’s one thing we all have in common. We’re terrible at waiting. Lord give me patience and give it to me right now! We’re impatient because we don’t trust. We don’t trust because we want things done our way and in our time. My kingdom come. My will be done. 

Here’s the thing about waiting. We can wait in line for a new iPhone, but it’s going to be obsolete as soon as we get it in our hands. We might wait for a new movie or show…but it could just as well fail to live up to the hype. So often in this life what we wait for never comes. False gods - whether they’re outside or inside of us - always disappoint.

But in the Lord, your waiting is never in vain. 

So, how does God answer us in our waiting? The same way he did with Simeon: in the hidden lowliness of the cross. In the ordinary humility of a defenseless, tiny child – probably the last thing Simeon expected. All of God’s promises wrapped up in the human flesh of a 40 day old infant in his arms. Simeon’s consolation and ours is found in the Child of the Manger. Simeon’s redemption and ours is found in the redemption of this Man on the cross.

God answered our waiting when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

God came to Simeon in his waiting, and he comes to you as you wait, with the same promise: consolation in the Christ child born for you. Comfort in the one who came to the temple at 40 days old, and again when he was 33 - there in Simeon’s arms, on the cross outside Jerusalem, in the word he speaks to you, in his body and blood poured out for you, in the water of your baptism, in the word of forgiveness - there is the one who answers our waiting with his word of consolation. 

And so with Simeon we wait for the Lord. Knowing that in the Lord, the wait is over. Jesus is here. Our waiting and our consolation; our hope and our redemption; our life and our death. It’s all here for you in this Child of the Manger and the Man of the Cross, just as it was for Simeon. 

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples.”

A blessed 7th day of Christmas and a happy New Year…

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1st Sunday after Christmas: "Christmas with Simeon and Anna"

 + 1^st Sunday of Christmas – December 26^th, 2021 +

Series C: Exodus 13:1-3, 11-15; Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:22-40

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

There are two kinds of Christmas. One begins the day after Thanks giving and ends December 25^th. You know how it goes. The radio stations have stopped playing Christmas music. The tree, lights, and decorations come down and the New Year’s signs go up. The other Christmas, the true Christmas, began yesterday and lasts not 1, not 3, not even 7, but 12 days. From Christmas day until Epiphany. 

That’s how significant our Lord’s birth to save is. Here in the Lord’s house, it is always Christmas. 

 

Today we celebrate Christmas with Anna and Simeon. Luke’s gospel fast forwards us from Jesus’ birth to 40 days later in Jerusalem. This is the first of many appearances Jesus would make in the temple, culminating with Holy Week. This first one is filled with prophetic fulfillment and significance. By Luke’s counting, it’s been 490 days since the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah the priest to announce that he and his wife Elizabeth were going to conceive a son in their old age and name him John. 490 days later, Jesus makes His first appearance in the same temple. 70 weeks.

 

The prophetess Anna also speaks of fulfillment in the numbers of her life. Married a brief seven years. Seven. And now she is eighty four, seven times twelve. These may appear to be coincidences, but they are not. There is a strong undercurrent of fulfillment that runs with this episode in Jesus’ infancy. The entire OT had come to its focal point in this little Child. He is the One!

 

The prophet Malachi had written: “Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple, the messenger of the covenant whom you desire will come,” says the Lord Almighty. I don’t think anyone expected the Lord to be carried to the temple by His parents, but then no one expected God to become Man either. And so the mystery of the manger continues in the temple, as the infant Priest of humanity makes His first appearance. Humbly, hiddenly. God in the Flesh had come to His temple. 

 

The temple was the place of sacrifice. Lambs brought as atonement for sin. Here God’s tender Lamb appears, promised from eternal years, 40 days old to be redeemed as the first born in accordance with the law of Moses. They came to offer the prescribed sacrifice – a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons – the poor man’s sacrifice of redemption. “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.” Every first born son anticipated God’s Son. And now God’s Son fulfills the sacrifice. The Redeemer is redeemed by the blood of two turtledoves under the Law.

 

Here we see Christ’s work for our redemption. He is the Substitute, the Sin-bearer, the Sacrifice. Though He is sinless, yet for our sakes, He became our sin. He is the Sinner in place of sinful humanity. He shares our flesh, blood, and bone, but also took up our burden under the Law. And so it is fitting and proper, that Jesus be redeemed at the temple and His mother purified. He is the sinless Sinner, the One who takes our place in perfection under the Law. The Redeemer is redeemed.

 

Simeon and Anna are waiting to greet him. Together they represent the OT prophet and priest waiting for fulfillment. Simeon was very old, and had been told that he would not die until he had seen Lord’s Anointed One, the Christ, with his own eyes. Imagine that. The Redeemer of mankind, whose blood cleanses us from our sins, is Himself redeemed by the blood of two pigeons. Such sublime and deep humility! The Lord of all becomes the Servant of all. And His servants – Anna and Simeon – rejoice. 

 

You can only imagine what it was like for old Simeon to walk about the temple day after day, wondering if this was the day, waiting and watching. He’s embodies the OT in one old man, watching for the fulfillment of Israel. How his heart must have skipped a beat that day Mary and Joseph came to the temple carrying their 40-day old son, and the Holy Spirit whispered to his spirit, “this is the One you are waiting for.” And Simeon gather the little Child into his old, tired arms, and lifts His eyes to heaven, and sings out this song: Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace. 

 

His time of service had come to an end. You can almost hear the relief in his voice. His tired old eyes had seen the Lord’s salvation. His arms had embrace Him and lifted Him up. This tiny Child was the redemption of Israel and the salvation of the Gentiles – the world’s redeemer. Only faith could perceive this, faith worked by the Spirit through the Word. Only faith could see through the humility, the weakness, the poverty and gaze upon the face of God.

 

We sing Simeon’s hymn too, at the close of the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper. The traditional place for this hymn is at the close of each day. It’s the Christian’s “Now I lay be down to sleep” prayer. Since the Reformation Lutherans have sung this hymn as we depart from Communion. We’ve beheld the salvation of our Lord. We’ve tasted and seen that the Lord is good. We’ve heard His words addressed to us personally – my Body given for you; my Blood shed for you. The body and blood born of Mary, laid in a manger, nailed to a cross, raised from the dead, glorified at the right hand of God. This is our food and drink, and we, like Simeon sing our song of release, of freedom. We can depart in peace.

 

Think about what that means. Simeon is saying he’s free to die. Not leave the temple, die. This was Simeon’s death song, and a joyous one. He was released from his life’s sentence and free to die. And so are we. We’ve worshipped the Child of the manger, the Man of the cross. We’ve beheld His glory, hidden beneath word and water, bread and wine. We too depart in peace, according to God’s Word.

 

Simeon tells Mary, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed.” There is no neutral position with respect to Jesus. We either trust Him with our life and salvation or we do not. We can’t reshape Him, or reinvent Him, or revision Him. We can only receive Him as He is for you – your Savior, your Lord, your Christ, your Redeemer. 

 

Mary too would feel the bitter pangs of the cross. “A sword will pierce through your own soul also.” She would see her Son crucified. What sorrow and anguish that must have been. No parent wants to witness the death of a child. What a burden, to stand at the foot of His cross and watch. 

 

It’s easy at Christmas time to dwell only on the cute and glorious and glittery. The manger, the swaddled newborn, the adoring shepherds, the bright angels. We’re reminded very quickly in Luke’s gospel, however, that the work of redemption is always bloody work. On the eighth day (our New Year’s Day), Jesus was circumcised under the Law and given the name Jesus. On the fortieth day He was redeemed by blood in the temple. He takes our place under the Law, and by His blood He frees us from our slavery to sin, to death, to the power of the law to condemn. 

 

Christmas joy inevitably gives way to the reality of the new year. The wrapped presents have now disclosed their mysteries. Perhaps there are a few left for the next nine days. The lights will grow dim. The trees will dry out, at least the real ones. We will go back to the realities of our vocations with all the ambiguities, uncertainties, griefs, sins. We will feel the burden of our sins and the sins of others.

 

But like old Anna and Simeon in the temple, we are, by God’s grace, given to embrace this Child of Bethlehem in Word and Sacrament. And having embraced Him in the open, empty, receiving arms of faith, we too are prepared to depart in peace.

 

A blessed second day of Christmas to each of you…

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.