Isaiah 11:1-5/Galatians 4:1-7/St Luke 22-40
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
It is the fifth day of Christmas. Yes, there are twelve. Not twelve for partridges in pear trees and all. But twelve for the number of the Tribes. Twelve for the number of the Apostles. According to the calendar the Christ Child has not yet received His circumcision. That will happen on the eighth day. Yet the reading from St Luke skips us ahead to the fortieth day, the day for the purification of St Mary and the presentation of her first born Son. As it is written in the Law: Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.
And so Joseph and Mary come to the Temple with the appropriate offering: a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, the offering allowed for those who could not afford the required sacrifice: a lamb. And St Luke records this not only to highlight the poverty of the Holy Family or their piety, for he doesn’t even mention the lamb! His silence is an allusion to the fact that Joseph and Mary are indeed offering the true Lamb, the once for all sacrifice for sinners.
For their Child, the Lord’s Christ, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And His own self-sacrifice upon the Cross would cover the sin of His mother and guardian, of Simeon and Anna, of Israel and the Gentiles, of you and me. As St Paul wrote, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law. And already only six weeks old, the true Temple and Lord of the Law, comes to fulfill the Law for you who were held captive as slaves under the edicts and commands, the condemnation of the Law.
(As we will hear this text again on the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which falls on February 2nd, I would have us here focus on Simeon and Anna.)
Now Simeon enters as a lingering character of the Old Testament. Like Zechariah and Elizabeth, like Joseph and Mary, like Joseph of Arimathea, he was righteous and devout, waiting for He who is the hope and comfort of Israel. The One of whom Isaiah spoke; upon whom the Spirit of the Lord shall rest. And this self-same Spirit revealed to Simeon, that is, through the Word, that he would not die before he beheld with his own eyes the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed of the Lord.
And it is written of Simeon that the Holy Spirit was upon him and he came in the Spirit into the Temple. For this is what the Spirit of Christ does - He directs us to Jesus. He fixes our gaze to the Christ and gathers us together around the gifts of the Lord. In other words, the Spirit, who enlivens faith in you by the hearing of the Word, drives you to Church that you may receive the nourishment and comfort of that self-same Word preached for the forgiveness of yours sins. And to be joined together with your brothers and sisters in Christ, bearing one another’s burdens and sharing in each other’s joys.
For only here is the Word proclaimed in mercy and love for your comfort and life. Only here is does the Word made flesh join Himself to the washing with water, bestowing on you the gift of His Holy Spirit and the adoption as sons and heirs. Only here does the Father give to you the food of children, the family meal, the very Body and Blood of His Son into death for the forgiveness of your sins. Only here are you knit together with one another in union of the mystical body of Christ. For here, in His Temple, the Glory of Israel and the Light to the Gentiles is revealed in His Word.
It is not coincidence dear friends that the Church has taken upon her lips for these two thousand years the song of Simeon, the Nunc Dimittis, after receiving Holy Communion. For the Babe that the old man held in his arms is the same One put into your mouths - the Lord’s Christ. He is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed; meaning, this Child is the Chief Stone. He is the Rock of offense. His preaching and His ministry shall lay low the proud and arrogant. As Isaiah said, He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall kill the wicked.
How shall we receive Him of whom Simeon speaks? How shall we meet the One who comes to us in humility in the manger and upon the Cross? In holy fear and trembling. For we who have the promises of the Holy Spirit, like Simeon, given us in His Word, we treat them as mere trifles; believing we can serve the Lord’s Christ with our mouths, yet giving our minds and bodies over to all sorts of idolatry and wickedness. How often have we flaunted the grace of God, assuming that we may sin freely since we have His promised forgiveness. We are weak to resist temptation. We grumble and complain in our hardships and sufferings. By our sins we are rightly cut off from God and enslaved to death and hell.
Repentance is need. Repentance, but not fear of God’s wrath. For in the fullness of time, God has given His Son for your redemption. His gives the Consolation of Israel into the arms of Simeon. This Child is your Redeemer and Brother, according to the flesh. He is not only for Simeon or for Anna, He is “for us men and our salvation.” And though the sign of His Cross is opposed by the devil, the world, and your Old Adam, it is unto you your redemption. For here, where the world and our flesh see death, God has opened for you the eyes of faith to behold His salvation, to gaze upon the Lord’s Christ. This is consolation for the New Testament Israel, His Church.
For she is like Anna, that prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, whose name means, “Face of God.” For in the Christ Child, she beholds the true face of the Lord. And this is no where better seen than in the face of the Man of Sorrows, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rests. Does He not cry out to His God and Father while being crucified, and yield to Him the Spirit?
And Anna is for us a picture of the Church. Simeon is the culmination of Old Testament Israel, but it is Anna who is the New Testament Israel, that is, the Church. For she was given a husband, to whom she was married for seven years, but then told to wait. After his death she was a widow, she had no husband, that is, until Christ came, our true heavenly Bridegroom. If we take the years she was married, seven, and multiply is by that number for the tribes and apostles, twelve, we arrive at 84, her age when she saw the Christ. And she must have been a bit like Hannah, who was in the Temple so often, praying and worshipping, that the priest Eli thought her to be drunk or out of her mind. So too, Anna. She did not depart from the temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day. Upon holding the Christ Child in her arms she gives thanks to God for her redemption and joy. And to speak o Him (that is, Jesus) to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Is this not what you, the Church, are given to do? You receive the Lord’s Christ, He who is your heavenly Bridegroom, in His Word and Spirit, and then you are told to wait. Though you do not wait for His coming, but receive your consolation in that He has already come for you. He has come for you in Bethlehem. He has come for you in His Temple, to do for you according to the Law. He has come for you at Calvary, to pay the penalty of your sin. He has come for you in the resurrection, to bring you, with Him, out of death to life. He will come again in glory to bring you and all the faithful with Him into the eternal dwelling. And so you wait.
And while you wait, He continues to come for you in His Word and promises for the forgiveness of your sins. He comes for you in the fruits of His sacrifice, the meal of the Lamb of God, come to give you Himself. And you come in the way of Simeon and the way of Anna, come to receive Him who bestows on you His righteousness and joy and Spirit. You come by His Spirit as He gathers you together in Himself with one another, your true family, your Christian family, even as He did for Anna and Simeon. And you cry out in prayer, “Abba, Father!”
Your eyes see this revealed in His Word. And your lips confess it. And having received Him you are ready to depart, as Simeon, to die in peace. For your consolation has come. The Babe born in Bethlehem has made you a son and an heir.
In the Name of the Father and of +the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
It is the fifth day of Christmas. Yes, there are twelve. Not twelve for partridges in pear trees and all. But twelve for the number of the Tribes. Twelve for the number of the Apostles. According to the calendar the Christ Child has not yet received His circumcision. That will happen on the eighth day. Yet the reading from St Luke skips us ahead to the fortieth day, the day for the purification of St Mary and the presentation of her first born Son. As it is written in the Law: Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.
And so Joseph and Mary come to the Temple with the appropriate offering: a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, the offering allowed for those who could not afford the required sacrifice: a lamb. And St Luke records this not only to highlight the poverty of the Holy Family or their piety, for he doesn’t even mention the lamb! His silence is an allusion to the fact that Joseph and Mary are indeed offering the true Lamb, the once for all sacrifice for sinners.
For their Child, the Lord’s Christ, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And His own self-sacrifice upon the Cross would cover the sin of His mother and guardian, of Simeon and Anna, of Israel and the Gentiles, of you and me. As St Paul wrote, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law. And already only six weeks old, the true Temple and Lord of the Law, comes to fulfill the Law for you who were held captive as slaves under the edicts and commands, the condemnation of the Law.
(As we will hear this text again on the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which falls on February 2nd, I would have us here focus on Simeon and Anna.)
Now Simeon enters as a lingering character of the Old Testament. Like Zechariah and Elizabeth, like Joseph and Mary, like Joseph of Arimathea, he was righteous and devout, waiting for He who is the hope and comfort of Israel. The One of whom Isaiah spoke; upon whom the Spirit of the Lord shall rest. And this self-same Spirit revealed to Simeon, that is, through the Word, that he would not die before he beheld with his own eyes the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed of the Lord.
And it is written of Simeon that the Holy Spirit was upon him and he came in the Spirit into the Temple. For this is what the Spirit of Christ does - He directs us to Jesus. He fixes our gaze to the Christ and gathers us together around the gifts of the Lord. In other words, the Spirit, who enlivens faith in you by the hearing of the Word, drives you to Church that you may receive the nourishment and comfort of that self-same Word preached for the forgiveness of yours sins. And to be joined together with your brothers and sisters in Christ, bearing one another’s burdens and sharing in each other’s joys.
For only here is the Word proclaimed in mercy and love for your comfort and life. Only here is does the Word made flesh join Himself to the washing with water, bestowing on you the gift of His Holy Spirit and the adoption as sons and heirs. Only here does the Father give to you the food of children, the family meal, the very Body and Blood of His Son into death for the forgiveness of your sins. Only here are you knit together with one another in union of the mystical body of Christ. For here, in His Temple, the Glory of Israel and the Light to the Gentiles is revealed in His Word.
It is not coincidence dear friends that the Church has taken upon her lips for these two thousand years the song of Simeon, the Nunc Dimittis, after receiving Holy Communion. For the Babe that the old man held in his arms is the same One put into your mouths - the Lord’s Christ. He is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed; meaning, this Child is the Chief Stone. He is the Rock of offense. His preaching and His ministry shall lay low the proud and arrogant. As Isaiah said, He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall kill the wicked.
How shall we receive Him of whom Simeon speaks? How shall we meet the One who comes to us in humility in the manger and upon the Cross? In holy fear and trembling. For we who have the promises of the Holy Spirit, like Simeon, given us in His Word, we treat them as mere trifles; believing we can serve the Lord’s Christ with our mouths, yet giving our minds and bodies over to all sorts of idolatry and wickedness. How often have we flaunted the grace of God, assuming that we may sin freely since we have His promised forgiveness. We are weak to resist temptation. We grumble and complain in our hardships and sufferings. By our sins we are rightly cut off from God and enslaved to death and hell.
Repentance is need. Repentance, but not fear of God’s wrath. For in the fullness of time, God has given His Son for your redemption. His gives the Consolation of Israel into the arms of Simeon. This Child is your Redeemer and Brother, according to the flesh. He is not only for Simeon or for Anna, He is “for us men and our salvation.” And though the sign of His Cross is opposed by the devil, the world, and your Old Adam, it is unto you your redemption. For here, where the world and our flesh see death, God has opened for you the eyes of faith to behold His salvation, to gaze upon the Lord’s Christ. This is consolation for the New Testament Israel, His Church.
For she is like Anna, that prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, whose name means, “Face of God.” For in the Christ Child, she beholds the true face of the Lord. And this is no where better seen than in the face of the Man of Sorrows, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rests. Does He not cry out to His God and Father while being crucified, and yield to Him the Spirit?
And Anna is for us a picture of the Church. Simeon is the culmination of Old Testament Israel, but it is Anna who is the New Testament Israel, that is, the Church. For she was given a husband, to whom she was married for seven years, but then told to wait. After his death she was a widow, she had no husband, that is, until Christ came, our true heavenly Bridegroom. If we take the years she was married, seven, and multiply is by that number for the tribes and apostles, twelve, we arrive at 84, her age when she saw the Christ. And she must have been a bit like Hannah, who was in the Temple so often, praying and worshipping, that the priest Eli thought her to be drunk or out of her mind. So too, Anna. She did not depart from the temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day. Upon holding the Christ Child in her arms she gives thanks to God for her redemption and joy. And to speak o Him (that is, Jesus) to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Is this not what you, the Church, are given to do? You receive the Lord’s Christ, He who is your heavenly Bridegroom, in His Word and Spirit, and then you are told to wait. Though you do not wait for His coming, but receive your consolation in that He has already come for you. He has come for you in Bethlehem. He has come for you in His Temple, to do for you according to the Law. He has come for you at Calvary, to pay the penalty of your sin. He has come for you in the resurrection, to bring you, with Him, out of death to life. He will come again in glory to bring you and all the faithful with Him into the eternal dwelling. And so you wait.
And while you wait, He continues to come for you in His Word and promises for the forgiveness of your sins. He comes for you in the fruits of His sacrifice, the meal of the Lamb of God, come to give you Himself. And you come in the way of Simeon and the way of Anna, come to receive Him who bestows on you His righteousness and joy and Spirit. You come by His Spirit as He gathers you together in Himself with one another, your true family, your Christian family, even as He did for Anna and Simeon. And you cry out in prayer, “Abba, Father!”
Your eyes see this revealed in His Word. And your lips confess it. And having received Him you are ready to depart, as Simeon, to die in peace. For your consolation has come. The Babe born in Bethlehem has made you a son and an heir.
In the Name of the Father and of +the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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