Sermon for First Sunday of Christmas

Sermons Archive - St Paul Lutheran Church

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

Dear baptized believers in Christ’s church, the Holy Spirit has called you by the gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, sanctified and kept you in the true faith. God’s Word, connected with water, worked in you through holy baptism. Because of God’s providence, His Word has been placed in your hands. This word has been proclaimed into your ears through his servants and their vocations. God’s word is in your head and it is in your heart, biblical knowledge and trusting faith. And you, with the help of the Holy Spirit, become more and more convicted that Jesus is the one, the Son of God.

And in the great exchange of sin for righteousness on the cross, you have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. And as you walk in this faith given, to believe by faith in the gift given, you are living with the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. A couple of days ago, you celebrated the fulfillment of God’s promise to send the Messiah, the Anointed One, who would save the world.

From the first promise that God spoke to the devil in the Garden of Eden in the hearing of Adam and Eve, and throughout the entire Old Testament, spoken through His prophets, God kept the gifts coming with more and more prophecies, with more and more details about His gift that He would send into the world four days ago. As you gathered on Christmas where Jesus’ birth was the focus, you were celebrating God’s gift for you. The mystery revealed with God in John 1:1, creating all things, to John 1:14, where God became flesh indwelling in His creation, which we confess in the second article of the Apostles’ Creed.

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, the truth of Galatians 4 reveals to us this activity in this morning’s Gospel lesson. And when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoptions as sons. In the verse before the gospel lesson today, Jesus was eight days old. According to God’s word to Moses in Genesis 17, this was the day when the males were to be circumcised.

In the fullness of the law, through the shedding of blood, Jesus was beginning to be added to the covenant people through which He would begin His mission as the Messiah to save them. Now, on the 40th day after Jesus’ birth, Joseph and Mary, for the first time, are carrying Jesus to Jerusalem and into the temple courtyard to offer the sacrifice for Mary’s purification after being ceremonially unclean due to the act of blood loss during childbirth, and also to do for Jesus according to the custom of the law, which is known as the presentation of Jesus in the temple.

On this ordinary day, walking among all of the people in the temple complex, God was going to give them even more gifts. Even though Jesus looked no different than any other Jewish baby boy that was being carried into the temple complex on that day, one man walked directly up to Joseph and Mary, and when he was close enough, he reached out. And when he reached out, he took the baby Jesus into his arms. His name was Simeon.

We are told that he was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. In other words, he was clinging to God’s promise to send the Messiah who would bring comfort and salvation to Israel, to God’s chosen people. The Holy Spirit revealed it to him personally that he would not see death before he sees the Lord’s Christ. So on this day, by the Spirit, he was led to that place and to that specific child.

When the parents thought that they were doing something for God on this day, God was going to give them another gift. In the hearing of Joseph and Mary, Simeon blesses God and he sung a song. I can imagine him looking up into the heavens and down at the baby in his arms and going back and forth with his eyes, singing, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory of your people Israel.”

Did those words recall Gabriel’s words from Mary’s memory? “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” Simeon’s song recognizes the Lord God’s presence within the courtyard of His own house that He had made by the hands of man.

The God who had promised to dwell among His people inside the temple, behind the curtain, in the Holy of Holies, sitting on the Ark of the Covenant, was now in Simeon’s arms dwelling in the flesh. For Simeon, the wait was over. The promise was fulfilled. The words spoken by the prophet Malachi are realized: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come into his temple.”

This was the first time that Jesus had entered into Jerusalem, the city of the great king according to Psalm 48 and Matthew 5, and into His temple. But it won’t be His last time. In the coming years, Jesus will walk through those gates into this space to worship and to be worshiped.

While Joseph and Mary marveled at Simeon’s words, Simeon also continued to give them another gift by revealing the other bookend to this day. “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel. And for a sign that is opposed, a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

In other words, they hear Jesus’ future death. And the last time when He will enter into the temple complex during that last week that we know as Passion Week, before His crucifixion on a cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. His mission for coming into the world began with the shedding of blood when He was eight days old and will climax with the shedding of His blood on the cross where He dies for you, for me, and for all the world.

