Sermon: Christmas 1 - 2019

29 December 2019

Text: Luke 2:22-40 (Isa 11:1-5, Gal 4:1-7)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

There is a popular term “bucket list.”  This is a list of things that a person would like to do – truly once in a lifetime things – before the person dies.  St. Simeon had one thing on his “bucket list.” 

Simeon was a “righteous and devout” man.  It is likely that he was a retired priest.  He was also a man who was “waiting.”  He wasn’t waiting to die, or waiting for riches – rather he was waiting “for the consolation of Israel.”

Why did Israel need consoling?  Because the people of God had been stuck in a kind of limbo for four hundred years.  God had become silent.  The children of Israel had been taken captive in Babylon, were later allowed to return under the Persians – though still a conquered people, and then they found themselves under the Greek Empire.  And in Simeon’s day, the people of God were living under Roman rule, lorded over by people who worshiped many gods.  The emperor himself was worshiped as a god by the Romans who did not know the true God.

Simeon knew both God and His promises.  Israel was waiting for the consolation of the Savior, the Messiah, who would be a blessing to the entire world.  And God revealed something to Simeon: a promise to which he clung, a dream to which he held fast, knowing that until it happened, he was not yet ready to “depart” from this world “in peace.”

For “it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.”

Maybe St. Simeon heard about the strange happenings going on: the miraculous birth of a child, John, to his elderly parents Zechariah the priest and his wife Elizabeth.  Maybe he had heard the rumors of angels appearing over the skies of Bethlehem.  Or maybe none of this was known to Simeon.  We will not know in this life.  But during his long wait, the elderly Simeon caught a glimpse of a man and a woman with a baby boy, a poor couple who could not afford the preferred sacrifice of a lamb – offering instead two turtledoves.  Of course, the reality – later to be revealed – is that their Son Jesus is the Lamb, the sacrifice that is truly “holy to the Lord” as the firstborn male to open the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Simeon came “in the Spirit into the temple.”  The Spirit – who had earlier revealed that he would see the Christ – now revealed to Simeon that the time had indeed come!  His wait was over!  The Consolation of Israel was there before him, held in the arms of His mother and accompanied by His stepfather.  Jesus came to the temple that He was to prophecy would be destroyed, when the New Covenant would render the Levitical priesthood, the blood sacrifices, and the temple itself obsolete.  Simeon stands at the precipice, the crossroads of time, the intersection between BC and AD.  The world will never be the same, and the Holy Spirit figuratively whispers in the ear of faithful Simeon: behold, your Lord and your God!

And so St. Simeon “took Him up in his arms and blessed God.”  And being in the Spirit, Simeon sang a song that we still sing today, dear friends.  It is part of the Church’s liturgy.  It is traditionally sung in Christian communities and homes at bedtime, as a reminder that we are prepared, like St. Simeon, to “depart in peace” because we have seen the Lord Jesus Christ.  And because of this revelation, we can sleep in peace without fear – not even fearing death.

And this liturgical hymn, Simeon’s Canticle, which we also know as the Nunc Dimittis, is the typical post-communion canticle sung in our churches.  For like St. Simeon, we are consoled by Christ – not merely the promise of His coming, but His actual, physical presence.  And even as Simeon held the body of Christ in His arms, we are blessed to carry the Lord Jesus Christ in our bodies by means of the Holy Sacrament.  Our wait to be consoled – to be released from sin, death, and the devil – is over, dear friends.  The Christ child is with us as surely as He was with Simeon.

And so we sing with Simeon and with generations of Christians to whom the Spirit revealed this joyful song of praise:

“Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy Word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.”

Joseph and Mary “marveled” at the words of this song – and it is just as marvelous even today as the Church continues to marvel with the saints and angels at the gravity of Simeon’s words.  The one thing that Simeon had waited for his whole life has been fulfilled.  He was now free to lay down his weary head and die in peace, for he had “seen [God’s] salvation” – the salvation of the people of God accomplished by God.  Simeon understood that this was indeed God’s grace.  The child Jesus was not only the incarnate Word, not only a Champion of mankind who has come to take vengeance on the devil, not only the eternal extension of King David’s house and royal line, not only the promised Messiah, not only a Prophet, Priest, and yes, Sacrificial Lamb – Jesus is God’s salvation – the saving of mankind from sin and death.  And ironically, with that salvation, Simeon can look upon death without fear, knowing now that it isn’t the victory of the enemy, but rather a manifestation of the Lord’s victory over Satan.  And for that reason, Simeon can now “depart in peace.”

In the words of the ancient Lutheran hymn, Simeon now has as little to fear from the grave as he does his bed.  We Christians can die in peace because we die in Christ – “according to [God’s] Word.”

St. Simeon – in the Spirit – revealed a piece of the puzzle to Mary – something that she would not understand for some thirty years, long after St. Simeon’s holy departure: “a sword will pierce through your own soul also).  Salvation will come at a price – the price of the Lamb’s sacrifice.  And even as Mary brought the child Jesus “to present Him to the Lord,” she would later see Him presented on the cross.  She would witness not the sacrifice of two turtledoves, but rather of her own flesh and blood Son, He who opened her womb, “called Holy to the Lord.”  She would suffer the anguish that only a mother could know.  But like St. Simeon, St. Mary was also faithful and righteous and devout.  She obediently gave birth to the Word Made Flesh, enduring the shame.  She presented Him to the Lord in the temple.  She raised Him.  And she would suffer the grief of watching Him sacrificed.

But she would also know the joy of His resurrection, as well as the salvation of His blood even atoning for her.  The sword that pierced her soul would be beaten into a plowshare as many more would follow St. Simeon, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, in dying as faithful confessors of our Lord Jesus Christ, the consolation of Israel.

May the Song of Simeon continue to be our song.  May it be on our lips when we have seen the Lord’s Christ in the Lord’s Supper.  And may these joyful words deliver consolation to us when it is our time to depart in peace, according to God’s Word.  

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.