2 Samuel 7:1-16; Galatians 4:1-7; St Luke 2:22-40
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The promises of God are always sure and certain. They always direct you to His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God is one great promise after another. From the first one where the Lord said He would cause the woman’s Seed to crush the serpent’s head all the way to the promise of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, the Father speaks all these promises through His Son.
And God the Father always keeps the promises He makes in His Son Jesus Christ. Always. He never fails. He promised to send His Son, born of a virgin in Bethlehem to be the Christ. He would be a shoot from Jesse, from the line of David. His kingdom would have no end.
When the little Baby laid in the manger grew a bit older He would be worshipped by the Gentiles as was promises, be taken to Egypt as was promised. Then, when He was older still, He would be called a Nazarene, as was promised. All so that He would be stricken, smitten, and afflicted for you, as was promised.
As your Lord and Christ Himself promised He was crucified, men pierced His hands and His feet, cast lots for His clothing. He died, pouring out His life as a ransom for many. Because not only does your Father in heaven make promises to you, but your Lord Jesus Christ makes promises too. The Scripture testifies to this! Our Lord said, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms, must be fulfilled.” Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24:44-49).
The Holy Spirit has recorded for you the promises of God in the Sacred Scriptures. Nothing has been left out. Nothing forgotten. What God has said he would do for you, then or now, He has done and still does. Nothing forgotten. Not one thing. But how difficult, no, how impossible, it is for you to believe these things. How hard to watch and wait.
That is exactly what Simeon had to do. Watch and wait. How long? As the psalms cry out, How long, O Lord? Holy Tradition says around 200 years! God had spoken to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he saw the Lord’s Christ. How long had he waited? He received a promise, but he had not seen it fulfilled. Have you had that? Waiting, watching, praying.
He was hoping for a consolation, the comfort that God said He would give. Not only for himself alone, but to His people Israel, and even light to the Gentiles. He had the promise. But it was a comfort they had not yet received, because God has not sent His Son. But Simeon was told that he would not die until he saw this promise fulfilled with his own eyes. But eyes get dim and tired. What you have heard can fade. That is the way it is with you, watching and waiting.
Simeon heard a promise but once. You who are baptized have heard the promises of God in Christ Jesus so many times! But the frailty and weakness of the flesh work constantly work against you. The Old Adam rejects them for other things. What St Paul, in writing to the Galatians calls the elementary principles of this world. The created things. Things seen. Known by experience. Trading in the promises of god for the pleasures of the flesh, for the security of things seen is exactly what Adam did - the fruit was pleasing to the eye - and it is what you do too. All the time.
God has granted you every promise in His Son. In Him, Jesus Christ, they are all Yes and Amen (2 Cor 1:20). But in you and by the Old Adam, you say No. “I’ll trust in what I can see, what I know. Myself. My ability. My ideas. My false gods that I hold onto on the inside. Or even along with Jesus so that I’ll have some security in this world.” No, dear Christians, you may not do that. You shall have no other gods. And the folly of your sin is the you don’t see clearly how you have other gods right alongside the true One.
So you come to Church on Christmas to worship a Baby Boy and then you gave away as stocking stuffers lottery scratch offs. You received the Body and Blood of Christ and then lusted after the body of someone who is not your spouse. You were cleansed in the robe of Christ’s righteousness in your Holy Baptism, yet you pollute your mind with the filth that HBO and even Netflix offers as fun and entertainment.
Why? Because you think you can. You think you can get away with it and so much more. Why? Because you don’t really believe the promise of God that He will send His Son as your Judge. You think that the promise of the Gospel is a big ticket to freedom to sin, not freedom from sin.
The promises to you don’t have any real punch when they are need, because you haven’t seen anyone get up out of the grave. You haven’t seen God come down to deal with what you need dealing with on your time, at your beckoning, when you say.
But thanks be to God that He deals with you not according to your whims or way or time. Neither does He deals with you according to the way you deserve. He deals with you according to His promise, in His Son. For as you heard, 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 adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
The promise of God for you this day is that the consolation you need, the comfort you seek, the peace you long for, everything you need, was seen by Simeon. He held every promise God ever made in arms. But it didn’t look like it! No one could see that. Mary and Joseph marveled at what was said of Him. He will only be received and seen now through faith in His promises.
To see the Baby in the manger, then in the arms of Simeon, then a Man on the Cross, would be to see what looked like every other baby born, a newborn in the Temple, and every other wretched crucified man. But the promise of God is that He is the Lord’s Christ! In the fullness of time, when it was just right, according to the Father’s way of working by promise, He sent His dearly beloved Son to be treated not as an Heir, nor as a Son, but as a sinner. The Sinner. To be brutally killed for your sins. To be judged in the way you should be, as the idolator, gossip, liar, adulterer.
All so that you would have His place. So that you are seen by the Father as being in the very place of His Son Jesus Christ. With the status and place as the heir of all things.
This is the real consolation you have. The true comfort and peace. That by the forgiveness of your sins, by the redemption of Israel and the Light of the Gentiles, you stand before God as His own Son. For that is what you are. A son of God through faith in Christ Jesus your Lord. And an heir of all things according to God’s promise.
And so it is no accident or artistic license of the Church to sing what Simeon sand when He saw and half Jesus. All the promises of God were wrapped up in the seeing by faith the Lord’s Christ; that Baby Simeon held in his arms.
And for you all the promises of God are wrapped up in and under bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Christ, given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins. So you depart in peace. You could die on the way home, or even here in the pew. For you have every promise given, every Word sure, every Amen confident. For here you see the Lord’s Christ wrapped up in promises. Every Word fulfilled. Everlasting life. Forgiveness of sins. Eternal salvation. Consolation in sorrow. A Light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of Israel. Jesus Christ. The very promise of God. Yours.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The promises of God are always sure and certain. They always direct you to His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God is one great promise after another. From the first one where the Lord said He would cause the woman’s Seed to crush the serpent’s head all the way to the promise of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, the Father speaks all these promises through His Son.
And God the Father always keeps the promises He makes in His Son Jesus Christ. Always. He never fails. He promised to send His Son, born of a virgin in Bethlehem to be the Christ. He would be a shoot from Jesse, from the line of David. His kingdom would have no end.
When the little Baby laid in the manger grew a bit older He would be worshipped by the Gentiles as was promises, be taken to Egypt as was promised. Then, when He was older still, He would be called a Nazarene, as was promised. All so that He would be stricken, smitten, and afflicted for you, as was promised.
As your Lord and Christ Himself promised He was crucified, men pierced His hands and His feet, cast lots for His clothing. He died, pouring out His life as a ransom for many. Because not only does your Father in heaven make promises to you, but your Lord Jesus Christ makes promises too. The Scripture testifies to this! Our Lord said, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms, must be fulfilled.” Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24:44-49).
The Holy Spirit has recorded for you the promises of God in the Sacred Scriptures. Nothing has been left out. Nothing forgotten. What God has said he would do for you, then or now, He has done and still does. Nothing forgotten. Not one thing. But how difficult, no, how impossible, it is for you to believe these things. How hard to watch and wait.
That is exactly what Simeon had to do. Watch and wait. How long? As the psalms cry out, How long, O Lord? Holy Tradition says around 200 years! God had spoken to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he saw the Lord’s Christ. How long had he waited? He received a promise, but he had not seen it fulfilled. Have you had that? Waiting, watching, praying.
He was hoping for a consolation, the comfort that God said He would give. Not only for himself alone, but to His people Israel, and even light to the Gentiles. He had the promise. But it was a comfort they had not yet received, because God has not sent His Son. But Simeon was told that he would not die until he saw this promise fulfilled with his own eyes. But eyes get dim and tired. What you have heard can fade. That is the way it is with you, watching and waiting.
Simeon heard a promise but once. You who are baptized have heard the promises of God in Christ Jesus so many times! But the frailty and weakness of the flesh work constantly work against you. The Old Adam rejects them for other things. What St Paul, in writing to the Galatians calls the elementary principles of this world. The created things. Things seen. Known by experience. Trading in the promises of god for the pleasures of the flesh, for the security of things seen is exactly what Adam did - the fruit was pleasing to the eye - and it is what you do too. All the time.
God has granted you every promise in His Son. In Him, Jesus Christ, they are all Yes and Amen (2 Cor 1:20). But in you and by the Old Adam, you say No. “I’ll trust in what I can see, what I know. Myself. My ability. My ideas. My false gods that I hold onto on the inside. Or even along with Jesus so that I’ll have some security in this world.” No, dear Christians, you may not do that. You shall have no other gods. And the folly of your sin is the you don’t see clearly how you have other gods right alongside the true One.
So you come to Church on Christmas to worship a Baby Boy and then you gave away as stocking stuffers lottery scratch offs. You received the Body and Blood of Christ and then lusted after the body of someone who is not your spouse. You were cleansed in the robe of Christ’s righteousness in your Holy Baptism, yet you pollute your mind with the filth that HBO and even Netflix offers as fun and entertainment.
Why? Because you think you can. You think you can get away with it and so much more. Why? Because you don’t really believe the promise of God that He will send His Son as your Judge. You think that the promise of the Gospel is a big ticket to freedom to sin, not freedom from sin.
The promises to you don’t have any real punch when they are need, because you haven’t seen anyone get up out of the grave. You haven’t seen God come down to deal with what you need dealing with on your time, at your beckoning, when you say.
But thanks be to God that He deals with you not according to your whims or way or time. Neither does He deals with you according to the way you deserve. He deals with you according to His promise, in His Son. For as you heard, 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 adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
The promise of God for you this day is that the consolation you need, the comfort you seek, the peace you long for, everything you need, was seen by Simeon. He held every promise God ever made in arms. But it didn’t look like it! No one could see that. Mary and Joseph marveled at what was said of Him. He will only be received and seen now through faith in His promises.
To see the Baby in the manger, then in the arms of Simeon, then a Man on the Cross, would be to see what looked like every other baby born, a newborn in the Temple, and every other wretched crucified man. But the promise of God is that He is the Lord’s Christ! In the fullness of time, when it was just right, according to the Father’s way of working by promise, He sent His dearly beloved Son to be treated not as an Heir, nor as a Son, but as a sinner. The Sinner. To be brutally killed for your sins. To be judged in the way you should be, as the idolator, gossip, liar, adulterer.
All so that you would have His place. So that you are seen by the Father as being in the very place of His Son Jesus Christ. With the status and place as the heir of all things.
This is the real consolation you have. The true comfort and peace. That by the forgiveness of your sins, by the redemption of Israel and the Light of the Gentiles, you stand before God as His own Son. For that is what you are. A son of God through faith in Christ Jesus your Lord. And an heir of all things according to God’s promise.
And so it is no accident or artistic license of the Church to sing what Simeon sand when He saw and half Jesus. All the promises of God were wrapped up in the seeing by faith the Lord’s Christ; that Baby Simeon held in his arms.
And for you all the promises of God are wrapped up in and under bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Christ, given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins. So you depart in peace. You could die on the way home, or even here in the pew. For you have every promise given, every Word sure, every Amen confident. For here you see the Lord’s Christ wrapped up in promises. Every Word fulfilled. Everlasting life. Forgiveness of sins. Eternal salvation. Consolation in sorrow. A Light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of Israel. Jesus Christ. The very promise of God. Yours.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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