Bible Text: Luke 2:21–24 | Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christian Preus
We come this evening to the last of the three estates, the Church. The last two Wednesdays we’ve talked about Joseph and the home, the first estate, that Joseph though obviously not the biological father of Jesus was still a father to Him, taught Him God’s Word, loved His mother, protected Him from danger, worked hard to provide for His bodily needs, brought Him to church. That’s what a father does. And we talked about Joseph as a citizen, how he obeyed the government but when the government ordered evil, he obeyed God rather than man. Those are the first two estates, the family and the state, the government. Tonight we focus on Joseph as a Christian, as a member of the Church.
Joseph has Jesus circumcised. That was the old covenant. Going all the way back to Abraham and Isaac. On the eighth day a male child was to be circumcised. It was a cutting away of the flesh. It symbolized what God would do in Jesus. By bearing our sins in His body, and being cut off from His people, suffering for us, dying for us, He would cut the sinful flesh from us.
We hand down sin to our children. Because one man, Adam, sinned, we all inherit the same sin. My children are sinners because I’m a sinner. They get it from me. But Jesus breaks the pattern. He is no sinner. The only baby ever born in the history of the world without sin. And He gives a new birth by that holy birth. Circumcision is not that new birth. It pointed ahead to it. The new birth is to be joined to Jesus completely, so that what He is and has becomes ours. There is no way to break the deadly chain of sin, passed down from father and mother to child for millennia. Only Jesus can break it. And He shatters that chain. He the sinless babe breaks the chain of sinners and His sinless birth becomes ours, it’s freely given to us, by water and the Spirit in Baptism.
Joseph brought Jesus to be circumcised and gave Him the name Jesus. We bring our children to be baptized and God gives them His name. We do this not because of some religious obligation. Some, “this is what I’m supposed to do.” No we bring our children to be baptized because God is waiting to take them and make them His children, to remove the curse of sin, to apply Jesus’ birth and death and resurrection to them, so they will live forever. It is the greatest joy we have, to take our little sinners of children, to whom we have given both our sin and our death, and to give them to God, and He gives them life forever, holiness, righteousness, the Holy Spirit, everything good, because Jesus is everything good.
Joseph shows us this. He didn’t circumcise Jesus on the eighth day simply because of religious obligation. That name Jesus given to the Christ-child at His circumcision means the Lord saves, and the Lord saves us by shedding His blood, and that little babe shed His precious blood the first time that day. He bound Himself that day to keep the whole Law for us, to be perfect as His Father in heaven was perfect, and finally to shed His blood fully for us on the cross and to take away God’s wrath and establish peace forever between us and our Creator.
You have maybe 10 references to Joseph in the Bible. Three of them are Joseph bringing Jesus to church. That should tell you a lot. You don’t bring them once to be baptized and that’s it. You bring them constantly to hear the Word of God which their Baptism entitles them to hear.
Thirty-two days after his circumcision, Joseph brings Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord. The Lord commanded His people Israel to present their first-born sons to Him. This was for two reasons. First, it was to show that He was not like the false gods of the heathen. The other gods, the false gods of the Canaanites, would demand a firstborn son as a sacrifice, and the people would give it. They’d kill their own children to try and find favor with their horrible gods. The Lord, who is abounding in steadfast love and mercy, did exactly the opposite. He required the son to be presented to Him so that a sacrifice would be made in place of that son. And that sacrifice pointed ahead to Jesus. Here is the only baby presented in that Temple who was presented actually to be sacrificed. But it was not Joseph who would have to sacrifice the son of his flesh. It was God who would sacrifice His, the Son of His Love.
That means that God gives Himself for us, because the Father and the Son are one God, from eternity. The Lord Jesus is no unwilling sacrifice. He is the Lamb who bears our sins willingly because He loves us and wants us with Him forever.
What is beautiful about Joseph as a Christian, as a member of the Church, is that the three instances of him going to church are not the only instances of Him being a Christian. That permeates his entire life, it flows into every aspect of what he says and does as husband and father and citizen, bleeds thoroughly into the other two estates of home and state.
Why? What is the Church? How do you see it, mark it, know it? It isn’t marked by a pope or a voters assembly. It isn’t marked by these vestments or bowing or signing the cross or pews. It’s marked by the preaching of the Gospel and the right administration of the sacraments. You know where the church is and that you are in the church, when you are hearing Jesus crucified for you and when you are eating His body and drinking His blood for the forgiveness of your sins. The Church is the assembly of saints, of holy people, who are holy, because they are hearing the Gospel that makes them holy, that declares you saints because Jesus shed His blood for you.
And that means that what marks the church is exactly what you can bring home from church. It means the Church necessarily spreads into every realm of life and into the other two estates. You bring home the word you hear here. You bring home the life and Christian ambition to live as sons of God from what you receive at that altar. And so the church, and your life in it, doesn’t stop when you leave these doors and when we turn off the lights. It continues.
So while the Bible records Joseph bringing Jesus to church three times, and that’s thirty percent of the things Joseph does in the Bible, which is a lot, what is even more significant is that every other appearance of Joseph in the Bible has him acting like a Christian, taking that Word of God and applying it in His life, caring for his wife, protecting his child, working hard as a carpenter, all because he’s a Christian.
And this is how we live our lives. The idea of leaving church behind us, so that we hear God’s Word in church and pray at church, but when we go home there is no Jesus and no prayer to our Father in heaven, that idea should be as far from our minds as it is from the pages of the New Testament. We name our children at Baptism, ask and answer that question, “How are you named,” so that every time we use that name at home or at work, we are using the name of one marked as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. And we hear the Word of God which is our great heritage at church, not only so that we receive forgiveness here and comfort here and peace with God here and instruction in righteousness here, but so that we bring it all home and live by it.
Joseph knows to obey his government, and when to disobey it, because he’s a Christian. He knows how to raise the Son God gave him, because he’s a Christian. He knows how to love his wife, because he’s a Christian. He knows the joy of working hard because he knows he’s working for His God, because he’s a Christian. He knows how to deal with sadness and pain because He’s a Christian. And he’s a Christian because he is weekly sustained and lifted up by hearing God’s word.
So we are Christians before everything and Christians in everything we do. Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. We sing that with the psalmist because this world is a dark place and we don’t know where to go or what to do without God’s Word. There are a million different things, from our own sins to the sins of others to the unforeseen circumstances of health and job and family and friends and nation, none of which we can completely control. A dark and confusing place. But with God’s Word, we travel on the same road as Joseph, we see sins forgiven, God in control of our life, definite instruction on what we should do, and the joy of everlasting life that cannot be darkened by anything. It lights our path the whole way through, all the way to heaven.
That’s what Joseph teaches us. We live our lives at home and as citizens and workers, we do everything we do, guided by the Word of God, with Jesus our Savior at the center, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, our access to God and everything good, now and forever. Amen.