Luke 2:21-40 (ii)
Sermon preached at Barclay Church, Edinburgh by Rev D. Graham Leitch
8 December 2002

Last Sunday we began to look together and learn what we could about what Christmas should mean to us from the very lovely but much neglected story of Christ’s presentation in the temple.

TEMPLE CEREMONIES
It was part of the normal Jewish ritual. Every male Jew was circumcised. By this rite they were marked out as “chosen by God” and belonging to his people. But other traditions and ceremonies were involved here too:

i) There was a ceremony called “the redemption of the first-born.” It’s linked to the infancy of the Jewish nation when God, at the cost of the lives of the first-born of the Egyptians, delivered Israel from slavery. The first-born in every family were regarded as holy, devoted, consecrated to God. Now on a farm the first born animal of a sheep or goat would be offered as a sacrifice (put to death as an offering) because it was consecrated to God.

But when it came to children (mercifully!) it was different! The first born was still regarded as belonging to God in a special way and was consecrated to God. So he was ceremonially taken to the temple for his consecration and “handed over” to God. But then, by a token payment, he was “redeemed” or bought back. This was the redemption of the first-born.

Then there was another ceremony connected with purification after childbirth.

It was, therefore, no uncommon thing for the outer courts of the temple, in which the buying and selling of animals and birds for sacrifice took place, to echo to the sound of babies crying as well as sheep bleating and donkeys braying!!

But, as we saw last week, Jesus’ visit to the temple with Mary and Joseph was marked by two exceptional encounters - with Simeon and with Anna. Simeon was old and Anna was eighty-four!!

NO-ONE TOO OLD FOR JESUS
There is no-one so old that Christ cannot make a difference to them!! If you, like Anna, are over eighty - then I want you to know that I’ve made it my prayer that this Christmas will be a special one (religiously, spiritually) for YOU!!

Last week we did two things;

WHAT SIMEON WAS LIKE
We looked at Simeon’s character. We saw that he was open to God - “waiting for the consolation of Israel”- so that when he saw Jesus he recognised, in Him, God’s gift of SALVATION. Looking up to God he cried out with a heart that was bursting:

“my eyes have seen your salvation.”

Others passed by unseeing. Why? How?!

Some were too preoccupied with their religious functions and duties to “see God’s salvation” in the arms of Mary. That is the great danger for those of us who have duties/church business to attend to on a Sunday. In our haste to get the practical business dealt with, our hearts are unprepared for the blessing God has prepared for us.....and so we miss out!

Others were too absorbed in the commerce - the buying and the selling - to notice the eternal treasure that was among them in the babe from Bethlehem!! I’m talking about Jerusalem 2,000 years ago - but I could just as easily be describing any Scottish city or town today. It’s still the same - even during the festival named after him which celebrates HIS birthday! Have you ever attended a birthday party at which the person who’s birth is being celebrated is all but ignored? Have you ever been at a baptism where no-one admires the baby?
Simeon was OPEN to God!!

WHAT SIMEON DID
And the second important thing we noticed about Simeon was what he did:

“he took him in his arms”

I painted a picture of Simeon emerging from the shadows in one of the inner courts - approaching Mary and his eyes lighting upon the child and light and joy flooding his heart at that moment. Here was the Messiah - no mere prophet but the Son of God. The SALVATION Israel was waiting for had come - had arrived!! And as Simeon stooped to look, with tears of joy flooding eyes already dim with age, (this is how I like to imagine it was!) he dares to whisper “Can I take him? Can I have him?”

And Mary, flushed with joy at his obvious pleasure, nods and answers “Yes! Yes!” and holds him out.

Just so does God hold out his salvation, still, to a sinful world. And whenever, understanding who Jesus is, a heart whispers “Can I take him? Can I have him?” heaven answers “YES!”

“he took him in his arms” Luke says.....

Don’t think this Christmas about what you can give to him; think rather about what he can bring to you!!

“he took him in his arms” Luke says.....

Christ is held out to us by the divine love this Christmas - it is ours to receive and to possess and to cherish; to take and have for ourselves - it is when we do that (and receive Him) that THY salvation becomes MY salvation!! And that’s a mervellous moment.

Now that’s enough and I’ve spent more on what I said last week than I meant to, but perhaps God meant it!!

