And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the time came for their purification, according to the law of Moses, They brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as it is written in the law of the Lord. Every male who first opens the womb should be called holy to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord. A pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon and this man was righteous and devout waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents had brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the customs of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.’ And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed him and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is a pointer for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was 84. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day, and coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Israel, of Jerusalem. And when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated.

Join me in a word of prayer before we hear the preaching of the word. Let’s pray. Our Heavenly Father, we come again before you. We’re humbled in your presence. Lord, we pray that you would give us a continual posture of reception and humility and faith before you. and before your word. Lord, we confess that this is your word. As you have decreed that it be breathed out and that it be preserved, and Lord, we pray for the reception of this word and pray that we would hear our Savior, Lord, even as his word is spoken. And so, Lord, we pray, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our rock and our redeemer. Lord, we need your help, Lord, we want to Come away from this, Lord, being refreshed and knowing that we indeed are your people and that you, for certain, are our God. Lord, we pray, be with us. We ask it all in Christ’s name, and all God’s people said, amen. Amen.

When we started the series through the Advent or the Incarnation songs a number of weeks ago, remembering that the Holy Spirit himself sang before us. We follow the glorious and blessed model of our comforter, our helper, our paraclete, the Holy Spirit. And so this profusion of song and hymn in Luke’s infancy Gospels is not accidental. If there is an abundance of singing in Luke 1 and Luke chapter 2, surely something remarkable is happening. As I mentioned, this outpouring of song in Luke’s opening chapters are a poetic marker of a huge shift, a mega shift, a turning point in history. We can look again, we can’t look again at all of the details of that, but remember that those songs mark something, something remarkable, something monumental, something amazing is going on. Luke’s infancy hymns are hymns of fulfillment, of fulfillment. God’s promises are being accomplished in this Christ child, in this child Jesus. Creation promise, covenant promises, Exodus promises, Davidic promises, wedding promises, right? Now in Christ are new creation, new covenant, new Exodus, a new David, and in him a new heavenly wedding banquet is fulfilled. The amazing thing happening, according to Luke’s infancy hymns, is that God’s son has come to incarnate not only human flesh, but he’s come to incarnate those promises given. And in the span of his life, all of the promises of the former age are lived, embodied, and incarnated. And the incarnation of the person of God’s son is the incarnation of the history of God’s promises. And this child’s fulfillment of those promises means what? That they are once and for all accomplished for us, his people, as we belong to him. The promises of God, we read, are yes and amen in this child, and they are yes and amen in us, who belong to this child. Luke is writing to us in song, songs of fulfillment of God’s promises through his infant son, Jesus Christ. And so as you sing these songs, you sing that that amazing shift from promise to fulfillment belongs to you in Christ Jesus, right? Mary’s song is your song. Zachariah’s words are your song. The angel’s words are your song. In Christ, you now sing the hymns of your infant Lord, who is also the Lord of Good Friday and the Lord of Resurrection Sunday, ascended and seated at the right hand of the Father. But what of Simeon? What of aged Simeon, patient, long-suffering Simeon? What of Simeon and his song? He sings his song 40 days after the birth of the child he holds in his arms. And what does he sing? What’s he singing? He says, now, now I can leave. What we all came here for is done, it’s accomplished. We can go in peace, just like it was supposed to be all along. For our eyes have seen Jesus, our eyes have seen salvation. And that’s what Jesus means, of course. The Lord in heaven has brought that salvation down to earth at this moment in an appointed way, and we have seen the glory of God’s people. The gospel promise is manifested in time and space, in history, in Jesus. Salvation has been fulfilled. And this song that Simeon sings is called, in Latin, the New Diminitus. All these songs that we have been looking at have Latin names, and they do so because, historically, they were part of the liturgy, the order of the church. And in the church’s liturgy, historically, they would sing this song after the gospel was read. Right, why is that? Well, because that’s the response, right, of hearing the gospel. Now we’ve seen it, it’s come. The service has reached its climax. The gospel of salvation is here. And it’s also read and sung historically at Christian funerals, after Christians are laid to rest in the grave. Now may I go, may I depart in peace. And this is because, presumably, Simeon is usually thought of, presumed to be an elderly man. He waited his whole life to see his Messiah. And the spirit-filled song are fitting close to the nativity of Luke, the nativity accounts of Luke. And finally it’s done. Nothing will ever be the same. Now there’s a sense of fulfillment. And that’s central to this song, Simeon’s song, Simeon’s farewell song. The world has changed. It will never be the same. In Simeon’s context, of course, he’s living in the mid 700s BC of the Roman Empire as they mark their calendar. But we and the world number the calendar starting here with the birth of Christ, right? Anno Domini, the year of our Lord and of his Christ, right? None of this common era nonsense. It’s AD, the year of our Lord. And so what did Simeon see in that ordinary 40 days old baby that came into the temple? Well, he saw, he experienced the following. He saw and experienced the fulfillment of the law, the giving of the spirit, and the incarnation of salvation, the word made flesh, God saving sinners in this little baby. So first he saw the fulfillment of the law. And we see here, Luke represents, and he repeats in this passage, as is common, we’ve seen before, this highlighting function. He repeats that phrase, the law of Moses, or the law of the Lord. And he does it in verses 22, 23, 24, 27, and then 39, towards the end of this section. Luke is telling us that Mary and Joseph were, in doing so, keeping the law according to the law of Moses, of the Lord, that they were faithful, pious Israelites. They were devout people. And they’re doing everything that’s required of them. They’re following God’s word, his law. But he tells us much more in the words that he uses. And very often this is lost in our English Bibles in translation. There’s much more, because the word used to mark time commonly in Greek is not so apparent in our English Bibles. The Greek meaning is a little bit different. Something different is going on. For instance, in verse 21, our opening verse, it says, at the end of eight days. That’s what we have in English. What it literally says is, in eight days having been fulfilled, having been completed. And then in verse 22, the next verse, and when the time came, What that says again literally is, and when the time of purification had been fulfilled, had been completed, Luke at this closing of his nativity is setting this tone of fulfillment and conclusion and completion. And this isn’t new. Throughout the whole section that we’ve been looking at in the first two chapters of Luke, we read over and over and over again the same verb with a different nuance, right? John the Baptist is filled with the Holy Spirit. Zechariah, his time of service in the temple, is fulfilled. The days are fulfilled, completed, perfected. In Luke 157, Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son, right, John the Baptist. Came, it was fulfilled for her to give birth. Zechariah is filled with the Holy Spirit when he sings his song. And then in Luke 2, 6, says, and while they were there, the time came for her to give birth, right, Mary. The time came. completed for her to give birth. And in this final verse, in a different but even more emphatic, emphatically nuanced way, the verb says, when we look towards the end, in chapter 39, he says, when they had performed everything, when they had completely completed, according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their hometown of Nazareth. It’s a different verb, but it means perfected, completed, finished. And it has the connotation of being the end, the goal, to tell us, if you will. And so Luke is telling us that Jesus is the fulfillment. He’s the completion. He’s the fulfillment of the law. And as a redeemer, he has been born under the law. Luke, of course, as you know, is the traveling companion of Paul. And what did Paul preach? What did Paul teach and preach and write? He preached and wrote to the Galatians, remember, when the fullness of time had come, it’s the same verb, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive our adoption as sons. And so before faith came, Paul told the Galatians, we were held captive under the law. The law was our guardian until Christ came. This is why Simeon was looking for the consolation of Israel. He had his hopes set on comfort, the Christ, the God’s salvation, Yeshua would bring, and he knew that those parents were doing what they were doing in the temple. Eight days after birth, according to the law, Jesus submitted to the rite of circumcision. And now 40 days after his birth, he’s here again in the temple. And this, of course, is to summarize a brief account of what’s going on, but there are possibly three different legal obligations that Joseph and Mary are fulfilling as they come, right? There’s the purification of Mary, right, as a mother. This is a time of uncleanness for her in the eyes of the ceremonial laws that we read about in Leviticus. And at 40 days, she had to be purified. And then there’s this idea of dedication, purification and then dedication to the Lord’s service, right? Much like Hannah of old and her son Samuel, dedication to the Lord. And Mary’s song, in fact, as we looked at a number of weeks ago, echoes some of the same language of Hannah and reminds us of that dedication to the Lord, right? Jesus, who’s been given to his parents, has been prophesied as a great prophet and a great servant after the pattern of Samuel. or rather Samuel was an echo or a foreshadowing of Christ. Christ is the antitype. And then finally we read about in Exodus 13, the third thing here, and that is there’s this, the redemption of the firstborn. The redemption of the firstborn. The firstborn of everything belongs to the Lord, we read. We see this principle in the redemption from Egypt, in the Exodus, right? Remember in the Exodus. The principle, because of the sin of the human race, all the firstborn belong to the Lord. When Pharaoh says, you will be my slaves, Yahweh says, no, they will be my servants in worship. I will take my people out, and if you don’t let them go, I’ll send my destroyer, my angel, to kill every one of your firstborn. Because all of you, representatively, actually belong to me. I am your maker. And let’s not forget that the Israelites, too, would have had their eldest sons die in that 10th plague, but for the blood of the Lamb, remember? For the blood of the Lamb, the angel would know that these ones had been redeemed. They had been delivered from sin and from death by the blood of the Lamb. And so every Israelite, always, for all time, redeemed their firstborn. When you have your first child, you make a trip to the temple, And you give a lamb as a sacrifice, the same representative lamb, right? And imagine your firstborn son, your firstborn child, right? You only get to keep that child because of the lamb and its death. And just like Abraham kept Isaac, his beloved only child, because the goat was provided by the Lord caught in the thicket. Jesus, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, stands in our place as a sinner, though he’s sinless. And this lamb, the two turtle doves that his parents give, is a substitute for that, a substitute for people who could not afford a lamb. And this, of course, shows the mercy of God as well. The lamb was not for Jesus. It was not for his sin, he was sinless. This purification was not really for Mary. They’re for us. They’re for us. He removes our sins, being born under the law, by becoming sin, even in this sacrifice. And he redeems us from the curse of the law. That’s the glory of the gospel. And we’ll never again need any blood of another lamb after Christ’s sacrifice, his sacrificial offering of himself. And so Simeon says, now, now I have seen God’s salvation. He’s fulfilling the law for me. Even now, I can go in peace. He’s seen it. And of course, there’s some questions that come up that arise here if we’re reading and we’re thinking clearly about what we’re seeing, right? Like why was Jesus given the sign of circumcision that we read about in verse 21, right? Why did he undergo that? On the eighth day, he was circumcised. Why did he need to be purified with his mother, presented to the Lord, redeemed from the destroying angel? And this is very significant to us. Because we see, and whenever we have a baptism, and see the waters of baptism, and hear the promises. As Paul tells us in Romans 4 what? Circumcision was a sign of the righteousness that came by faith. It was a sign and a seal of this, the righteousness that came by faith. And Abraham received the sign of circumcision after he believed, after he was already righteous. but it sealed it to him, it confirmed him. It reminded him what God had already done by faith alone. And you children, you’ll remember that circumcision, like your baptism, does two things. It marks you as a Christian. It marks you and sets you apart from the world. It says you aren’t like everyone else in the world. You belong to Jesus. It sets God’s people apart. It marked them as his, even as you are marked. But it also, was a sign that sin had been removed, right? And this is what was symbolized in circumcision, it’s the cutting away, the removal of flesh of sin. And so why should Jesus, this sinless one, be circumcised, undergo this? He was sinless, right? What’s in this principle that Paul preaches and that Luke teaches is that he was fulfilling the law on our behalf. Paul says in Colossians that when the sinless one is cut for our sins he was circumcised in the flesh in his body on the cross to what to take away our sin our body of death and the Old Covenant sign of circumcision symbolized the same principle righteousness comes by faith the doctrine justification by faith alone isn’t some New Testament innovation or invention it’s an Old Testament promise and as a sign for a child isn’t a sign that this child has professed faith. It’s a sign of God’s faithful promise to that child as they profess faith later in their life. It’s a sign of the promise made to every single child that we’ve seen baptized here over the years, praise God, that God saves believers when they confess they need saving. promises that this is what’s held out to them when they do and when they will and when they come to do so. And so children, if you believe that you need to be saved, God saves you as well. And adults, if you believe that you need to be saved, God will save you also. He saves sinners who confess their sins and go to Christ in faith. And so this circumcision was a sign of Christ himself, that he would come, that he would die on the cross, that he would take away the sins of God’s people. And this promise doesn’t change, and praise God as this is exactly what happens. And in the New Testament, God saves sinners. And so we pray, and we teach, and we rear our children to profess their own faith as their own. But we know also that they are heirs of the promise. because of that principle of solidarity, right, the household principle. And Peter proclaims, you’ll recall in his Pentecost sermon in Acts, that this promise is for you and for your children after you, as many as the Lord would call to himself. So it’s very important, it’s not an optional thing, it’s not a trivial thing, that the children of believers receive the sign of the new covenant, marked off to the Lord from the world. It shows that we’re not trusting in them, but in God who keeps his promises to save our children, to work his spirit in them by faith, and call them to live a genuine, active, mature faith of their own. So Jesus felt the blade of circumcision, though he didn’t deserve it. Simeon sees his salvation in that child, the fulfillment of all of those promises. This is the first main thing that Luke wants us to see. The law of God is fulfilled in this child in Jesus. The next experience that we see, we wanna look at in this text, is the giving of the Spirit. As we look back at our story, at this account, and this is very important, Simeon is a believer only by the power of the Holy Spirit. He has faith only by the power of the Spirit. He sees Jesus as his salvation, this ordinary regular baby. There might have been 10, 15, 20 other babies in the temple at this time, but he sees that baby as his salvation. Why? Because he has spirit given faith. Isn’t that awesome? Right there in Luke chapter two. And you know, so can you, on the same basis, on the same grounds, in the same grounding, alone, by the power of the Holy Spirit, receive this Christ as your own. Simeon is the singer of our song, and he’s a spirit-filled singer. He’s awaiting the consolation of Israel. He has received a special promise. This is where we’re different from Simeon. He received a revelation from the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he saw the Messiah in his flesh. But notice in Verses 25, 26, and 27, again, this repetition, this emphasizing, this emphatic thing that Luke is doing. Three times, this mention of the Holy Spirit, right? The Holy Spirit was upon him and revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. He came in the Holy Spirit into the temple. And Simeon comes to see Jesus as his salvation. In that particular day, in that particular place, because of the guiding of the Holy Spirit. the Old Testament the Spirit right was poured out on a specific specific times on specific particular prophets hundreds of years have passed since that outpouring of the Spirit between the last prophet Malachi and the coming of Christ a dead air But with the coming of Christ, with all these angelic outpouring, songs from heaven, songs from glory. And now because of Christ, because of the arrival of Christ, the Spirit is being poured out more and more. And it’s only by the remarkable outpouring, this outpouring, that Simeon, aged Simeon, sees that he receives that promise fulfilled in his own seeing. So Simeon is like a prototype, right? He’s like an archetype of all of Israel. The one who waited long time, waited a long time, and then finally gets its promise. Simeon is like Israel in miniature. Thousands of years of waiting and waiting for this child, so long foretold. And then in Simeon’s lifetime is the fulfillment in the flesh, in his arms, sees with his eyes. And he says what? Now, now you can let me go, Lord. My eyes have seen your salvation. It’s the Spirit who gives Simeon the eyes of faith, it’s his faith which lets him see Jesus. And we also know that believing gives us eyes of faith to see God’s hand in this world, to see those promises fulfilled. Have you considered that? Have you considered that? Nothing is stopping any one of you from seeing the salvation of this Lord even today. Simeon acts, in this nativity account, as you should act, as we all should act. At the end of the scene, you should sing, now I have seen the salvation of the Lord, in this ordinary wet baby, in the stranger’s words of promise spoken over him. So the Holy Spirit is poured out. And did you notice how many times here, in these two chapters, the Spirit is mentioned again? And it’s three times in this instance I just read, but 10 times again and again and again and again, And remember that Luke, right? Luke also in part two of his writings, which is the book of Acts, remember there he describes the Spirit as very active, right? The Spirit is active at the beginning of his gospel and then also the beginning of the book of Acts, right? Where the Holy Spirit is poured out over the church, right? In the birthday of the church, if you will. In chapter two, poured out on the church. It’s as though he wants to tell us the Spirit is doing a new thing again. Spirit is the same spirit that hovered over creation, is hovering here active in the coming of Christ and the foundation of the church. So Simeon saw the law fulfilled with his own two eyes, and he experienced the giving of the Holy Spirit, which we, brothers and sisters, now experience through Christ our Lord, even today. And then finally, what does he see and experience? He sees salvation. And it’s my earnest prayer for all of us here today that as you depart this place, this Christmas Eve, that you leave at peace with God, having seen and heard and even touched, though not through the waters of baptism this morning, but in bread and in wine, by the salvation of our God, by the promise, by its sign and its seal, seeing you have believed and believing you have seen. These are the words to sing at the end of every worship service. Now I can depart in peace. I’ve seen your salvation again. I’ve heard, I’m refreshed, I’m reminded of who I am before you, dear Lord, in Christ and the salvation won by him. I can have peace, therefore, and I can go. Does this matter? Does this matter even outside of the church, even outside of this place, as we go back out into the world? Does this matter? Dear Christian, it matters more than anything. that matters more than anything we can comprehend. We go through all the trials of this world, all the weight of this life, all the failings of our own hearts and the crushing mass of our sin, and we come and we hear the gospel, the salvation of our God in Christ Jesus, the God-man, and we see the gospel in the sacraments, water, bread, and wine, And we were reminded, and we know again and afresh, now I can depart in peace. Now I can depart in peace. Salvation has come. And once again, the weight of the sorrows and the fears have been released. I have peace. I’m reminded of that peace. And I can go on living out the reality of the rest that’s been won for me in Jesus. Paul says to the Corinthians, And we all with unveiled faces beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Beholding the glory of the Lord. We all behold the glory of the Lord in his word and his Christ. And the wonderful, glorious, remarkable, and beautiful thing is this, brothers and sisters. We behold and confess Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father. And Scripture tells us what? Remarkably, by faith we are seated in the heavenly places with him, even now. And if the sight of Christ’s glory doesn’t bring our minds peace and doesn’t joyfully prepare us for the weight and the difficulties of life, then we haven’t seen Christ with the eyes of faith. It most necessarily will. Not perfect, but it will bring peace. It will bring relief. It will bring preparation and joy, even in the face of trials. You know, we think of John, the Apostle John. In his first letter, it begins this way. When he wrote these words, he’s likely the last living apostle. And it begins like this in 1 John, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our own hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life. which was with the Father and was made manifest to us, and that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ, and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. He alone has leaned upon the breast of the Lord in the supper. and seeing his Lord, but he invites here, right? What is he doing? He’s inviting the church into his seeing in order to manifest the light in life that God has shown to all the world. Salvation is seen. And even come Monday, right? When all the presents are open and all the trash is taken out and all the bluster of it all dies down for all of us, we are left as fallen people in a fallen world and all the sorrows remain. But dear believer, all the promises have been fulfilled. Never forget that. All the promises have been fulfilled. The Holy Spirit has been outpoured with the guarantee of your home and glory. In God’s salvation, the Word made flesh, the incarnation of that, Jesus the Messiah, has come and we see him. And more importantly, he sees us and ever lives to make intercession, to pray for us. And so brothers and sisters, As we hear these words this time of year, all the singing of the Messiah, this is the truth that comes in that Christ child. The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Hallelujah. Amen.