Luke 2:22-40
Luke chapter two, verses 22 through
40 is our passage for today. We’re ending our little Christmas
series we’ve done over the past seven or eight weeks on Christmas
characters. And we end today with, uh, Simeon
and Anna who were present in the temple when Jesus was presented
by his, by his parents. And so Luke chapter two verses
22 through 40 will be our passage. Before we read God’s word, let’s
ask for his help and blessing. Pray with me. Lord, unless you
open our eyes, we will never see. Unless you unstop our ears,
we will not hear. Unless you soften our hearts,
we will not receive with joy the treasures of the gospel,
the word of the living God. And unless you Our Lord over
our hands, we would never leave and serve you. So all these things
we ask you to do today, open our eyes, unstop our ears, soften
our hearts, and give us as a people, not just individually, but as
a church, a people ready to go and do what God commands us to
be and do in this world. We pray your blessing now, your
spirit upon us in Christ’s name, amen. Luke chapter two, beginning
at verse 22. 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 shall 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 in
the temple, and when the parents brought the child Jesus to do
for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in
his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, 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 had been said about him. And Simeon blessed
them and said to Mary his mother, Behold, this child is appointed
for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel, and for a
sign that is opposed. And a sword will appear 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. And 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 in prayer every
day and night 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 Jerusalem. Amen, the word of the living
God for us, his children. Somebody pointed out to me recently
that we have done our Christmas characters all out of order.
And I thought to myself, there’s always somebody isn’t there.
They just point out what you do wrong. There’s always a method
to the madness. You figured that out, right?
We could look at these Christmas characters in order. Maybe that’s
what we should have done. Too late now, sorry. But we’ve
sort of looked at them thematically. We’ve wanted to see how God and
Christ coming to redeem the world, was interacting with various
people. There have been good characters, bad characters, ugly
characters. There was Herod, but then there’s
sweet Mary and Joseph. There was Zachariah and Elizabeth.
There’s the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, now Simeon and
Anna. And we want to look at all these
Christmas characters and even all the events of Christmas to
see how God’s sovereign hand, his wise hand, is at work in
human history to redeem us from our sin, to change us from being
children of darkness. to become children of the light. And so in some way, shape or
form, in whatever order we have done this, I hope God has blessed
us in mighty ways. But today we land on a place,
a time, a significant life event in Jesus, where he bumps into
Simeon and Anna. And the life event is this. In the Hebrew tradition, on the
eighth day, a child, was presented in the temple. And if it was
a male child, and in the case of Jesus, he is the firstborn
who first opened the womb of his mother. He is sort of a first
fruit, a first offering to almighty God. We saw a glimpse of that
in the heart and in the prayers of Hannah. Lord, I want a child
so badly. And Lord, if you give me this
child, I will offer this child back to you so that he may be
fully in your service. That little phrase sounds like
she was a good Southern girl, right? She lent him, lent him
to the Lord. She gave him back. And so we
see Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus in the temple and in one
sense, They’re lending him to almighty God. Maybe some of you
have done that. You thought of that in the baptism
of your children. Maybe it’s in the prayers you
have for your young ones. Maybe some of you grandparents,
your grandchildren, what will they be? What will they do? What
might God have them do in his service for the kingdom of God,
the good of neighbor? and in their vocation, their
life’s calling. Well, Jesus is presented in the
temple first because he was, as Paul says in Galatians, born
under the law. He needed to be presented in
the temple to be circumcised. He needed to be a true Israelite.
Some of you will remember back in our study of Luke a couple
of years ago, Jesus presented himself to John for baptism.
Now John’s baptism is different than the baptism that we do today
for the church. John’s baptism was a preparatory
baptism to get sinful Israel ready through repentance for
the coming of Jesus. And so we looked at Jesus presenting
himself to John and John said, oh no, I can’t baptize you, you
should be baptizing me. And in the same sense we looked
at then, we should look at Jesus now being presented in the temple
as a man submitting to the law of God, identifying with the
people, becoming like them so that in his redemption, in his
redeeming work, his obedience, his life, his death, his sacrifice,
It makes his life and his sacrifice effectual before God so that
it brings us the remedy for our sins. And so Jesus is presented
in the temple and you say, why would they circumcise him? He
was conceived by the Holy Ghost after all. He was born of the
Virgin Mary without sin, as our catechism says. But Jesus identified
with all Israel and he being the true Israelite was circumcised
on the eighth day. And you remember, you’ll understand
from our study of Zechariah and Elizabeth and the birth of John.
This was also a naming ceremony. Remember when John was born,
his father Zechariah was unable to speak because of his unbelief.
And he wrote on the board, no, his name is John. He’s not Zechariah
Jr. as probably would have been the
custom. Well, neither is Jesus, Joseph the third, or the fourth
or the fifth. For you remember the prophecy
of the angel to Mary and to Joseph. His name will be Jesus, for he
will save his people from their sins. And so in his first act,
as it will, and you know, he didn’t, as an eight day old say,
mom and dad, we gotta go to the temple for I must obey the father
and be circumcised. They knew the law, they knew
the customs. And God, by his spirit, led them
to do this, but he was circumcised, identifying with true Israel,
identifying with his people that he would save. But he was publicly
and even prophetically named Jesus, Joshua, Yeshua, for he
will save his people from their sins. You know, it’s very interesting.
