Bible Text: Luke 2:22-40 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
I got to hold a little baby boy right after Divine Service on Christmas Day. And of course it got me thinking of Jesus, this little baby that you could toss in the air, so helpless and tiny. It brought the reality home of what God has done in sending us His Son. I wouldn’t mind that becoming a tradition: make sure to hold a baby on Christmas. The statistics tell you that when there are babies around, people are more religious. Church attendance increases, prayer, everything associated with religiosity. There are many reasons for that – usually people have more babies when they are excited about the future and non-religious people aren’t exactly excited about the future, because for them it simply ends in death. But the obvious reason for this rule “more babies, more religion” is that when you see a little child, it becomes very clear that there is a Creator who fashioned this little miracle. We confess it in Psalm 139, “I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
But that’s not what I was thinking on Christmas morning and there’s no way it was what Simeon thought when he took baby Jesus into his arms. Simeon’s not wondering at God creating this beautiful boy, he’s wondering that God, the Creator, became this little boy. You see in Simeon the unabashed joy of Christmas. He’s old and I used to think that meant less sin, but it only means you’ve had a longer time to build up your record of sins committed. So when this old sinner holds this little baby in his hands there’s the joy and relief that Christmas brings to Christians, and Simeon sings it, “Lord now you let your servant depart in peace, because my eyes have seen your salvation.” He holds that baby and he knows God cannot have become a baby to judge him or to hold his sins against him. He has the same sign in his hands that the angel spoke on Christmas night, “this will be a sign unto, ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” A sign of what? Of glad tidings of great joy. Of a Savior born. Of peace between God and man. Of God’s goodwill to us. He’s a baby. He’s not come to judge you. He comes to be your Savior.
Jesus was forty days old when Simeon held him. That’s the time when babies start smiling and reacting to your voice. Can you imagine that? Holding this baby and knowing here is your Creator, here is the One who knows everything you’ve ever done and said and thought, who by all rights should have come as your Judge to punish you, but here he smiles up at you and laughs in joy as you sing him the Nunc Dimittis.
Simeon shows us perfectly the peace and joy of Christmas and I pray that you felt it and had it and still do have it. You are a sinner. You have deserved God’s anger and His punishment. But He comes to you in love. He is more than a sign, He is God in human flesh. But the fact that He came as a baby is an unmistakable sign to you: He means you no harm. Confess your sin, because He has come to bear it, mourn death, because He has come to give you life. He is your Brother. The Father’s Son loves you. How can God hate you or reject you? It’s impossible. Here is peace with God, eternal life. And the sign is the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and held in Simeon’s arms.
But Simeon moves on from unfettered and total joy to very hard and sad words. Because this too is the life of the Christian. Every day isn’t Christmas. It’s not that the joy goes away. It’s that our joy isn’t flippant, isn’t empty hilarity, it’s grounded in the fact that we sin and we suffer and we doubt and we die in this sinful world, and that’s exactly why we need a Savior.
So Simeon again calls Jesus a sign. The angels said he was a sign of joy, a sign of God’s goodwill. Simeon says he’s a sign to be spoken against. He lies there (that’s what the Greek says, and we should see Simeon pointing to the baby lying in his arms) He lies there as the One who will cause the fall and rising of many. This baby Jesus is the most controversial figure in the history of the world. He is the most praised. He is the most insulted. He is the most loved, He is the most hated. He is the most trusted, He is the most disbelieved. You don’t talk about this on Christmas, because it’s not the time to talk about it. The shepherds only have joy, Mary, Joseph, the angels, it is pure joy, a Savior is born. Blessed reality. God is with us. Immanuel.
But meanwhile there is Herod, who tries to kill the baby Jesus, because He doesn’t want a Savior or a King. Meanwhile, there is your sinful flesh that cannot believe, and will never believe, that all this can really be true. So Jesus is the sign spoken against.
They were talking on the news that everyone gets a Christmas present they don’t actually want. Apparently it amounts to 74 dollars a person in the United states, which is of course billions of dollars of presents people don’t actually want, and so it’s a good time to go on Ebay to get discarded presents. But the fact is that Jesus is the most unwanted Christmas gift in the history of the world, and He is worth infinitely more than all the billions in the world. And you don’t need to buy Him, you can’t buy Him, not for all the money in the world. He comes free to you. And gives you more than money could ever buy. Everlasting life. Peace with God. All free to you and at great cost to Him.
But that is exactly why he’s so spoken against.
Because He comes freely to sinners, to save us completely because we need saving completely.
First, we need saving completely. Jesus comes to uphold the law. Born of a woman, born under the law. That’s why Jesus is in the Temple already as a baby. He’s come to fulfill and uphold the law. And that law condemns us. We haven’t kept it. And Jesus doesn’t relax one jot or tittle of it. He is the God who thundered the law on Mount Sinai. So people speak against Him. Anyone and everyone who wants to hold on to their sin and say it’s good. You see it in the world of course, so many hating Jesus because He condemns their sexual sins or their greed or their unbelief. But you see it in your own flesh too. That’s the hardest thing in the world for us Christians, that we have spoken against the Lord Jesus, that we have wanted to hold on to some grudge, we have justified our sins, we have doubted the truth of His Incarnation, we have tarnished the joy and certainty of Christmas. And there is nothing for us to do but to confess it, to crucify our flesh with all its unbelief and spite, and look again to the joy of Christmas, that unto us a Savior is born from even this, from every sin, and this unbelieving, foolish flesh will die, but our Christ is risen and reigns and we will live and reign with Him forever.
Because Jesus comes to fulfil the Gospel. That’s the second reason he is a sign that is spoken against. We sing on Christmas, “Come from on high to me, I cannot rise to Thee.” That is our joy, that because we could not rise to heaven, could not gain God’s favor, He descended to us to do what we could not do, because we are not good enough, we are not good at all. And that is what so offends people. Especially religious people. It’s what so angered the religious Jewish leaders – Jesus says to them, “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I AM you will die in your sins.” He claims exclusively to be the Way to the Father. He takes every other option away, because every other option is men trying and failing to get to heaven.
The religion of our flesh says the opposite of the Gospel. You cannot come on high to me, so I will rise to Thee. Every false teaching of every false religion comes down to this – Our flesh wants credit. And God coming as a little baby in a manger, God doing in human flesh what you could not do, God suffering and dying because that’s what you deserved, this is a total and complete repudiation and condemnation of your flesh and your pride. This is why Jesus, that cute little baby in Simeon’s arms, is a sign spoken against.
And this hurts. It hurt Mary, “A sword will pass through your soul also,” Simeon said to her. She saw her son persecuted even as a baby by Herod, saw him grow up to be rejected, insulted, mocked, disbelieved, tortured on a cross, because very religious people were offended that God became a little baby and grew up to be their Savior. And Mary represents the Christian Church. A sword passes through our soul. We see the sign of the little babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, that is meant to be pure joy and peace with God, we see Him spoken against, because people do no want the gift of Christmas. And the fact that God gives it offends them.
Don’t be offended with them. Don’t let this sign be spoken against in you. Know your sinful flesh. It’s the same as everyone else’s. It will never admit that you could not rise to God. It won’t admit that God had to descend to you and be your Savior completely, utterly, wholly, so that there is nothing in you that you can trust in.
Know too that it was the Holy Spirit who led Simeon into that Temple to hold the baby Jesus and to confess “here is my salvation.” Because his flesh wouldn’t do that. And it is by the same Holy Spirit, given you in your Baptism, that you come to hold this Jesus in your heart, and to confess that you need saving completely and wholly, no excuses, no claim that I have done this, no speaking against this sign. Because you need Him completely. He is your rising, your resurrection, as Simeon says. He gives you life. His life. That’s the entire point. It’s why Christmas is such joy to us. We know our sin and so we can’t trust our flesh. What will it give us? What gift? All it knows how to give is death and pain and disappointment. But God gives us His Son. Of course you can’t rise to God! And of course this is the greatest news imaginable, that you don’t have to. God comes to you freely, moved by His love alone, the Son of God becomes a baby, takes on your human nature, becomes your Brother forever, lives for you, suffers for you, bears you sins away, dies for you, rises for you.
Simeon took Jesus in His arms, and He confessed that He was ready to die, because God had prepared salvation in the incarnation of His Son. The Almighty God allowed Himself to be held as a baby by an old sinner. And now, sinners, young and old, you come to His Church and He gives Himself to you in His body and His blood, a sign and more than a sign, that He gives you eternal life, so that you can sing with Simeon, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy Servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation. Amen.