Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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.
As mentioned earlier, today on the Church Calendar is neither “Super Bowl Sunday” nor even “Groundhog’s Day” but the feast of “The Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord” (Hamp, CPR 30:1, p.40). Since the day began being observed, at least in the fourth century, its focus has changed over the years, with sometimes more and sometimes less emphasis being placed on the purification of Mary. But, we should not be afraid of observing either aspect of the feast day, for the appointed Gospel Reading details both Mary’s purification and our Lord’s presentation. And, as we consider that Gospel Reading this morning, we realize that “Mary was purified and Jesus was presented for us”.
In today’s Gospel Reading, the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke uniquely reports how, when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, a total of forty days after Jesus’s birth, they brought Him up to Jerusalem, both to offer a sacrifice for Mary’s purification according to what is said in the law of the Lord (Leviticus 12:1-8), and to present Jesus to the Lord as it is written in the law of the Lord (Exodus 13:1-16). The purification and presentation served as the occasion for the events involving Simeon and Anna, and the purification and presentation’s completion eventually also served as the occasion for the holy family’s return into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.
They performed everything according to the law of the Lord. In the case of Mary’s purification, whether or not Mary was technically ceremonially unclean, given the unique miraculous circumstances of Jesus’s conception and birth, they nevertheless offered the sacrifice available to them in their poor estate, one bird for a burnt offering and another bird for a sin offering, so that the priest could make atonement for her and she could be clean. In the case of Jesus’s presentation, we are not told what they did, whether they paid a price such as five shekels in order to redeem Him (Numbers 3:11-13) Who arguably in some sense did not need redemption, or whether, like Hannah did with Samuel in today’s Old Testament Reading (1 Samuel 1:21-28), Jesus’s parents consecrated Jesus, set Him apart, gave Him over to the service of the Lord, as the Levites had been given in place of the first born males of all of the other tribes of Israel (Numbers 18:15-16; confer AAT and NEB). Regardless of what they did, as we heard in the Gospel Reading, they performed everything according to the law of the Lord.
In contrast to them, we do not perform everything according to the law of the Lord. We are no longer bound by God’s civil or ceremonial law, of course, but we still have enough trouble with their underlying moral law. As St. Paul describes in writing to the Romans, we should present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and our body’s members to God as instruments of righteousness, but instead too often we present our members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness (Romans 6:13). Presenting our members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leads to more lawlessness (Romans 6:19). And, presenting ourselves as obedient slaves to sin ultimately leads to death (Romans 6:16), death both here in time and in hell for eternity, unless we do not refuse God’s call both to turn away from our sin in sorrow and to trust God to forgive our sin. For, when we so repent and believe, then God forgives us our sin, all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God so forgives us our sin for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ.
By nature we are unrighteous, but Jesus is righteous, and, by God’s grace through faith in Him, we receive Jesus’s righteousness, both His righteousness of actively keeping the law that we fail to keep and His righteousness of passively suffering for our failure to keep the law. Not the Temple where He was presented but the cross was the place of His sacrifice (Nocent, 1:330). And, Jesus died on the cross in our place; He died the death that we deserved. Jesus is the consolation of Israel for which Simeon was waiting; Jesus is the Lord’s Christ and salvation Whom the Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would see before death; Jesus is the light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to God’s people Israel, appointed both for their falling by rejecting Him and for their rising by receiving Him in faith; Jesus is the redemption of Jerusalem and of us. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Hebrews 2:14-18), since we share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil; He had to be made like us in every respect, except for sin, so that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in the service of God, making propitiation—a sacrifice that satisfied God’s wrath—for our sins. As we prayed in the Collect, because Jesus was presented in the Temple in the substance of our human flesh, we may be presented to the Almighty and Ever-living God with pure and clean hearts.
Our purification and at least initial presentation, both redemption and consecration for service, takes place through God’s Means of Grace, His Word in all of its forms, especially its sacramental forms. As the Holy Spirit was upon Simeon and active in revealing Jesus to him and in Simeon’s coming into the Temple, so the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament is upon us and active in revealing Jesus to us and in our coming into the Temple. As Simeon received the child Jesus in his arms, so Jesus later received and called His Church to receive children in His Name (Mark 9:36-37; 10:16). But, Holy Baptism is more than a mere “dedication” to the Lord, for by the washing of water with the Word children of any age are cleansed (Ephesians 5:26) and even saved (1 Peter 3:21; Titus 3:5). And, as Simeon received the child Jesus in his arms, we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus in our hands and mouths, with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar, for the forgiveness of sins, for life, and for salvation. So with Simeon we sing that our eyes have seen the Lord’s salvation.
So purified and at least initially presented, both redeemed from sin and consecrated for service, we at least try to keep the law of the Lord. Once spiritually dead but made alive, we present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship, or “service” (Romans 12:1). We present the members of our bodies as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification, and its end, eternal life (Romans 6:19, 22). Our individual service will vary according to our vocations or callings in life, whether faithful men such as Joseph and Simeon or faithful women such as Mary and Anna. For example, children’s guardians see to their family’s religious and other obligations, and the Lord’s servants gifted by the Spirit proclaim the Lord’s salvation. After giving birth, mothers may take time in seclusion and seek out God’s blessing when they return to Church, and, after the deaths of their husbands, elderly widows may devote themselves to worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. But, all of us give thanks to God and speak of Him to all who are waiting for their own redemption.
Far more important than “Groundhog’s Day” and even “Super Bowl Sunday”, today is the feast of “The Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord”. Considering today’s Gospel Reading this morning, we have realized that “Mary was purified and Jesus was presented for us”. As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 84; antiphon: v.4), we who dwell in the Lord’s house now are blessed and ever sing His praise, and we know that ultimately He Who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also and present us together with all believers (2 Corinthians 4:14; confer NASB) and we will dwell in His house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23:6).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +