Isaiah 11:1-5; Galatians 4:1-7; St Luke 2:22-40
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear people loved by God, “Let us all together praise our God before His glorious throne; today He opens heav’n again to give us His own Son, to give us His own Son” (LSB 389:1). We have celebrated with one accord the great Feast of the Nativity of our Lord, which, in fact, continues for another six days, with the Octave of the Nativity falling on January 1st, the Circumcision and Name of Jesus, and the great capstone of the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th, the thirteenth day of Christmas, as it were. There is indeed much to celebrate. This is why it is a Feast! It cannot be contained in one day.
Though today is the Sixth Day of Christmas, your true Love, our Lord Christ, does not give you geese or rings or any other birds - though St Mary and St Joseph do bring two turtledoves. Rather, He sets before the account of His Presentation in the Temple and the Purification of the Virgin Mary.
Today’s Gospel text transports us to the fortieth day following our Savior’s birth. When, according to the Law of Lord, Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. That is, he shall be set apart for the Lord and an offering made on his behalf in remembrance of the mercy of our Lord God, when on the night of Passover in Egypt, He slaughtered the first born sons of the Egyptians, from Pharaoh down to the servant, but He spared the first born sons of the Israelites, providing a lamb as a substitute, whose blood marked the lintel and doorposts of the Israelite homes.
Already that whole scene pointed forward to Christ, the fulfillment of the prophets. For He is not only the first born Son of Mary and the only-begotten Son of the Father, He is also the Lamb, who serves as a substitute not just for Israel, but for all people. Even more, Christ Jesus is the Great High Priest who now comes to His Temple. He is the fulfillment of the Levites, that priestly class of the Old Testament, whose faithfulness to the Lord in the face of the idolatry of the golden calf, set them apart among all Israel (Ex 32).
Christ Jesus is the Lord of the Law. He gave the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai. He was prefigured in the Passover Lamb, in the Levites, in all the old covenant.
Even more than this, St Mary, who was a virgin when she conceived the Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, remained a virgin during her pregnancy, in the birth of the Christ Child, and after His birth. In other words, she was not unclean as to the law. It may be asked, why then do Mary and Joseph bring the Child Jesus to the Temple at all? He is pure and holy, she is not unclean. Why bother to do this thing?
Quite simply, to do according to what is said in the Law of the Lord. This is what faith does. It rejoices at the gracious gifts of the Lord Most High, the gift of salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ, and lives trusting in His promise of forgiveness of sins and then, in obedience, submits to and delights in the Law of the Lord. As Dr Luther wrote in the Large Catechism: “To state is quite briefly, the Creed teaches us to know [God] fully. This is intended to help us do what we ought to do according to the Ten Commandments” (LC II:1-2).
In faithful piety Mary and Joseph bring the Child to the Temple where they encounter about pious and faithful man and woman: Simeon and Anna. These two Old Testament saints are anxiously waiting for the consolation of Israel, the redemption of Jerusalem, the revealing of the Messiah.
Much like pious and faithful Christians today, Simeon and Anna are out of place and time. They are oddities among their people. The temple-goer laugh them off as drunks or weirdos. Just like folks do to Peter and the Twelve at Pentecost. Just like folks do to you for your faithful observance of Christmas, for your steadfast confession and Christian virtue.
For to the eyes of the world the Holy Family looks like just another poor, Jewish couple coming to perform their vows. They can’t afford a lamb, so they offer the approved substitute, two pigeons. But with the eyes of faith, Simeon, by the grace and Spirit of God, is able to behold in this forty-day-old Baby, the salvation of the Lord. This patriarch steps up, we presume him to be old, but it isn’t made clear, “and with penetrating clarity of discernment, recognizes and praises this Child as the Savior and Light of the World. All emperors, kings, and rulers are mere darkness, but this Child is the Light of the World. All the world is subjugated under death and damnation, but through this Child the world will obtain salvation. This Child, in short, is the One whom the prophets foretold” (Luther, House Postils, vol 1 p154-55).
His spirit-filled sermon causes the Child’s mother and father to wonder at what was said of Him. For it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Taking the Child into his arms, looking into the face of the Infant Jesus, he is privileged to behold what old Job confessed - with his own eyes Simeon looks upon the face of his Redeemer. His heart faints within him. He is ready to depart, that is, to die in the peace and joy bestowed from the Lord His God, according to His Word.
You sing his song after you have beheld the Lord’s Christ in the Holy Supper. Pleased into your hands and into your mouths is the very Body and Blood of the One Simeon held in his arms. In and under the bread and wine, your Lord Jesus Christ, the Child of Mary. He makes your body His Temple, according to His Spirit. And His Father has fulfilled His Word in sending forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, for you have received adoption as sons and heirs.
