Sermons

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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +

Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

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

Stores may be in the season of After-Christmas Sales, but the Church continues the Christmas Season. At the stores, returns and exchanges may even be finished, but in the Church the season is not even halfway through: today is only the Sixth Day of Christmas. We may not have “six geese a laying” (which likely do not originally symbolize the six days of creation), and we may not exchange gifts on each of the Twelve Days of Christmas, but most of us do exchange gifts, usually on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, or a few days before or after those days, when circumstances require it. Of today’s Gospel Reading, we might say that circumstances required that Simeon and Anna get their Christmas gift some 40 days after Christmas, and, as we reflect on that Gospel Reading, we realize that they and we receive “The real Gift that keeps on giving”. Thus, we have for this sermon’s title: “The real Gift that keeps on giving”.

Before the events of the Gospel Reading, the eight-day-old Jesus was circumcised and named, probably in Bethlehem. Then, as we heard in the Gospel Reading, after the time of Mary’s purification was fulfilled, she and Joseph took Jesus the six miles to Jerusalem in order to present Him to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to the Law of the Lord, such as that Law that we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Exodus 13:1-3a, 11-15). At the very moment that Mary and Joseph and Jesus were there, likely in the Temple’s Court of the Women, so was Simeon, who received Jesus into his arms and praised God and blessed Mary and Joseph, and so was Anna, who was thanking God for the gift of Jesus and speaking to others about Him.

By Divine inspiration, St. Luke tells us in the Gospel Reading, as we heard it from the English Standard Version, that Simeon was “righteous and devout”, or we might say “upright and conscientious”. He had a right relationship with God in his heart, and he showed forth that right relationship in the way that he lived his life. Now, we should not think that Simeon was perfect or anything like that. For, by nature Simeon was as we are: sinful. Jesus knows both the condition of our hearts and how that condition shows itself forth in the way that we live our lives. Apart from faith in Jesus Christ, nothing we can think, say, or do pleases God. And, even with faith in Jesus Christ, our sinful nature that remains continues to lead us to think, say, and do things that we should not and to not think, say, and do things that we should. Yet, faith (or the lack thereof) is ultimately what matters most.

In the Gospel Reading, Simeon told Mary that the Child Jesus is appointed for the falling and rising of many in Israel, that is, for a sign that is opposed, so that thoughts of many hearts would be revealed. God intends Jesus to be a sign that creates faith, but those who oppose Jesus thereby reveal the thoughts of their hearts and fall in judgment. When we turn from our sin in sorrow, believe God forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake, and want to do better, we thereby reveal the thoughts of our hearts and rise in salvation. As mentioned, we, even as believers, do not keep the law perfectly, but Jesus has kept the law perfectly for us, and He also has suffered for our failures to keep it perfectly.

Five times the Gospel Reading mentions the Law: what is done according to it, what is written in it, what it says, what its customs are—five times in 18 verses! Clearly fulfilling the Law is important theme of the Gospel Reading. However, not Simeon and Anna but Jesus is the one Who is fulfilling the Law, even if in this case His parents are doing things on His behalf. Jesus actively keeps the Law for us, and He also passively suffers for our failures to keep it. His active and passive righteousness is given to us as a gift. Joseph and Mary’s sacrifice of two birds at the Temple for Mary and Jesus points to Jesus’s greater sacrifice of Himself on the cross for us, as does Simeon’s mentioning the sword that would pierce Jesus.

Simeon and Anna and other faithful believers in Jerusalem did not trust in themselves and what they were doing, but they trusted in the Lord—waiting for and anticipating the consolation of Israel, the Lord’s Christ, the Lord’s salvation prepared in the presence of all people, the redemption of Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit led them to recognize all such things in the Child Jesus, Who later grew up to provide all of those very things. The Christmas Season is a blessed and joyous season, but ultimately it is blessed and joyous only because the Child in the manger loved us enough both to live the hard life and to die the painful death that were necessary for us to have eternal life. God’s grace on account of His death and resurrection are available to all people—as Simeon said and as our Introit’s Antiphon quotes from Isaiah, “The Lord has bared His holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Isaiah 52:10). But, sadly, not all people repent of their sin, believe God forgives their sin for Jesus’s sake, and want to do better. When we so repent and believe, then God forgives our sin, whatever it might be.

