Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel of Luke, the second chapter:
And 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 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” 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. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 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, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “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 light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”
Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
Today is the ancient Church festival of the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Jesus. You may wonder why it is that we, as the Church, decided to celebrate such a day. After all, we don’t celebrate just anything that happens in the Scriptures. We have festival days to remember Peter, John, all the apostles, Timothy, Titus, the Baptism of Jesus, the Transfiguration, Easter Sunday. But this seems relatively minor in comparison. Perhaps you even got bored during the long reading of today’s Gospel lesson. It doesn’t seem exciting. It just seems like another event.
I can understand that, certainly. It’s an over 1400 year old festival. So, in that 1400 years, perhaps some of the meaning has been lost. Today, though, through the text, we are going to work to regain the meaning.
In this text, we have an incredible amount of Gospel. We have an incredible amount of Good News. And we have here an idea that the Lord Jesus Christ has come, not to abolish the Law, for that would accomplish nothing. Instead, the Lord has come, and we needed Him to come, to fulfill the Law.
The Law of God has stood from eternity. There have always been laws and there will always be laws. They have existed, and they will continue to exist, even in the Resurrection of the Dead. But the Law, the Law that we receive from Mount Sinai, the Law of Moses, this Law only stands in front of us and condemns us. Sadly, there is no escaping the Law. We do not love God, we worship false idols, we don’t honor the Sabbath, we don’t obey our parents, we steal from others, we commit adultery in our hearts, we murder people with our hatred, we covet what others have. This Law condemns us and says we have broken it all.
And this is bad news. If we obeyed the Law perfectly, then we would have a chance by our own righteousness to be saved into everlasting life. But we can’t obey it perfectly, because from our conceptions, and from the conception of each and every human being in the wombs of their mothers, we have been conceived breaking the Law.
If the Lord Jesus came into the world to abolish the Law, to cast it down, or to give us a new law, what would end up happening is that everyone who died before this law would be damned. And the likelihood of you obeying the new law is nil anyway. Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law. He came to fulfill it. By His fulfillment of the Law, His keeping of it perfectly, we inherit eternal life. We receive the benefit of His perfect life for He has declared it to be so. The Law has not ended, but it has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Now, I tell you that to tell you this, Jesus Christ, in the arms of His mother, Mary, and father, Joseph, was fulfilling the Law on this day. When the 40-day old Jesus was taken to the temple for Mary to complete her purification and to present this infant, the boy child who first opened His mother’s womb, to present Him as holy to the Lord, this was the fulfillment of the Law. This Law was written for us in Leviticus 12, that any woman who had given birth had a time of purification after the child had been delivered, and in Exodus 13, where the firstborn son of any woman belongs to the Lord and must be consecrated.
Even though this child Jesus could not walk, even though He could not talk, even though He could not do anything but cry, scream, coo, feed, wake, and sleep, this little child was already fulfilling the Law that had been given to Moses. Already, He was being brought by His parents to continue the work that He had been given.
For indeed, Christ had been doing His work as the incarnate Lord since His very conception. He took upon Himself our human flesh in order to win for us salvation. From the time His human cells first divided in the womb of His mother, He was already completing salvation for us. He was born into this world, He was circumcised on the eighth day, His mother brought Him to be presented at the temple, even she completed her purification in the temple so that she could continue to nurture Him, bringing Him up, helping Him grow in wisdom and in stature.
But this isn’t all about Mary, obviously. There are other actors in this reading. For indeed, we have Simeon, a great prophet, who upon beholding the Christ child, takes Him in his arms, and sings to Him a song that we continue to sing, even for the last 2000 years. “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 light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” Where do we sing this song? It’s located in our hymals and in the liturgy of the Church after communion, the Lord’s Supper in the Nunc Dimittis.
Simeon understood, and we have continued to try, that this Christ child, who was just a mere 40 days old, this one would be the Lord who would die for the sins of His people. Because He was born into this world, He would die for this world. And in order to die for this world, He would have to first be born. The birth and death of Christ are intimately connected. So, Simeon looks upon this child and gives thanks for the salvation of the world that is already being accomplished in the flesh of a baby. Moreover, though, he states, just upon gazing at this child and holding Him, that Simeon is now ready to die. Whatever else happens, Simeon is satisfied to see the redemption of Jerusalem, the consolation of Israel.
Simeon only held this child, only saw Him. But we have something more, which is why we continue to sing Simeon’s song. Simeon held Jesus in His arms, but Jesus gives us His body and blood to hold in our mouths and bodies. Simeon only saw Jesus, but we take His true body and blood into us. This is something greater. This is a better thing. Walking by faith in this way is better than Simeon’s sight. For the gift, the sacrament that the crucified and risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ gives to us is better than seeing Him.
Yes, eating and drinking the Lord’s body and blood is better than seeing Him. Even the Sadducees, even the Pharisees, even the demons and the devil himself saw the Lord Jesus, but it brought to them nothing. In their hearts, they only rejected the Lord by sight. But, by faith, we receive the one who fulfilled the Law, and we receive Him for the forgiveness of sins, and the strengthening of faith.
And when we receive these things in His true body and blood, there is nothing better in the world. There should be nowhere else we’d rather be. This is the most important thing happening in the world at that very Supper. For there is the Lord the host and meal. He invites us to His table, and He serves us true flesh and blood in, with, and under the bread and the wine. When this happens, it is the most important thing ever.
And then we sing, Lord, now You let Your servant go in peace; Your word has been fulfilled. My own eyes have seen the salvation which You have prepared in the sight of every people: A light to reveal You to the nations and the glory of Your people Israel. We give thanks to God, but moreover, we declare by our words that because we have now been party to the highest event in heaven or on earth, we are ready to die. We are ready to depart this world, to go in peace.
For in this meal, in this Supper, the Lord’s word has been fulfilled, that He has forgiven us our sins and strengthened us unto everlasting life. We need nothing more than this meal now. As Christians baptized into the death and resurrection of our Lord, we need nothing in this life more than this meal. We should, now having been forgiven of our sins, having the foretaste of the feast to come, be ready to die, we are ready to be with the Lord.
We are wonderfully prepared for whatever may come in this world through the Lord’s Supper. In this meal, we have all that we need for our lives. And this is better even than what Simeon had. He had the promise that this Christ child would grow to die to take upon the sins of the world. And he believed that promise. But we have something better. We have received the fulfillment of that promise, the fulfillment of the Law, the washing away of our sins, the giving of the Lord’s body and blood. We have received a more precious gift than any had before Simeon, and it is the same gift the Church has celebrated since the death and resurrection of Christ.
This is what this festival day is all about. It is about the Christ who fulfilled the Law for us. It is about the Christ who would win and was winning the consolation of Israel, the redemption of Jerusalem, which is the forgiveness of all of their sins. It is about the reception of something greater than what our eyes can behold. It is about Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, the one who died on the cross of Calvary for you, that you would be forgiven of your sins, believe and trust in Him, walking by faith, and not by sight, strengthened by His Word and Sacrament, so that you, like Simeon, when you depart in heavenly peace, will see your Jesus face-to-face. That’s a day we can look forward to, when we shall eat and drink of Him forever AND be in His presence.
We celebrate that this day, as we anxiously look forward to that last and final day, the day when we shall rise up from our graves and stand before our Lord who welcomes us to eternal life. It is a good day. Rejoice, my friends, and be glad, for our Lord is come to us, just as He came to Simeon, to Anna, to His mother, His father, and to the entire world. He is come, and He has done everything in the Law for you, for your forgiveness, and for your salvation. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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