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From Glorious to Glorious Light: The Glory FOR All – a sermon on Luke 2:22-32
The Glory FOR ALL!
Luke 2:22-32
† In Jesus’s Name †
May the grace, mercy and peace of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be reflected through you, lighting up the lives of those captive in the darkness!
Intro – Uhmm –WHAT DID HE SAY?
This morning, I came across the words of a pastor/theologian that were so concerning, and so contrary to the very gospel reading this morning that I had to adapt, almost re-write the sermon to contain them.
He wrote,” If people don’t like the idea that we are supposed to perform acts of love more for some people than others, just wait until they find out that God loves some people more than others”(Fr. Mike Totleben on Twitter, 1/31)
I want you to think about that for a moment, what he is accusing God of, that God plays favorites, and therefore, we should as well.
He would later go on to determine who he thought God should love more, which was disappointing, because it wasn’t about helping the least of these, but rather helping the people who were just like us.
In view of Simeon’s words, in view of Jesus’s words about being there for the hungry, thirsty, stranger-(that is the word for an outsider, with different cultures, languages etc), the naked, sick and imprisoned at the judgment day, I am in shock at the pastor’s words. And what about Jesus’s and the Apostle Paul’s words about loving our enemies, and adversaries?
But it gets to the heart of today’s message – which is how we see Jesus and His kingdom. And how that imprints how we live, and think.
What Do We Want the Messiah to Be?
If it wasn’t for the presence of the Holy Spirit guiding Simeon, I think he would have been gravely disappointed that day in the Temple. All his life, and a very long one by the averages, he had been told he would see the arrival of the Messiah, the hope of Israel, the Savior of the nation. That morning, as he is walking with the Holy Spirit, he is told, “today’s the day!”
I imagine, that if he wasn’t filled with the Holy Spirit, he would be looking for a mighty warrior priest, surrounded by 10,000 holy warriors, all doing their best imitation of Chuck Norris!
But he looks around, and the Holy Spirit says, there! And he looks and again, “there!” and he’s shaking his head, for all that was there was a couple with a tiny infant…all exhausted from an 10 mile hike up hill, that morning
Uhm – “God—are you sure?”
Israel had expected a savior! One who would save them—not only from the Romans, but from the powers that be within their people. The Pharisees expected a Pharisee Messiah, the Sadducees, one of their own, the Herodians didn’t care where the Messiah came from, as long as he would work with the Romans, and the Zealots and Essenes had their visions of the Messiah, made in their own image as well.
I don’t think we are any better today. We expect Jesus to be like us… not in appearance, that would be disappointing, even horrifying in my case. But with our views, with our judgements, who loves only those we love, and hates all those who aren’t like us. And who would only help those people like us, that we approve of..
We might not say it that bluntly, but we do play those kinds of games –choosing our own favorites, and expecting God to only bless them, and therefore, we only have to help…them.
And let me be blunt, assuming we know who God loves and doesn’t love, and narrowing our ministry to only them… is sin.
And we need to change…
The Hope of Simeon
The great thing in this passage is that Simeon isn’t speaking as himself, full of the Holy Spirit, he is rejoicing in the fulfillment of the promise—that this baby would change everything…far more than anyone could ever dream… well unless he was a prophet!
30 I have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared for all people. 32 He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!” Luke 2:30-32 (NLT2)
All People, to the Nations – the myriad of ethnicities, the people of Israel—the equivalent to people like us…
All people – sharing in the light and the glory—
By the way, I need to note that Simeon’s words are simply Old Testament passages—in fact 5 times in Isaiah the idea of the Messiah being a light to the Gentiles is covered!
God’s glorious love, enveloping people like us, and people we don’t think are like us. People who are completely compatible to us, and those that tick us off and drive us crazy.
That is who Jesus came to save—not just the “favorites” but all people. We don’t get to pick and choose, for God so loved the world that He gave…
To us, for there is two things everyone in this world, and everyone in history can be defined by.
The first is that we are sinners, that we’ve rebelled and disobeyed God. We are pretty good at defining who some sinners are…but we all are sinners in need of deliverance.
The second is that Jesus came into this world to be our Savior. To save us all from the sin that ensnares us.. all.
So that He could be our light and our glory, and love.
Let’s pray for His peace to be given to all He loves. The peace that comes with being delivered, being saved, that comes from dwelling in Jesus. AMEN!
Christmas Awe… is it completely lost?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
15 When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” 16 They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. 17 After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. 18 All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, 19 but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. 20 The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them. Luke 2:15-20 (NLT)
14 All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). Isaiah 7:14 (NLT)
All along, in pursuing this very notion in all its consequences, we will realize that, underneath the trivialized display of happiness about the God who became a child, there towers one of the great Christian concepts, which in fact leads us to the innermost core of the mystery of Christmas. This consists, after all, in the paradox that God’s glory would not be manifested in the triumphal procession of an emperor whose might conquers the world but in the misery of a Child who, ignored by society’s great, is born in a stable. The helplessness of a child has become the most genuine expression of God’s almighty power, which employs no other force than the quiet might of truth and love. In the unprotected helplessness of a child we were to encounter God’s saving kindness first of all.
I only remember one midnight Christmas mass as a child, but it had a definite impact on me.
This was what Christmas was about. Later years would be filled with trips to my Grandfather’s house, and then my dad’s sister might come to ours. Christmas Day was just my folks, my brother and sister and I. We were filled with awe by the things we recived, cassette tape recorders, and games and a toboggan!
The decorations were there, and the manger scene sitting in the big bay window. or perhaps on the ancient sewing machine that doubled as a desk.
But the awe wasn’t about the greatest gift, the child in the manger. The awe isn’t at the love of God, revealed not to presidents and kings, movie stars and professional athletes. But too simple shepherds, who in awe (and not a little fear) realized the blessing they had seen.
Simeon a few days later would realize that all his life was centered in the moment he held Jesus. For in that moment, not only did Simeon see his own salvation, but the hope for all the world,
THe hope that would bring darkness to an end for gentiles, and show Israel again the glory of God their anscestors saw and counted upon.
Simeon saw this, as did the shepherds in the fields. Yes, it was revealed to them, even as it is to us. They saw it, as Benedict XVI pointed out, in the unprotected helplessness of a child. In the humble manger, in the poverty of Bethelem, not the neighboring riches of Jerusalem.
We need to find a way to be in awe of that moment IMMANUEL – GOD IS WITH US, and the moment years later, when the baby, now a man, would hang on the cross, when IMMANUEL would once again be seen as helpless, and yet all the power of God was there, as the Father poured out every bit of wrath our sin deserves, on Jesus, the one annointed to prove God’s love for us.
We can find the awe again, as we kneel, and receive His helpless Body and Blood in the Eucharist, in the Lord’s Supper. We can find it as we realize that God is still with us, the promise God gave us, as His Spirit was given to us in our Baptism….and as we hear our sins forgiven, and our being given access to the place where awe begins.
In the presence of God.
IMMANUEL! God with us…us!
The Christ, Jesus. The chosen and set aside One who is God’s salvation.
We are in His presence… rejoice in that thought. For this is what should cause the awe… that we need.
Ratzinger, J. (1992). Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. (I. Grassl, Ed., M. F. McCarthy & L. Krauth, Trans.) (pp. 396–397). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