WHAT SIMEON SAID TO MARY AND JOSEPH (v.34-35)
As we continue like Simeon, to be OPEN TO GOD this morning, let’s see what else he has to say to us from Luke’s account of Jesus’ presentation in the temple. This morning I want us to consider what Simeon said to Mary and Joseph. You will find what he said, in inverted commas, in vv.34-35:

(34) "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, (35) so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

This prophecy, which seems to have been directed particularly to Mary, must have been as disturbing as it was profound:

(34) "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, (35) so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

If joy had filled her heart on the day of his birth, that joy must have been mixed with foreboding as she considered Simeon’s words.

A BLESSING PRONOUNCED
Of course not all that Simeon said to Mary that day is recorded. The beginning of v.34 tells us that as Gabriel had called Mary “blessed” before the child’s birth - “blessed art thou among women” so Simeon called her “blessed” after it - “Simeon blessed them...”

To be a mother for the first time is a great responsibility. It’s not a responsibility every mother fulfils easily or well - but to be the mother of the Son of God - what greater responsibility could there be!!
Often must Mary have trembled at her weakness until she remembered that she was “favoured of God”
God asks us to do and to bear many thing that are beyond us alone; but he asks us to do and bear nothing that is beyond us, with HIS help.

What a RESPONSIBILITY Mary had - but what a PRIVILEGE too - to bear and to care, not just for another child or a special child, but for the Son of God.....and so Simeon blessed her as Gabriel had -

“blessed art thou among women”

The idea the woman can’t do important jobs - in society or in the church - is overturned once and for all and forever by Mary’s bearing and caring for the Son of God!! Had anyone - man or woman - ever been given a more important job in the whole history of the world?!!

But let’s turn now to Simeon’s recorded words:
(34) "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, (35) so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

What do these verses speak of? To aid recollection, we can think of them this morning as speaking about destiny, distress and division.

. The subject of DESTINY is brought clearly into focus BY Simeon’s first recorded words to Mary and Joseph, “this child” he said, “is destined...” The story of Jesus is the unfolding of eternal destiny, not the outworking of cruel fate! DESTINY

. The subject of DISTRESS is indicated by his solemn words (v.35) to Mary - “a sword will pierce your heart also.”

. And the subject of DIVISION is set before us in Simeon’s prediction that the child in Mary’s arms will“cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and... be a sign that will be spoken against...”

1. DESTINY
“This child is destined.....” Simeon begins. DESTINY! As a man who has studied the Scriptures, Simeon is familiar, no doubt, with the golden thread which runs through the Law and the Prophets of the Jews - the Scriptures - pointing to a Messiah, a Deliverer - a personal intervention of God in human affairs.

And as a believer in the Living God he is unable to view life as capricious - without purpose. When he sees Jesus, therefore, and when it is revealed to Him by he Holy Spirit, for how else could he have known it, that with the birth of Jesus that personal intervention of God, long-promised and eagerly awaited, is taking place, he knows that it is not for nothing that He has come; that Jesus has been sent, that this life - called “the light for all” - has appeared on earth.

It wasn’t by accident and it wasn’t for nothing that God sent Christ - but for this, the task of bearing the guilt of our sin and paying its penalty and freeing us from it’s tyranny.

“Child in the manger
Infant of Mary,
Outcast and stranger
Lord of all,
Child who inherits
All our transgressions,
All our demerits
On Him fall.”

The name Joseph was instructed to give him - JESUS - simply confirms this because, as I was telling the children in JGPS last week in the school services, and I expect you all know, the name JESUS means “God to the rescue” or “God is saving”:

“Thou shalt call his name ‘Jesus’ for he shall save his people from their sins.”

And at the Cross of Calvary, where His body was broken and His blood shed, that’s just what He did!!
As the old prophecy concerning what would happen to Him, written centuries before, put it:

“He endured the suffering that should have been ours, the pain that we should have borne...the Lord made the punishment fall on him...the punishment all of us deserved...”

DESTINY! “Christ was born today” s only true once every year - on Christmas Day. But “Christ was born to die.” is true always!!

2. DISTRESS
Next, in Simeon’s words, we find intimation of distress to come. “A sword”he tells Mary,“will pierce your own soul....” Much though the days of his childhood may have been filled with joy and delight for Mary - it’s hard to imagine that One perfectly obedient to his heavenly Father would be any less obedient towards his earthly mother - much though the days of his childhood may have been filled with joy and delight, the day would come when a cloud of sadness would overshadow her and tears would flow...

The day when, as the film “The Miraclemaker” portrays it, he returned from his daily labour as a Carpenter and told her that the time had come for him to leave his home and family to begin his itinerant ministry. was surely such a day!!

Every mother knows the pangs of grief which fill your heart when your children leave home for the first time, fly the nest or board a plane to some far-off unknown and perhaps even dangerous place. And you fear for their safety and return. Surely “a sword pierced her soul” as she watched him leave and set out on the work for which God had prepared Him.

Surely a sword pierced herheart also when news of his mistreatment at the hands of the Jews reached her and she heard of the storm brewing and attempts to stone him.

But never did a sword pierce her soul more painfully than on the day when He was taken out to be put to death. He was nailed to the cross and it was hoisted high and there He hung, her own son, - the child shed had borne and nursed, in agony!

And the crowds had turned out to watch - scoffing and jeering, taunting him -and Mary was there:

“Near the cross stood Mary his mother.....” John reports.

And, of all those who watched and all those who knew him, none was so closely bound to him by closeness of relation or depth of affection as Mary, his own mother!! And at Calvary, as darkness fell on earth, a great and unspeakable darkness surely descended upon Mary. Perhaps she wished that she could take her son’s place. But He alone could accomplish the purpose for which God had sent Him.

And as she watched, heartbroken, with tears and a mother’s grief, did the words of Simeon - and his warning, “and a sword shall pierce your own soul also....” not return and haunt her?

3. DIVISION
But the final thing the prophetic words of Simeon foretell is DIVISION .... Simeon’s prediction that the child in Mary’s arms will “cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and... be a sign that will be spoken against...”

Behind these words lie the great mysteries of election and what the theologians call predestination. It isn’t a mystery that I can claim to understand far less fathom - yet it IS a mystery that the Bible clearly teaches and I believe.

Why some believe and others remains in unbelief; why some follow Christ while others curse Him; why some “see it” and others remain blind, I cannot tell. It would take a finite mind to contain infinity to know. Can a grain of sand contain a world? Is it right to reduce our God to a godling to rid ourselves of the offence of election and predestination to our natural minds


A SIGN THAT WILL BE SPOKEN AGAINST
The ins and outs of election and predestination, like most of you I suspect, I do not know and cannot pretend to understand. But this I know, that Simeon’s prophecy that Mary’s child would cause “the falling and rising of many” and be “a sign that will be spoken against” came true in his life, and is still as true today!

During his life and ministry some of his disciples were disturbed by the trouble His arrival caused in many a place. They couldn’t deny His popularity and rejoiced in it. But at the same time they witnessed the passion of his opponents and the hostility his name drew from His enemies.

It surprised them but it didn’t surprise Jesus Christ himself - that this is so is revealed in these strange words from Luke:

“I have come to bring fire on the earth and how I wish it were already kindled...Do you think I cam to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but DIVISION.”

In the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus stood up and shouted “If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37) - and the crowd disagreed amongst themselves concerning him and some wanted to seize him.“Thus” John reports, (7:43) “the people were divided because of Jesus.”

After healing a man blind from birth the watching Pharisees in the crowds protested “This man is not from God because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath” But others replied - how can someone who’s just an ordinary sinner do such amazing things. “So” John tells (9:16) “they were divided.”

And then you have it again in John 10 after Jesus discourse on the Good Shepherd. “I am the Good Shepherd..I know my sheep and my sheep know me...and I lay down my life for the sheep”

“At these words the people were again divided..” John’s Gospel says.

Today it’s the same - opinion about Christ is divided! Whenever the Christian Gospel is urged upon folk as the way some accept and embrace it - like Simeon they take God’s salvation into their arms. But others reject and not a few despise the Christian message. There is opposition and hostility.

A CONTRADICTION?
‘But how does this square with the angels message of peace on earth goodwill to men?”you ask.

With one voice the Bible tells me that He is the prince of Peace - he comes in Peace to bring peace and make peace. With another voice the Bible tells me he has come to bring fire and division? Which am I to believe? Which is true?

The answer, of course, is that BOTH are true!! Just as a present may be left at the foot of the tree (and remember Peter in one of his letters calls the cross of Jesus a tree!) - Just as a present may be left at the foot of the tree, with a tag bearing our name, but it is ours to accept and unwrap it, so it is with God’s gift of peace with Himself.

The gift is purchased, prepared and perfectly suited to our need - yet it is ours to receive and open or decline.

The PEACE is God’s and the gift is free - but the choice is OURS!

And so there will ALWAYS be a division according to how we choose.- and once we understand this gift of salvation neutrality is NOT an option!!

AMEN

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