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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.
Merry or Blessed fourth day of Christmas! If you are thinking of the secular Christmas carol, you might think of the fourth day’s” four calling birds, but the second day’s two turtle doves are what are mentioned in the Gospel Reading for today, not that there is a connection between the carol and the Reading. In fact, today’s Gospel Reading moves past the Christmas season’s twelve days to the fortieth day after Jesus’s birth, when the time came for Mary’s purification according to the Law of Moses, and Mary and Joseph brought the already circumcised and named Jesus the six miles from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to present Him for service to the Lord. In Jerusalem, the holy family encountered Simeon, apparently a religious leader of some sort, who normally would have blessed the Child but instead blesses both God and Mary and Joseph, in both cases speaking about the Child Jesus. In the Church Year we mark the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord on February Second. Today, the First Sunday after Christmas, the Holy Spirit moved me to direct our attention to Simeon’s words to Mary and Joseph, his words that Jesus was appointed for the falling and rising of many, for a sign that is opposed, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. So, this morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading, especially those words, and we do so under the theme, “The Child for the falling and rising of many”.
Where were you all on Thursday? Six of you were here, and perhaps others of you observed the Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day, by receiving His body and blood at another congregation with whom we are in altar fellowship. I know at least one person had to work, and others may have been under the weather, but what about the rest of you? If you were here Christmas Eve for Readings and Hymns, did you think that was sufficient? Did you not desire to honor the Savior born for you with the highest worship of seeking forgiveness and then receiving it in the forms of His body given for you and His blood shed for you? Or, did you stay away on Christmas Day precisely because we offered the Sacrament of the Altar, because our practice of closed communion would have made you deal with religious differences in your family? To be sure, none of us want to deal with religious differences in our families, but we cannot truly confess Jesus for Whom He is and ignore the religious differences. As Simeon said, even the Child Jesus was appointed for the falling and rising of many, for a sign that is opposed, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. And, the adult Jesus Himself said that He did not come to bring peace on earth but division, a sword, that divides members of a household against one another (Luke 12:51-53; Matthew 10:34-36). Apparently a similar sword even metaphorically pierced the soul of the Virgin Mother.
Now, to be sure, none is better than another by nature: neither Mary nor Joseph, Simeon nor Anna, those who were here on Thursday nor those who were not. By nature all of us are sinful and unclean and have sinned against God by thought, word, and deed, what we have done and what we have left undone. Before Him our hearts are revealed, and no one is neutral: we either oppose Him or we do not oppose Him, and, as a result, either we fall or we rise. Those who do not oppose Him are those who repent of their sin and believe in Him unto the forgiveness of their sins, who trust God to forgive their sinful natures and whatever their sin might be. When we so repent and believe, then God forgives us. God forgives us all our sin for His Son Jesus’s sake.
When the fullness of time had come, St. Paul writes by Divine inspiration in today’s Epistle Reading (Galatians 4:4-7), God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. Indeed, today’s Gospel Reading emphasizes how the Child Jesus fulfilled specific aspects of the law, and we know from elsewhere that Jesus came in order to fulfill the law for us (for example, Matthew 5:17). That active righteousness, His keeping the law, is important for us, but so is His passive righteousness, His suffering the consequences of our failing to have kept the law—namely, death and separation from God. In the Gospel Reading we heard that Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel and that Anna was waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem—in other words, they were expecting God to fulfill His promise of salvation, and, when their human eyes saw the Child Jesus physically, their eyes of faith saw that fulfillment spiritually. When the Child Jesus, God in the flesh, was a man, those opposed to Him put Him to death on the cross, but He went willingly, for you and for me, in order to obtain eternal redemption by His own blood once for all (Hebrews 9:12)—Jew and Gentile alike. So, as we sang in the Introit (Psalm 98:1-4; antiphon: Isaiah 52:10), the Lord has worked salvation and made it known to all, and we sing a song with new content, because He has done wonderful things.
The Holy Spirit, so important in Simeon’s life, similarly serves an important role in bringing Jesus’s redemption—the forgiveness of sins—to us. We are not necessarily circumcised and named on the eighth day, but, perhaps that early, we are baptized and named. We, who do not fall over Jesus in impenitence and unbelief, repent and believe and in baptism are connected to His death and resurrection and so rise as He did (Romans 6:1-5). In baptism we are, as the Old Testament Reading described (Isaiah 61:10-62:3), clothed with the garments of salvation, covered with the robe of righteousness, and called by a new name. There, at the Baptismal Font, God adopts us as His children, sending the Holy Spirit into our hearts that we might cry out to Him as our dear Father. As baptized children, we privately confess to our pastors the sins we know and feel in our hearts so that we can be individually absolved, forgiven. And, so absolved, we come to the Sacrament of the Altar every opportunity we have to receive the Lord’s salvation in bread that is His body and in wine that is His blood, and so, like Simeon, we depart in peace.
Simeon and Anna were waiting in eager expectation for the Lord to redeem and so comfort His people, and in a sense we are like them. St. Paul wrote elsewhere how Jesus gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works as they wait for His return, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13-14). Like Simeon, who was righteous and devout, we by faith inwardly are righteous in heart and mind and so also devout in what we think, say, and do. Like Anna, who did not depart from the Temple but night and day worshipped with fasting and prayer, we present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship (Romans 12:1). Like Mary and Joseph, we piously try to obey the law, and, when we fail, as we will, we, with repentance and faith, live every day in the forgiveness of sins, until we from this life depart in peace.
Not necessarily in the twelve days of Christmas, after forty days, or at any other time in this lifetime but at Jesus’s return in glory or at our departures from this life, whichever comes first, is when and where we will fully experience the peace with God that Jesus brings. In the world, we will have tribulation—whether religious differences in our families, physical infirmities, or something else—but we take heart for Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33). Truly the Child Jesus was appointed for the falling and rising of many, for a sign that is opposed, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. But, as we have realized, as we repent and believe, even now we rise with Him, as on the Last Day we will rise finally and for all eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +