I preached this sermon at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE, on December 31, 2023, the First Sunday After Christmas on the liturgical calendar year B. I was on the back end of a cold, so I sound a little different.
Last Sunday, Christmas Eve, I had the privilege of baptizing my half-sister at my home church. Thirty-three years and day before that, December 23, 1990, I had been present at her dedication and baptism at the Lutheran church on N. 30th Street. My dad and her mom wanted me to be her “sponsor” or “Godfather.” It was a distinct honor to come full circle like that on a commitment I quite frankly had little influence on in her early life because I lived 500 miles away.
Lindee’s story parallels my own faith journey as I’ve shared with you in past, but our stories both parallel the life of Jesus in this regard as well, and we see the first part of that story in our passage today. Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the Temple to go through the Jewish purification rites. Mary had to wait 40 days to be purified from giving birth, which as we all know involves some blood. But because Jesus was also a firstborn son, he had to be dedicated to the service of the Lord as the Israelites were commanded in Exodus. That involved a sacrifice as well, as we see in the final “plague” of the Exodus. And of course we know that Jesus was baptized as an adult “to fulfill all righteousness,” as Matthew records. The Western church recognizes that event the day after Epiphany next week.[1]
Now when you and I dedicate ourselves to raising our children in the Lord, whatever that looks like from your perspective, I would venture to guess none of us has any idea what our kids are going to be like some thirty years later. But Mary and Joseph encountered two people in the Temple that day of Jesus’s consecration who seemed to know quite a bit about what Jesus would be doing thirty years later.
Simeon’s prophecy about Jesus is both encouraging and haunting. On the one hand, he is saying that Jesus is the light to the Gentiles Isaiah spoke of in Chapter 9 of his prophecy. But then it takes a darker turn, speaking of the rising and falling of many and that he would be a sign spoken against. The final part of his prophecy to Mary is the most haunting of all: “And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” That little word “too” at the end of the prophecy reveals that Jesus is destined for incredible suffering at some point in the future, which we now know was the cross. Mary witnessed that event as well, so you can imagine the pain she must have felt.
Anna also had what at least on the surface appears to be an encouraging prophecy as well, giving thanks to God, but she mentions the redemption of Jerusalem. Now I know we may tend to throw around these $20 religious words like “salvation” and “redemption” without thinking more deeply about what they imply, but the Jews would have understood from their sacrificial system that “salvation” and “redemption” both required blood sacrifices in the Old Testament. So even as Simeon and Anna spoke over the infant Jesus, their words prefigured in some way, subtle or not, that Jesus would suffer death at some point.
It’s hard to say what the son of God knew or understood as an infant when he heard these words. His human side would not have understood them, but his divine nature surely would have, and how those two natures worked together will perhaps forever be a beautiful mystery to us. But the text in Luke goes on to say that Jesus’s parents took Jesus to the Passover every year in Jerusalem, so Jesus, as he grew older, began to understand that the Temple wasn’t just a place of worship, but his own spiritual home, because the Temple was his Father’s house.
It’s a fair extrapolation, I think, to assume that Jesus and his family were regulars in the local synagogue as well when they weren’t in Jerusalem for the Passover. Luke gives us just a glimpse of Jesus as a preteen with the story of him staying behind to school the teachers of the law in the Temple courts. Now if he was doing that with the teachers in the Temple, can you imagine what he must have been like in the local synagogue? We don’t see Jesus begin his ministry until he was thirty years old, but what was he like as a young adult? Did he give the synagogue leader some pointers after each message? Surely he didn’t live in isolation as a young man. Were the women oohing and aahing about his theological prowess? I’m guessing not. He was probably a Nazarite like Samson, except he knew how to behave himself, which is why we never read about him getting married. He was off limits to women, because he was laser-focused on preparing for his ministry as the Messiah.
All of what I’ve said up to this point is more or less an intellectual exercise, examining the history and background around the birth and dedication of Jesus and the times he lived in. But what are some takeaways for us? What are some things we can do to help our kids and grandkids raise their own kids so they can take ownership of their faith and understand God’s purposes for them in this day and age?
The most obvious takeaway for us is the importance of gathering with God’s people in God’s house. For the Jews, that was primarily the local synagogue, with the Temple being a special destination, one to three times a year depending on how often people could make the journey. For us Christians, we really don’t have anything akin to the Temple, so it’s the local church that’s important.
I’ve often had people tell me, and perhaps you’ve experienced this as well, that you don’t need to go to church to be a Christian. I would beg to differ. As believers, we are part of the body of Christ; we may be set apart from the world in God’s eyes, but we are not set apart from our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are united essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally in God’s eyes through Christ. Wherever God has a child, we have a sibling in Christ. Hebrews 10:24 and 25 puts it this way:
24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.[2]
Most of us who have grown up in the church recognize this distinctly. We recognize the power of connection and the shared purpose and goals that develop from such a connection. The local church is not just a place where we come to be uplifted and encouraged, but where we can also uplift and encourage others. It is a community with bonds that are not easily broken.
Related to this is the idea of service. Some churches have signs above the doors that exit out of their sanctuaries that say, “You are now entering the mission field.” In Acts 6, we see the apostles were concerned about the Hellenistic Jewish widows who were being overlooked in the distribution of food. They gathered everyone together and quickly worked out a solution and appointed capable people to handle that specific ministry. That couldn’t have happened if everyone was doing their own thing.
Another takeaway for us comes from the responses of Simeon and Anna. Granted, they had some prophetic insight into who the baby Jesus was and how he fit into God’s plan for salvation and redemption, but we now have the hindsight to know exactly what that looked like. Just as Simeon and Anna praised God for who he is and what he was doing through Jesus, so to can we praise God for who he is, what he has done for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and what he is doing in us through the work of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Our reading from Psalm 148 gives us some hints about how we can praise God:
11 kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth,
12 young men and women,
old men and children.
13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens. [3]
Like attending church, praise is not just an individual effort we make to show our gratitude to God. Praise also flows from our experience together as a community, especially as we see the fruit of our mutual and collective labors. It also flows from reading and hearing about God’s great works in the service. Psalm 148 also has several references to God’s wonderful creation that is available to all mankind, not just to those of us who believe.
One final thought about Luke’s passage here: Simeon especially indicates that following Jesus is going to cause people to take sides. We see more and more in our world today the antagonism toward the good news of Jesus. This is all the more reason for us to maintain community on the one hand, so there’s strength in numbers. But also we can take a unified stand for righteousness and truth and send a powerful message of unity and steadfastness to the world.
As we look forward to the new year, then, let us resolve and recommit ourselves to serving and praising God and meeting together as body of believers to carry out the various ministries he’s called us to. Together, we can be shining lights in a world of darkness, a beacon of hope amidst the signs of fear and despair. Amen.
[1] I removed the following because I didn’t want the sermon to get too long, and I didn’t want to dive into the topic of adult baptism with an older congregation.
But the parallel doesn’t stop there. I think most of us recognize that next week is Epiphany, where the Western church celebrates the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus. But how many of you know that the day after Epiphany is the recognition of Jesus’s baptism by John? Even though John knew he needed to be baptized by Jesus, and even though Jesus knew he was the son of God and sinless and had no need to “repent and be baptized” as John was preaching, still Matthew records Jesus’s desire that he be baptized “to fulfill all righteousness.”
[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
[3] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Sunday Morning Greek Blog 