Jesus speaks of this polarization that Simeon talked about of Israel in Matthew 10. He said, “Do not think that I have come into the world to bring peace to earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A person’s enemy will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

The division is to believe in Jesus’ words and works to be true. And through them, the gifts of forgiveness of sin, salvation, and eternal life are dispensed through His means of grace and are received by faith. The opposing belief is to reject this truth. Simeon is telling them that Jesus will be divisive. Before Mary dies, she will see her own son, the Son of God, hanging on a cross.

When the Roman soldier’s spear pierces Jesus’ side and punctures His heart, this pain will be the sword through her own heart. But for now, in the coming years, when Jesus begins His public ministry, He will also tell the disciples about His coming death. But He will also include when He tells them on the third day, He will rise from the dead. And in this divine drama, the resurrection is always included with the crucifixion, and the crucifixion is always included with the resurrection.

And because Jesus lives, those connected to Him by faith will also rise on the last day and live with Him into eternity in His kingdom prepared for us. Before Joseph and Mary left the temple, another person approached them: a woman by the name of Anna. As Simeon was like the angels harrowing the good news, Anna is like the shepherds responding to this good news by spreading the message of Jesus’ destiny in redemptive works.

As the Redeemer, He will gain good for others by making the payment through the giving of His own life on the cross to save us. After performing everything according to the law of the Lord, Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth and Galilee with the child entrusted into their care. Jesus grew and became strong, full of wisdom, and the favor of God was upon Him.

What is our takeaway from this text? I saw something with a fuller understanding that I’ve never seen before in the preparation of this proclamation. As forgiven sinners, as Christian believers, as disciples of Jesus, as those waiting for the coming of Christ, we acknowledge that we are like Simeon and Anna.

Before His ascension, our Lord Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity, promised to send the Comforter, Counselor, the third person of the Holy Trinity, to His disciples. God now dwells within His people, the Holy Christian Church. We believe all of the gifts that we now receive from the Lord come through the power of His Word and the working of the Holy Spirit. Remember, the Holy Spirit has called you by the gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, sanctified, and keeps you in the one true faith.

This was Simeon and Anna. While almost all the world lived in spiritual darkness, with many of the people in Israel just doing the activities of the law, believing that they were earning favor with God, there was that remnant who were eagerly waiting for the coming of the promised Messiah, and their lives reflected it. This is only possible through the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.

The same is true for you and for me. They were moved to go to the temple on that day, again by the Spirit. The same is true for you and me. On this day, there is that civil war that Pastor Wolf Mueller talks about that is within us. That flesh in getting up this morning is screaming, “No, I want a fellowship with Brother Pillow and Sister Sheets. I’m tired. It’s been such a busy December. I’ve got so much due today.”

It is through the Holy Spirit that you understand that you don’t got to go to church; you get to go to church. You’re drawn to the Lord and His gifts for you by His Word. Like Simeon, the Holy Spirit enables you to fix your eyes upon Jesus, your reason for being here. Through the Holy Spirit, you understand that by the gift of faith in your possession is the gift of salvation. For He has promised never to leave you nor forsake you.

Through the Holy Spirit, you are drawn into the presence to hold in your own hands the real presence of Christ, His true body and His blood, to receive from Him by faith the forgiveness of sins and the strengthening of your faith through the Holy Spirit between the communion rail and the door of the church. You are able to sing and respond back to God, either it be with Simeon’s song, the Noctamentus in the liturgy, or on this day as you give thanks to God, thinking of “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to your words. For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for the revelation to the Gentiles and to the glory of your people Israel.”

As was the blessing of God’s gift extended through the mouthpiece of Aaron over the people of Israel, the same blessing will also be spoken over you this day with more gifts given through your pastor. In your various vocations, it is through the Holy Spirit that you are able to love. You’re able to be kind in all of the things that are said in the epistle this day.

Able to show mercy to God. Able to speak of the good news about your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a gift to us that the Lord continues to give. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, you and I don’t know what today or tomorrow will bring into our lives. But we know this: by the power of God’s Word and the working of the Holy Spirit, that those who have been saved from sin, death, and the power of the devil have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and we are able to stand firm on Christ’s Word and sacraments, but to never stand still, Christ in us for the world.

O Holy Spirit, enable us both to wait and to work. To the glory of God and for the good of others. Amen. The peace which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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