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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this third day of Christmas, the text for this morning comes from that gospel reading. You may be seated.
This was an interesting event indeed. Forty days after Christ’s birth, because that was the allotted time for Mary after she had given birth, to be considered pure in order for her to enter the temple. Forty days after Christ’s birth, do we find this morning’s reading taking place. Also, we see the tie-in with the Old Testament, that there was to be an offering for the first that opens the womb. And in this case, Jesus was Mary’s firstborn. So they came to offer a sacrifice.
But in the midst of the great court there at the temple… As an old man grabbed the baby, you heard it, grabs the baby in his arms and blesses God and says, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to your word.” You’re going to sing that today as you’ve sung it many times right after receiving the Lord’s Supper. “Lord, now let us thou thy servant depart in peace.” It’s a prayer for death. It’s a prayer for death.
What else is there now? I’ve seen God, I’ve tasted God, I’ve eaten God, take me home God, come Lord Jesus. But that’s according to God’s time, isn’t it? Not ours. Can you imagine though if this were to happen in the current climate, political correctness and with the media being what it is and their specific and pointed point of view that’s not in line with most of ours? Yes. They would hear the words that Simeon spoke and spin it in a different way.
Which words are we talking about? Well, the words that Simeon says, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed. And the sword will pierce your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” But it’s specifically the phrase appointed for the fall and rising of many.
They would spin it in this way. They would spin it that Jesus is a great unifier of opposing views. How so? Politically, he united the whole country. King Herod was the puppet king that the Jews were allowed to have by the Roman government. Herod had already had John the Baptist’s head cut off, and Pilate was the Roman governor, and there was no love lost between these two men. And yet when Jesus enters their picture, they become the best of friends because the enemy of my enemy now has become my friend. They hated both Jesus.
So in many ways, the media could have spun this, that Jesus is the great unifier of political power. Ironic, isn’t it? That the very people that plotted together to have him killed were now unified because of their hatred toward him.
Oh, it wasn’t just political groups that Jesus would be spun in those media reports as having unified. He would also be said to have unified all of the religious problems in Judaism. Yes. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, two cuts of the Jewish faith, hated one another because of their differences, and yet, because they both hated what Jesus was doing, they became unified. The enemy of my enemy has become my friend. Jesus now is going to be praised as being the unifier of religious differences.
You can imagine. You and I would listen to that with great disdain because we would see clearly that they misunderstood everything, didn’t they? And yet it could be reported as such. Isn’t that kind of what our media does? Spins a certain way and makes it seem a certain point. In fact, if you were to look at it, they would also spin the great unifier that Jesus was, was what he did to these people.
Because the media reported that the Pharisees and the Sadducees were always a cut above, weren’t they? Well, if you don’t know, they were. They were better givers than any of you. They loved the Lord more outwardly than any of you. They were more faithful in church than any of you. They were more giving of their time and energy to honoring God than any one of you. Because everything was judged on the outside.
You and I would raise our hand and say, whoa, whoa, this is not right. What about the heart? Yeah, what about the heart? That’s not what the world judges, is it? The world judges what’s on the outside. And in fact, the world is always griping and complaining because the church is full of, oh yeah, that word. People whose lives and their view or belief are not in synchronicity.
You’re in my life. If you were to look at it and I were to look at it, it’s not in sync with what we believe. You and I can find too often in our lives where it is not in sync with what we believe to be true. And the media would report that and say, see what kind of people that this Jesus was gathering around him, people whose lives were incongruent.
Isn’t that what your wife says to you? Isn’t that what your husband says to you? Isn’t that what your children say to you? And isn’t that what you say to your children? Incongruent. Such a great Lord he is, gathering kinds of people like that around him. See how the media would spin it.
But really the media is a reflection of humanity, isn’t it? Humanity likes a good exterior. We love a good wax job on any vehicle. We love a good wax job on humanity. We love to see all the frayed edges hemmed up beautifully. We love to see the packages of frayed string all trimmed and cut just right. Why else did you spend so much time wrapping the package in the manner that you did before you gave it to your loved one on Christmas?
We love outward appearance. And we judge ourselves and others by that outward appearance. And we use a standard that is completely ridiculous. Because what this text is really getting at is not how the media would spin it. What this text is getting at… Is that the fallen are really the Pilates and the Herods, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who by all outward appearances, it looks like they’ve chosen the winning side because they weren’t the ones who died. They weren’t the ones who were martyred.
And yet the Christians on the losing side could look at themselves and say, what are we doing wrong? Why aren’t we succeeding? Why is there not goodness and mercy following us all the days of our life, where it seems like we’re dying and we’re losing? And then all of a sudden, Constantine, around the third century, makes Christianity the religion of the Holy Roman Empire. And now it’s cool to be a Christian. It’s in to be with him.
It takes on a different look now, the church does. Large cathedrals are built where they were dwelling in secrecy in people’s homes that were burned and pillaged if found out. Great works of art were done and commissioned where pagan temples and pagan artwork once adorned things.
We’re on the other side, brothers and sisters, and we have to remember what it means to be raised up. You see, we’re so used to being told that he doesn’t want your life. He wants you to trust in his life. He doesn’t want your goodness. He wants you to trust in his goodness in Christ Jesus. There is only one good. There is only one good life. There is only one good deed. And it’s not from within our bosom nor within our ears and our brain. It is in the cross of Christ, the very crucible of the Father who crushed him and raised him up.
So he crushes you and raises you up. This is what appointed for the falling and rising of many is about. He raises people up. People who know that they are but dust, and to dust they shall return. People who know their lives are incongruent with what they believe. And can only plead, “Lord have mercy.”
Those are the people that are raised up by this infant. When Simeon held him, Simeon, though he had the gift of the Holy Spirit at that time, though he was a righteous man, the scriptures declared, he was a sinner, a damned sinner just like all of us. And though Anna was this great widow who lived without her husband for 80 some odd years, who knows how long, she herself died a sinner’s death as well.
She needed the same Lord Jesus as you and I need, and our lives, whether they look like they’re congruent or not, it’s God who raises us up in Jesus Christ and that baby, not we ourselves. That’s where we find comfort. That’s where we find hope and nowhere else.
This Jesus, who’s seemingly lost, and the people who surround him, who seem to be hypocritical and weak, cantankerous and self-centered, will win. But it’s hidden, isn’t it? It requires faith, that gift that he alone gives us. Christians before the Roman Empire made Christianity legal, and after it, believers live by faith, regardless of what it looks like on the outside.
And though the church may be tremendously large overnight, as it was before the Roman Empire approved it, it was very small. After the fact, it was miraculously big. Don’t judge by sight, just as you don’t want your life judged by sight. Just as Simeon did not judge this infant by sight but by faith as he held this baby and cried out, “You have given me salvation in this infant that cannot stand by itself, cannot support its own body weight by its legs or its head even, but requires me to support it all.”
That’s the kind of Jesus that saves us. God in the flesh, hidden and yet revealed to those who believe. Thanks be to God. He lives in us and raises us up from the ashes each day. For it is a daily thing, isn’t it, to be raised up?
In the name of him who raises you up each day and today, Jesus, Amen.
The peace of all that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.