Can you and I even imagine Simeon saying the things he said about a little baby boy? The poor little Infant must have seemed so unlike the mighty, grand being Simeon described. Even Joseph and Mary, who knew His Divine origin and had experienced other miraculous events around His birth, marveled at what Simeon said about the Child. You and I might equally marvel at the ways God works with us: they might appear to be nothing, but in the end they are everything. God the Holy Spirit, Whom Jesus later calls “another Comforter”, works with us not through special revelations, such as that which Simeon had received, but through the purely‑preached Gospel and the rightly‑administered Sacraments. As St. Paul describes in today’s Epistle Reading (Colossians 3:12-17), we let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly, through such things as singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. As Simeon in the Gospel Reading received the Child Jesus in His arms and blessed God, so later Jesus would receive little children in His arms and bless them, and so today young and old are received into God’s Kingdom through the water of Holy Baptism. As Simeon sang of the Lord’s releasing His servant in peace, so the Lord releases our sins through the words of His called and ordained servants in individual Absolution. As Simeon sang that song after receiving in His arms the Child Jesus, so we sing that same song after receiving in our mouths Jesus’s very same flesh and blood, in, with, and under bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar. The purely‑preached Gospel and the rightly‑administered Sacraments might appear to be nothing, but in the end they are everything, for they create and sustain faith and give us the forgiveness of sins Jesus won for us on the cross.

If you look around, you can see that our Pilgrim congregation skews toward older demographics (like most churches in general do). Take out your bulletin cover, what do you see? Cheri Bladholm’s Gospel Reading artwork depicts both Simeon and Anna as old (we do not know how old Simeon was, but we know Anna was at least 84, if not 105). In some sense we can only guess as to why precisely God brought together the three generations pictured, but we can nevertheless draw comfort from the scene. Instead of Simeon blessing the Child as Joseph and Mary might have expected him to do, the Child is the one Who blesses not only Simeon, who heralds His death and resurrection, but also Anna, who responds by giving thanks for Him and by speaking about Him to all in Jerusalem who were waiting for their redemption. (Though called a “prophetess”, Anna is hardly a female pastor; rather, in keeping with her vocation, she had worshiped with fasting and prayer.) Like Anna, you and I—old or young—serve in our vocations and tell others about Jesus as God gives us opportunity. And also, like Simeon, we live what remains of our lives ready to depart in peace, for we, too, have heard, seen, and touched the Lord’s salvation. Those experiences of Jesus Christ in His Word and Sacraments comfort us in our present suffering, for we know that the wrath we deserve from God on account of even our continued sin has been replaced with God’s grace on account of Jesus Christ. We have nothing to fear at any time, in life or in death, for, in receiving the Gift that is the Christ Child, we have received all we ever need: He is, as I titled this sermon, “The real Gift that keeps on giving”.

That expression—“the gift that keeps on giving”—apparently can confuse people, especially those who are less familiar with the English language, perhaps at least in part because the expression can be used when something has additional effects beyond what might be thought at first both in a genuine positive sense and in a sarcastic negative sense. Apparently the expression “the gift that keeps on giving” was first used back in the 19-20s to promote the phonograph and records (the Victor Talking Machine Company even registered the expression as a trademark in the United States in 19-27, and the expression is still trademarked in Canada). So, the idea was if you received a record player as a gift, it would keep giving because you could keep playing all sorts of records. That original use is an example of the expression used in a genuine positive sense. An example of the expression used in a sarcastic negative sense might be calling a box of candy received as a gift “the gift that keeps on giving”: for, after pleasure in eating the candy, later negative effects might include one’s gained weight and rotten teeth. Spiritually, we might sarcastically say that original sin is a gift that keeps on giving: for, after momentary pleasure in whatever actual sin we might commit as a result, we come to realize that we deserve death now and for eternity. But, we can genuinely say that the Christ Child is “The real Gift that keeps on giving”: for, God the Father gave Him once and for all, and we not only benefit from our faith in Him now, in or out of the Christmas season, but we will more importantly benefit from our faith in Him for eternity.

Amen.

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

+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +