“The Infant Lord Comes to His Temple”

In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Our text for today is the Gospel lesson just read.

Where do we find God?  This is one of the great questions of our age, and indeed of every age.  Is God everywhere?  Is He in the trees and in the air we breathe?  Is He in our hearts when we feel good, or when we sing a song that moves us?  Is He nearby, or is He watching us from a distance, as the song goes.  If you ask our culture and the world around us these questions, you will find many answers, mostly wrong ones.  Human beings are by nature religious.  We want to know God, and we want to find God, but only on our terms; never where He has promised to be. 

There was another man who was looking for God.  His name was Simeon.  Our text tells us that Simeon was a righteous man and devout, that he was waiting for the consolation of Israel and that the Holy Spirit was upon him.  Simeon was looking for God, the Lord’s Christ, and so he went where God had promised to be found, namely, in the Temple.  Years before when the nation of Israel came to Jerusalem, God's had promised to dwell in the Temple.  God’s glory was there in the Temple, and it was in that most holy place that God dwelled.  So Simeon waited for the greater glory which God had promised would come.

As we look at Simeon in the Temple, we have a very different picture of worship than the scene from Bethlehem, and of the Christ child presented. In the Temple, animals were sacrificed in preparation for the coming Messiah.  But in Bethlehem, a simple virgin girl from Nazareth gave birth to a tiny Infant, in a cow barn of all places.  Lowly shepherd and foreign wise men paid homage at His cradle.  There is now no fear of death, no need for veils or sacrifice, because the One Sacrifice has come in flesh.  God was here present, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  God had become flesh, and suddenly the worship of God had been changed forever.

But what is worship?  What’s the point?  The common notion is that worship is something that we do for God.  I go to worship, to pay my respects, or to maybe give back to God because He did something I liked.  According to this way of thinking, worship is primarily a work of the Law.  Worship is something you do.  The point is really quite the opposite for the Christian, however.  In worship we receive from God His gifts; we receive from God His grace and truth, His forgiveness, life and salvation.  In worship we receive God Himself.  That is why we are here this morning.

In the Old Testament, worship was accomplished through Moses and by means of the Tabernacle and later the Temple.  It was a preparation for the coming Messiah.  But with the coming of God in the flesh, “worship” is accomplished and God’s gifts are received by and through the incarnate God, Jesus Christ . . .  Wherever Jesus is, there is God in the flesh. . . . And we can come to Him without fear because He is one of us.

The infant Lord comes to His Temple.  It’s quite a picture, isn’t it?  The Lord of all creation, the creator of the universe, comes to His Temple as a 40-day-old baby.  The infinite glory of God is contained in the finite presence of a small baby.  All of the majesty and beauty of the Temple could not compare to the wonder of God coming into human flesh, and taking on our very nature.  The Old Temple made with hands could not compare to the New Temple, Jesus, who was not made by human hands.  Can you imagine it for Simeon?  Surrounded by the glory of the Old Temple, he takes the New Temple, Jesus, into his arms, blesses God and says:

Now, set free your servant, Master,

      according to your word in peace;

because my eyes have seen your salvation,

      which you have prepared before the face of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles

      and glory for your people Israel. (Translation by A.A. Just)

Set free.  Most of our translations have depart, but really set free catches the meaning.  The creator Lord sets Simeon free according to His Word in peace.  God’s gracious presence in Jesus is the only things that can truly set us free. 

The infant Lord comes to His Temple to set His people free from the bondage of sin, death and the devil.  We, like Simeon, are all in bondage.  We are held in bondage by this sinful nature that clings to us and grips us with cords of death.  Our world is held in this bondage.  Saint Paul says that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs to be delivered from this bondage of sin.  This past week at Messiah we buried, Ruby Hubeler, one of our own, and so we could say that she was finally set free from the bondage of sin.

That is the beauty of the Song of Simeon, or the Nunc Dimittis, as it is often called. According to the Word of the Lord, Simeon was set free in peace.  There is salvation.  There is life.  There is new creation and hope for all mankind.  When Simeon saw Jesus, he was set free.  When he saw Jesus, he saw God’s salvation for all people.  There is no wondering about where God is.  He is there, in the flesh of Jesus, just as was promised in His Word.  Where God’s Word promises that He will be, that is where He is, not as some abstraction or warm feeling that comes and goes, but in the flesh, in our flesh.

Notice too that God’s presence in Jesus was not a blessing for everyone.  Remember again the words of Simeon to Mary: “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign spoken against, and of you yourself, through your soul a sword will go, in order that the thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed” (A.A. Just translation).  Mary here stood for all of Israel, and the mission of Jesus and his work on the cross would cut through Israel like a sword.  There was no ignoring the Lord of Creation.  Many in Israel would fall at His Word, and many would rise again with Him in glory.  Christ’s presence brings conflict and hardship and pain, but it also brings freedom.  Even here, as Jesus is presented at the Temple, we can see signs of His return to Jerusalem and the cross.

That is why here in America and throughout the world many reject the Word of Jesus.  Soon the world will forget the Christmas carols.  Soon the world will no longer bask in the fake glow of their made-up Bethlehem.  Jesus did not remain a little child, cute and cuddly.  He grew up to die the gruesome death of a cross.  His presence is freedom, but we by nature long for the bondage of sin, just like Israel before us.  It is only through his gracious presence and gift of faith that we are freed from this bondage.

There was no wondering for Simeon about where to find God, and there is no wondering for us.  He was there, in the flesh of Jesus, just as He is here, in the flesh of Jesus.  It is no accident that we know the Song of Simeon from our Communion liturgy.  It is here, at the Lord’s Supper, that we receive the flesh and blood of Jesus.  What Simeon held in his arms we take in our mouths, and there God comes to us in flesh and blood.  Truly He is Immanuel, God with us.  What a glorious gift!  God came into our flesh by being born of the Virgin Mary, and we come into His flesh through Holy Communion.

Here is glory of God come to us!  The angels sing “glory to God in the highest”, and we sing with them.  Saint Paul says that in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power (Colossians 2:9-10).  In Him we are renewed and made holy and perfect through His blood.  We are made complete, we are made whole through Him.  With the angels and archangels we sing, “blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,” for He comes to us, to give us Himself.  This is the mystery that the world cannot understand, and we only understand dimly.  God is present with His people, and He gives us Himself for food, for life, for the forgiveness of our sins.

Come, then, to the table of the Lord, and receive the gift of Christ that Simeon beheld so long ago.  It is here, in this most holy place that God comes to us in flesh and blood for our salvation.  Come, and sing with Simeon and the whole host of heaven:

Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to your word,

For my eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared before the face of all people,

A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.

 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

And now may the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith unto life everlasting.  Amen.

 

Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

1^st Sunday After Christmas (Dec. 26, 1999)

Luke 2:21-40