Nobody in the temple got this. Not the scribes, not the Pharisees,
not the priests. And we understand this because
later when the wise men come, you know, yes, we did it out
of order. We looked at them last week and they don’t come for
about two years. Uh, but remember the wise men came and where’s
Jesus. We hear the King of the Jews has been born and they look
it up in the Bible. Oh, he’s born in Bethlehem. Y’all go on
and see this. And what did they do? They didn’t go. Nobody’s
aware of the birth of Jesus and what he’s come, but a few. And
it encourages us to see Simeon and Anna. the temple sometimes
we wonder and if you’ve read the news lately not not just
the headlines but you know we’re all crime scene investigators
you know we got to read old stuff such-and-such happened and then
we got to read the scoop right on why it happened and we got
to watch Dateline and you know all the sensational shows we
got to know that it happened and why it happened and we got
to dig into all the details and if that’s not enough Our favorite
fictional TV shows in America today are all the gory, gooey
stuff. Well, we live in a dark and dying world.
And we live in a world where the headlines are just, well,
they’re depressing. And we live in a world where
people’s attention to God and to Christ and to gospel and to
church and to spiritual things is quickly fading. In fact, sometimes
we wonder, like Elisha, are there any who don’t bow the knee to
Baal? Am I, Lord, am I alone in this
culture and in this world? Am I the only one who sees you
and worships you? And that ought to give us great
comfort that in a very dark time for Israel, remember the prophet
Isaiah said, the people who are walking in darkness, we’ll see
a great light, and that great light has come, and he’s being
presented in the temple, and there’s Mary and Joseph, and
there’s Simeon and Anna, and that seems to be it. That’s rather scary, isn’t it?
And we look around at the world, we read the headlines, we see
church attendance, we see what people are doing, we back out
of our driveways to go to church, everybody else stayin’ put, we
get back home, they’re still there, you know, our little speech about
all that. Don’t lose heart. God always has a people for himself. And there’s another little interesting
thing to think of from this passage. What does it say about Anna?
What does it say about Simeon? Well, they’re not young. And
a lot of us aren’t young in here. Some of you say, speak for yourself.
But isn’t it interesting to put those two thoughts together?
God always has a remnant for himself in this world. And it
may be older people. It may be that you who are older
and you think, you know, I’ve done all I can for the Lord.
I’ve been on all the committees. I’ve taught the Sunday school.
I’ve done the flowers and the, the, the bacon, the bread and
what, whatever. Uh, there’s nothing left for
me to do. Absolutely. There is look at
Anna, look at Simeon or some of you are young and we, we hear
the, the, the noise of little ones in worship and how sweet
that sound is. And you are presenting your little
ones. in the presence of God before
the people of God. These two truths, these two applications
should not be lost on us today. But I want us to think about
two aspects of Simeon and Anna’s lives that ought to be true for
each of us. The first thing that we ought
to think about is their awareness of spiritual things. The Bible
here tells us that Simeon was in the temple because the Holy
Spirit said today is the day. But Simeon has been in the temple
because every day is the day that Christ may appear. Simeon
is in the temple because he is keenly aware by the Holy Spirit’s
power and by the words of the scripture. Now he didn’t have
his Reformation study Bible or his ESV study Bible. He didn’t
have his apps on his phone. He didn’t have a copy of God’s
word. There was no printing press.
Where was it? It was up here. Where else was
it? It was in here. He was day and
night in the temple. He was week by week in God’s
house with God’s people and God’s word saturated into his mind
and his heart. And so by God’s word and spirit,
he was keenly aware we’re living under Herod. He was keenly aware
we’re living under Caesar. He was keenly aware that most
of Israel was lost. And he was keenly aware that
soon Messiah would be born and I will see his face. Do you hear a little echo of
Job? Remember Job and all his troubles?
Job in all his troubles in chapter 19, after listening to all the
painful encouragement, right, of his friends, says, I know
that my Redeemer lives. And I know that someday in my
flesh I shall see him. And here is Simeon, I know that
the Redeemer is coming. And that I in my flesh will see
him in his flesh. What do you know about the Bible?
How often are you in church? Are you open to the Spirit teaching
you? Is it on the tip of your tongue
always? Is your eye to the sky? Do you walk out on your front
porch and grab the morning paper? Well, that’s a dying thing these
days, both the paper and going out to get one. But do you look
up and say, today may be the day? Today may be the day of
Christ’s return. Today may be the day when all
is made new. All is made right with the world.
Evil is judged and righteousness rewarded. See, that’s a bit of
the mindset or the awareness of Simeon. You know, we got a
grocery list. We got a chore list. We got a
to-do list. We got a TV or whatever, Netflix to watch list. And on
and on it goes. We’re so busy. And you look at
devotional books these days, two minutes with Jesus, a minute
with God, quick prayers for the busy person. That’s not what
was on the nightstand at Simeon’s house. He was day by day pondering
and thinking, and okay, he was old, so he was retired, whatever. You get what I’m trying to say.
He lived in such a way that he was spiritually awake. He was
spiritually aware of all that God was doing in this world. And so that’s a question for
you. Are you so busy? Are you so filled
full with life? That’s why at the beginning of
every service, we have that pause for voluntary silent prayer. And what do I say every week?
It’s a busy week. It’s a noisy world. It’s time
to hush. And we need God to stop us. Because
we rarely have thoughts like Simeon seemed to have daily.
Now I’m not saying you gotta cut out your grocery list and
your to-do list and your calendar. God wants us to be busy doing
things in this world. That’s how we serve him. But
don’t lose your awareness. And if you haven’t really got
one, seek to cultivate it. Seek to cultivate it. And a much
the same, and a older lady We don’t know how old she was exactly.
The years there get a little mixed up, but she was either
84 or 105 or so. And she dedicated her life to
serving God. Both these people keenly aware
of what was taking place in the temple. Now, every church has
weirdos, right? We won’t name who ours are. It
could be me, don’t know. But here’s why they were weird.
There’s these two, Anna and Samuel. And don’t you think every body
that came in with a baby looking, you know, looking a little, maybe
a little obnoxious. Tell me your kid’s name. Oh,
not him. That’s a little of what was going on. These were aware
of all that God was doing, but there’s a second thing about
them. And it’s not just their spiritual awareness, it’s their
expectancy. They expected God to break in
real time, real space, real history with his son who would save people
from their sins. I don’t know about y’all, but
I have a little pessimistic view of this world. You know, I look
at the news a little, I read some of the stuff. And I’m a
good Calvinist, all people are evil until Christ comes and changes
them. So that’s just my perspective, maybe a little Eeyore. That’s not the view. They expected
Christ to come make all things new. They expected God to come
in the flesh and redeem Israel from their sins. They expected
a savior. And you’ll notice their expectancy
in what they say. Look at verses 29 to 32. This
is where Simeon sings his song. Now, we would be singing this
song at the end of our service, but it’s a little tough. It’s
in our hymn book, but it’s not easy to sing, so I didn’t pick
it. But notice what he says, Lord, now you are letting your
servant depart in peace. My bucket list has been accomplished.
That’s what Simeon is saying. You know what a bucket list is.
I assume it means you’re going to kick the bucket. So before
you kick the bucket, you get your bucket list, go to the Grand
Canyon, go to Europe, go to Paris, you know, see something, do something,
whatever. Well, what’s on Simeon’s bucket list? It’s to see Messiah. And as he holds that little one
in his arms, I can die. I can go in peace. And so this
has become one of the famous songs of church history in Latin,
the nuke. Demetrius, the church has historically
sung this after the Lord’s supper. Lord, now you are letting your
servant depart in peace. According to your word, what
you said has come true. My eyes have seen your salvation. His arms have held salvation
as he held that baby, that eight day old baby in his arms. This
salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for the revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to
your people, Israel. This man expected a baby. He
expected salvation for Israel, but he also expected salvation
for the Gentiles, that God had opened his arms wide to the world. Back to the other word we mentioned
a moment, awareness, and then our other word expectancy. Those
are two key things for us to ponder today. Are we aware by
God’s wording, by God’s spirit, by our growth and grace through
the teaching of the church, are we aware of all that God is doing
and He’s promised to do and yet to do? And are we fully expecting
Him to do it? See, there’s something here about
Simeon and about Anna that we ought to have, and that is their
faith. That’s the third word we really ought to think of.
It’s good to be aware. I know lots of things. I’m aware
of a lot of things, but I don’t do much with that information,
right? I’m expecting things to happen, okay. But I get on with
life and get busy and forget about it. But what about faith? Do we really believe God? Do
we really believe his promises of salvation? Do we really believe
in his means of salvation? Did it send this tiny baby? Well,
Anna did. Simeon did. But the question
that ought to burn in our hearts and our minds today as we sit
here, but as we go about the rest of our Sunday and maybe
think on eternal things, are we aware of God’s plan and program?
Are we expecting him to do something? But is our faith rock solid in
who God is, in what God has done, but also in what God has promised
to do, and as the word tells us, is yes and amen in Christ
Jesus. Let’s think on those things and
have a strong faith. Pray with me. Our Lord, we thank
you that over and over through the characters of Christmas in
the Bible, we see We see all sorts of ups and downs and we
see evil and we see great goodness. And we thank you for righteous
and faithful Simeon and steadfast Anna who looked for your coming,
knew what it meant and their faith did not waver. Lord, may
that be true of us. May we imitate the righteous
who have gone before us. But most of all, we pray for
the coming of Jesus to make all that’s wrong in this world right
again. Give us your help and your grace and your blessings.
We pray in the name of Jesus, our Savior. Amen.