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Christmas Sunday Sermon: “I Have Seen!” (Growing past weariness)
I Have Seen!
Luke 2:22-40
† Jesus, Son, Savior †
I pray for you this, on this third day of Christmas. That you would know the awe, the joy, the wonder on the 8th day of Christmas, that Simeon and Anna knew… and that you would never forget this joy of seeing God’s salvation for all people!
How tired, how weary, and this strange man
It was a cold day when they woke up, and Joseph packed up all they had. We think he had a donkey, but who can be sure? We do know that they were among the poorest of the poor, so it is possible they had to carry all they had.
Even so, the mother of the Messiah, seven days after giving birth picked him up, and with her husband set out on a six to seven-mile hike. A hike that would climb 2000 feet in elevation, as they went through olive groves and past military outposts.
Al, how many of us could walk from here to your house? That would be a little farther, but not as strenuous of a climb! Seven days after giving birth. They were still weary from the long trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Deacon Bob asked a question in our preparation that I couldn’t answer. Would it be easier for Mary to hike that distance, or ride a donkey, considering she just gave birth. I have no idea…..neither sounds like an easy trip!
They had no choice to take either journey. The first was mandated by the laws of men. The journey on this day mandated by the laws of God.
The good thing was that they were in Bethlehem, and not Jericho.
As they finally climb the temple mount, weary and tired from the three to four-hour journey, a very old man wanders over to them, with a huge smile, mumbling praise God! Praise God! He looks down at Jesus and gently takes Him from Mary, crying out to someone(?), I see! I see!
I wonder what they thought when he broke into song????
How would you feel, if you someone handed to you Jesus, the Messiah?
What would it be like to hold Jesus, the one who would die for your sin? Not sure of that perhaps, but knowing the hope for all humanity was there… in your hands?
That is what Simeon experienced…
How tired and weary are we?
Do we manage the things God desires?
What if Mary and Joseph didn’t?
The apostle Paul once wrote,
9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. 10 Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith. Galatians 6:9-10 (NLT)
Somehow, Mary and Joseph found the strength to make it to Jerusalem, to have Jesus circumcised, to offer the sacrifices that it took, for Him to be considered righteous. I mean, what would have happened if they had said – well the roads will be too rough, Mary needs another week in bed, we can go to the temple any time? Or the temple opens too early, or tool late, or we don’t like the long lines. I could even imagine Joseph saying, Mary, if you don’t stop trying to give me directions we are just going to head home! If they didn’t complete the journey, if the offerings and circumcision hadn’t happened, then he would not be righteous, and he couldn’t have died for us.
My friends weariness is not a valid reason for you or I to sin. To fail to do the good that God commissioned fro us to do. To say a mean word because we are tired and irritable is as much a sin as the lies and gossip we know are forbidden. Failing to help someone because they drain what energy we have left is just like stealing from them, or even murdering them. Sin is sin, whether we feel like we are Abraham’s age, or William’s.
That’s why Paul encourages us not to grow weary, not to stop doing what God has prepared for us.
it’s hard you say. I agree.
But so was a virgin and her husband, who had given birth a week before – making the trek to the temple.
I have seen!
As they come to the temple, they meet two people have known weariness. They have spent their lives in prayer, and in ministering to others. We hear of their devotion, their faithfulness, their righteousness, Both are guided by the Holy Spirit, even as we are. And despite their age, they serve God with willingness and great desire. And both are older, much older.
Simeon, the one guided by the Holy Spirit that day, who was told that this baby, this newborn, was the one who would make us born again.
He had seen it, what he had been waiting for all of His life, why he spent that life eagerly awaiting for the Messiah to appear. So assured by the Holy Spirit that all he had to see was the baby, to hold him.
The nunc dimitis. Our completion, there in his hands.
This baby would reveal God to every nation, it was the reason God had chosen this small nation of Israel and protected and guided it. This child who would be a great joy to many, the One, who would reveal all our deepest thoughts, and cleanse us anyway.
As God had promised, our salvation revealed!
Our salvation, there in Simeon’s hands.
The other person, whose weariness would fade was a 84-year-old woman who had spent 64 years waiting for that day. For sixty-four years and more, she would fast and pray, that God would save His people. As Simeon noted, not just Israel, but all of His people. And so He did! She told everyone there, everyone who was waiting for the Messiah.
He’s here! Simeon is holding Him!
How much the weariness would disappear from their old bones. How much the joy of knowing God had kept His promise.
As we gather at the rail this morning, as we are given the Body and Blood of Christ, Take a moment…and think about what you have been given. For we too see our salvation, we see God revealed to us, we are brought into His glory.
Find the peace that chases away the weariness, the love which embraces you, the joy of Christ’s gathering us to Himself…and sharing Himself with us.
And rejoice, for He is with you!
The Great Apocalypse in upon us!
Devotional/Discussion thought of this day:
50 Jesus again gave a loud cry and breathed his last. 51 Then the curtain hanging in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split apart, 52 the graves broke open, and many of God’s people who had died were raised to life. Matthew 27:50-52 (TEV)
In the midst of the most horrifyingly beautiful scene in all of scripture, as Jesus dies, crucified as he takes upon Himself all of the sin, all of the injustice, all that is wrong in you and I, and all of humanity, Matthew gives us one odd detail.
A curtain is torn in two, ripped apart in the temple.
And to those gathered in this Holy Place, what is behind the curtain is revealed. It is unveiled. It is an apocalypse – the unveiling, the revealing.
We fear that word for some reason, but what it means is simply that – the revealing, in this case, what is behind the curtain. And the answer was nothing. There was no ark of the covenant, no mercy seat, just an empty room, where blood people counted on to cover their sins, was poured down the drain. Their sacrifices were revealed to be vain, and for those who trusted in their offerings, in the work of the priests who knew the truth, all of the empty liturgy that they took such pride in, and in the temple built to Herod’s glory, they realized their faith was misplaced.
But their cries for mercy, their prayers were answered, none the less.
For there was something else revealed – a few miles away, on another mountain, not just a apocalypse, but the Apocalypse, the power that caused the earth to shake, the rocks split apart – and God’s people who had died to rise.
God was revealed in all of His glory, the depth of His love for us unveiled, the greatest apocalypse man had ever known, even though they didn’t recognize it.
For it was God there, on the cross, Jesus the one annointed, chosen, humbled, crucified, for the joy that awaited Him, the love so manifested so overwhelming. He would die, for us, so that we would never be bound by sin, so that we would become the children of God, the prodigals returned home. For that apocalypse, that revealing of the love of God, was described in another place,
12 Because we have this hope, we are very bold. 13 We are not like Moses, who had to put a veil over his face so that the people of Israel would not see the brightness fade and disappear. 14 Their minds, indeed, were closed; and to this very day their minds are covered with the same veil as they read the books of the old covenant. The veil is removed only when a person is joined to Christ. 15 Even today, whenever they read the Law of Moses, the veil still covers their minds. 16 But it can be removed, as the scripture says about Moses: “His veil was removed when he turned to the Lord.” 17 Now, “the Lord” in this passage is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom. 18 All of us, then, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into his likeness in an ever greater degree of glory. 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 (TEV)
The veil that was torn in two, the veiled that was removed unveiling Christ, unveiling His Love, Unveiling His Grace…
He Has Risen, and we with Him…
Let’s Boldly go – as our Savior has gone!