And you are dismissed, “Die in peace.” And it is true. You may. Our Lord Himself shall indeed give you a blessed end and graciously take you from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven, having bestowed unto you the guarantee of your own resurrection unto eternal life in the death defying, life giving Body and Blood of Christ Jesus. You can die in peace, having received the full and free forgiveness of all of your sins.
Depart means die. But that’s not all it means. Aπολυεις also means to release or set free. The Evangelist uses it often to describe our Lord’s healing and dismissal of those who are sick or oppressed by demons or pardoning others. But even more, St Luke uses απολυο fives times within the account of Jesus before Pilate. The governor wants to release Jesus, to punish Him and set Him free. But the crowds call for the release Barabbas. Finally Pilate agrees and απολυσενs the murderer and terrorist Barabbas.
And this is the joy of which Simeon sings. He is ready to “die in peace,” because he has been freed from death. With the Advent of the Lord’s Christ he has been set free from sin, from a guilty conscience, from the power of the devil, from the accusations of the world; set free from death itself.
For the Child Jesus who was brought to the Temple on the fortieth day, according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, is Himself the Lamb of God who will be offered up in sacrifice according to the Word and will of the Lord His God. He opens heaven to you by the shedding of His own precious blood and by His innocent suffering and death. He has undertaken a great and blessed exchange. He has not only put on your human frame, but taken upon Himself all your sin. That is, Jesus is born under the Law to redeem those who were under the Law. The burden of all the lies, the slander, the deceit and distrust. The load of your disloyalty, your rebellion and lust is all placed on Christ. Simeon holds in his arms the One on whom the weight of the world’s sin is placed.
And yet he is not overcome. Simeon is not brought down, but raised up in Christ Jesus. For in this blessed exchange our Lord Jesus who has taken your sin and guilt and death gives you His righteousness and life and consolation and redemption and peace and hope and joy and love. For this blessed Little One was brought up to Jerusalem and presented to the Lord, not only in the Temple, but once for all upon the Cross. In short He who joined you under the Law, gives to you by faith all His obedience according to the Law. He opens heaven again in His own Son.
For this Branch of Jesse’s tree has judged you in righteousness - a righteousness not your own, but one reckoned to you by faith. And according to His will and Word, dear ones, you bear fruit.
Do you hear it? The theology is in the prepositions - the distinction between Law and Gospel. For you have been set free from under the curse and condemnation of the Law of the Lord. You are adopted as sons, by grace, to now live in the Law. This is what the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ does for you. He sets you free from under the Law to live in the Law. Not to be legalists. Nor to be Pharisees. The Law continues to condemn and crush both of these natural inclinations of our hearts, even as it always accuses.
But in the joy of sins forgiven and the peace of reconciliation brought about by the Blood of the Lamb, you delight in the Law of the Lord according to the new man in Christ Jesus, who lives in you by faith. Thus are you given to live as Simeon: righteous and devout waiting for the consummation of the age. For the Holy Spirit is upon you and within you, according to our Lord’s Word, that you may attend to your calling and vocation according to where our Lord has placed you.
So that as a father or mother you are able to learn from Joseph and Mary to extol the Law of the Lord within your family, to bring your children up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Bring them to His Temple in Holy Baptism; teach them His Word, delight in the Ten Commandments, teach them to pray, to sin, to confess His Name, and bring them to His Holy Communion.
If you are a child submit to your parents, even as Christ did to His mother and Joseph, honoring them according to their god-given vocation and showing them love according to the majesty hidden within them.
If you are married, then live with your husband in peace, until death parts you from him. If you are unmarried or a widow you may likewise learn from the prophetess Anna who was a godly virgin, a godly wife, and then a godly widow. In all three vocations she exercised her fitting works in faith and fear of God.
If you are a young man, or old, know that it is a manly thing to be in Church, to pray and sin, to praise the Lord your God, as Simeon does. It is a manly thing to care for your own family, if you have one; to care for orphans and widows in their distress; to receive the little children our Lord gives with gladness and to behold in them God’s gift of life.
For this is how the Christian grows, beloved, in the strengthening of faith in the exercise of good works according to the Lord’s Word within our vocations. Not as slaves, but as children.
And behold, dear children, here our Father who art in heaven feeds you with the children’s Bread, the very Body and Blood of His own Son, given and shed for your for the forgiveness of all of your sins. This One is your Peace. He has performed everything in fulfillment of the Law. He has grown in wisdom and stature for you. He is strong to save. The grace of God is upon Him and His grace is upon you. In Him you see not death, but the Lord’s Christ, whose Body bears all your sins and bestows forgiveness. Take His Body now into your arms, bless God, depart in peace, and live.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear people loved by God, “Let us all together praise our God before His glorious throne; today He opens heav’n again to give us His own Son, to give us His own Son” (LSB 389:1). We have celebrated with one accord the great Feast of the Nativity of our Lord, which, in fact, continues for another six days, with the Octave of the Nativity falling on January 1st, the Circumcision and Name of Jesus, and the great capstone of the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th, the thirteenth day of Christmas, as it were. There is indeed much to celebrate. This is why it is a Feast! It cannot be contained in one day.
Though today is the Sixth Day of Christmas, your true Love, our Lord Christ, does not give you geese or rings or any other birds - though St Mary and St Joseph do bring two turtledoves. Rather, He sets before the account of His Presentation in the Temple and the Purification of the Virgin Mary.
Today’s Gospel text transports us to the fortieth day following our Savior’s birth. When, according to the Law of Lord, Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. That is, he shall be set apart for the Lord and an offering made on his behalf in remembrance of the mercy of our Lord God, when on the night of Passover in Egypt, He slaughtered the first born sons of the Egyptians, from Pharaoh down to the servant, but He spared the first born sons of the Israelites, providing a lamb as a substitute, whose blood marked the lintel and doorposts of the Israelite homes.
Already that whole scene pointed forward to Christ, the fulfillment of the prophets. For He is not only the first born Son of Mary and the only-begotten Son of the Father, He is also the Lamb, who serves as a substitute not just for Israel, but for all people. Even more, Christ Jesus is the Great High Priest who now comes to His Temple. He is the fulfillment of the Levites, that priestly class of the Old Testament, whose faithfulness to the Lord in the face of the idolatry of the golden calf, set them apart among all Israel (Ex 32).
Christ Jesus is the Lord of the Law. He gave the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai. He was prefigured in the Passover Lamb, in the Levites, in all the old covenant.
Even more than this, St Mary, who was a virgin when she conceived the Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, remained a virgin during her pregnancy, in the birth of the Christ Child, and after His birth. In other words, she was not unclean as to the law. It may be asked, why then do Mary and Joseph bring the Child Jesus to the Temple at all? He is pure and holy, she is not unclean. Why bother to do this thing?
Quite simply, to do according to what is said in the Law of the Lord. This is what faith does. It rejoices at the gracious gifts of the Lord Most High, the gift of salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ, and lives trusting in His promise of forgiveness of sins and then, in obedience, submits to and delights in the Law of the Lord. As Dr Luther wrote in the Large Catechism: “To state is quite briefly, the Creed teaches us to know [God] fully. This is intended to help us do what we ought to do according to the Ten Commandments” (LC II:1-2).
In faithful piety Mary and Joseph bring the Child to the Temple where they encounter about pious and faithful man and woman: Simeon and Anna. These two Old Testament saints are anxiously waiting for the consolation of Israel, the redemption of Jerusalem, the revealing of the Messiah.
Much like pious and faithful Christians today, Simeon and Anna are out of place and time. They are oddities among their people. The temple-goer laugh them off as drunks or weirdos. Just like folks do to Peter and the Twelve at Pentecost. Just like folks do to you for your faithful observance of Christmas, for your steadfast confession and Christian virtue.
For to the eyes of the world the Holy Family looks like just another poor, Jewish couple coming to perform their vows. They can’t afford a lamb, so they offer the approved substitute, two pigeons. But with the eyes of faith, Simeon, by the grace and Spirit of God, is able to behold in this forty-day-old Baby, the salvation of the Lord. This patriarch steps up, we presume him to be old, but it isn’t made clear, “and with penetrating clarity of discernment, recognizes and praises this Child as the Savior and Light of the World. All emperors, kings, and rulers are mere darkness, but this Child is the Light of the World. All the world is subjugated under death and damnation, but through this Child the world will obtain salvation. This Child, in short, is the One whom the prophets foretold” (Luther, House Postils, vol 1 p154-55).
His spirit-filled sermon causes the Child’s mother and father to wonder at what was said of Him. For it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Taking the Child into his arms, looking into the face of the Infant Jesus, he is privileged to behold what old Job confessed - with his own eyes Simeon looks upon the face of his Redeemer. His heart faints within him. He is ready to depart, that is, to die in the peace and joy bestowed from the Lord His God, according to His Word.
You sing his song after you have beheld the Lord’s Christ in the Holy Supper. Pleased into your hands and into your mouths is the very Body and Blood of the One Simeon held in his arms. In and under the bread and wine, your Lord Jesus Christ, the Child of Mary. He makes your body His Temple, according to His Spirit. And His Father has fulfilled His Word in sending forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, for you have received adoption as sons and heirs.
And you are dismissed, “Die in peace.” And it is true. You may. Our Lord Himself shall indeed give you a blessed end and graciously take you from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven, having bestowed unto you the guarantee of your own resurrection unto eternal life in the death defying, life giving Body and Blood of Christ Jesus. You can die in peace, having received the full and free forgiveness of all of your sins.
Depart means die. But that’s not all it means. Aπολυεις also means to release or set free. The Evangelist uses it often to describe our Lord’s healing and dismissal of those who are sick or oppressed by demons or pardoning others. But even more, St Luke uses απολυο fives times within the account of Jesus before Pilate. The governor wants to release Jesus, to punish Him and set Him free. But the crowds call for the release Barabbas. Finally Pilate agrees and απολυσενs the murderer and terrorist Barabbas.
And this is the joy of which Simeon sings. He is ready to “die in peace,” because he has been freed from death. With the Advent of the Lord’s Christ he has been set free from sin, from a guilty conscience, from the power of the devil, from the accusations of the world; set free from death itself.
For the Child Jesus who was brought to the Temple on the fortieth day, according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, is Himself the Lamb of God who will be offered up in sacrifice according to the Word and will of the Lord His God. He opens heaven to you by the shedding of His own precious blood and by His innocent suffering and death. He has undertaken a great and blessed exchange. He has not only put on your human frame, but taken upon Himself all your sin. That is, Jesus is born under the Law to redeem those who were under the Law. The burden of all the lies, the slander, the deceit and distrust. The load of your disloyalty, your rebellion and lust is all placed on Christ. Simeon holds in his arms the One on whom the weight of the world’s sin is placed.
And yet he is not overcome. Simeon is not brought down, but raised up in Christ Jesus. For in this blessed exchange our Lord Jesus who has taken your sin and guilt and death gives you His righteousness and life and consolation and redemption and peace and hope and joy and love. For this blessed Little One was brought up to Jerusalem and presented to the Lord, not only in the Temple, but once for all upon the Cross. In short He who joined you under the Law, gives to you by faith all His obedience according to the Law. He opens heaven again in His own Son.
For this Branch of Jesse’s tree has judged you in righteousness - a righteousness not your own, but one reckoned to you by faith. And according to His will and Word, dear ones, you bear fruit.
Do you hear it? The theology is in the prepositions - the distinction between Law and Gospel. For you have been set free from under the curse and condemnation of the Law of the Lord. You are adopted as sons, by grace, to now live in the Law. This is what the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ does for you. He sets you free from under the Law to live in the Law. Not to be legalists. Nor to be Pharisees. The Law continues to condemn and crush both of these natural inclinations of our hearts, even as it always accuses.
But in the joy of sins forgiven and the peace of reconciliation brought about by the Blood of the Lamb, you delight in the Law of the Lord according to the new man in Christ Jesus, who lives in you by faith. Thus are you given to live as Simeon: righteous and devout waiting for the consummation of the age. For the Holy Spirit is upon you and within you, according to our Lord’s Word, that you may attend to your calling and vocation according to where our Lord has placed you.
So that as a father or mother you are able to learn from Joseph and Mary to extol the Law of the Lord within your family, to bring your children up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Bring them to His Temple in Holy Baptism; teach them His Word, delight in the Ten Commandments, teach them to pray, to sin, to confess His Name, and bring them to His Holy Communion.
If you are a child submit to your parents, even as Christ did to His mother and Joseph, honoring them according to their god-given vocation and showing them love according to the majesty hidden within them.
If you are married, then live with your husband in peace, until death parts you from him. If you are unmarried or a widow you may likewise learn from the prophetess Anna who was a godly virgin, a godly wife, and then a godly widow. In all three vocations she exercised her fitting works in faith and fear of God.
If you are a young man, or old, know that it is a manly thing to be in Church, to pray and sin, to praise the Lord your God, as Simeon does. It is a manly thing to care for your own family, if you have one; to care for orphans and widows in their distress; to receive the little children our Lord gives with gladness and to behold in them God’s gift of life.
For this is how the Christian grows, beloved, in the strengthening of faith in the exercise of good works according to the Lord’s Word within our vocations. Not as slaves, but as children.
And behold, dear children, here our Father who art in heaven feeds you with the children’s Bread, the very Body and Blood of His own Son, given and shed for your for the forgiveness of all of your sins. This One is your Peace. He has performed everything in fulfillment of the Law. He has grown in wisdom and stature for you. He is strong to save. The grace of God is upon Him and His grace is upon you. In Him you see not death, but the Lord’s Christ, whose Body bears all your sins and bestows forgiveness. Take His Body now into your arms, bless God, depart in peace, and live.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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