Luke 2:22-40; Galatians 4:1-7; Isaiah 11:1-5
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The temptation is always to be just a little too content with yourself, your life, and your world. A little too comfortable; a little too complacent; a little too rooted in this life and world which is passing away. That is idolatry, and idolatry is your chief sin. That is why the Scriptures are continually warning you to lay up your treasure in heaven, not on earth, and to remember that you are but a stranger here, and that heaven is your true home. Are you longing to return home? Or are you content and at peace where you are, like a pig in its wallow? If so, know that you are not alone, but do not take comfort in that fact.
The story of Jesus has a wonderful, unexpected way of helping us to avoid such temptation. The narratives of Jesus’ lowly birth, his humble upbringing, his unusual ministry, and his tragic rejection and murder show us that things are not as they should be. Nothing goes the way we would expect or hope for. Our Creator does not act in the ways in which we his creatures would expect or hope for. And we know that he is good and right, and that we are the ones who are sinful and wrong.
The events of Jesus’ birth are so mundane, even scandalous, that no one witnessing them would give them a thought. A government ordered census for the purpose of taxation causes an unwed couple from a backwater town in Galilee to journey to Bethlehem in the last days of the young woman’s pregnancy. When they arrive, the guest room is full, so the young mother is brought into the family room where she gives birth to her firstborn son and lays him in a manger filled with fresh hay. No one in Bethlehem was aware that anything of importance had taken place except for Joseph and Mary and some shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night who received the Good News from a multitude of angels who simply couldn’t keep quiet over their astonishment at what God had just done!
But that’s how it is with Jesus, and that’s how it is with our God, Creator, Lord, and heavenly Father. His ways are not our ways; His foolishness is wiser than our wisdom. Isaiah prophesied of Jesus: “His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind,” “like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
And so, forty days after his humble birth, Jesus’ family did what every Hebrew family did, they made the journey to Jerusalem, to the temple, to do what the Law required, to make the appointed sacrifices for the purification of a mother of a son, and to redeem Jesus, Mary’s firstborn son. Though he was sinless, holy, and righteous, Emmanuel, God with us, the infant Jesus submitted to the Law on our behalf, as one of us, for us and in our place, just as he submitted to gestation in the womb of a woman, natural birth, circumcision, weaning, diapers, and all the weakness, helplessness, and utter dependence of human infancy. They made the sacrifice of the poor, two turtledoves; nothing to see here, move along.
Indeed, in the busy temple court, no one noticed this family at all unless it was granted them to notice by the Lord. Simeon noticed. The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die before he beheld the Lord’s Christ, the Messiah. And so, by the Holy Spirit, Simeon was in the temple that day and, by the Spirit, he recognized the Holy Family and the Messiah Jesus. He went to them and took up the child in his arms praising God and saying, “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.” You know those words well, for you sing them each and every time you receive the Messiah’s body and blood into yourself at this altar, for you too have beheld the Lord’s salvation, even communed with him, and may now depart in peace.
By the Holy Spirit, Simeon could see in this lowly child what no one else could see. Simeon prophesied that this child would be the cause of the fall and rising of many in Israel, that he would be spoken against and opposed, and that his mother would be affected. For, all the world would be affected. In this lowly, holy child God was visiting his people; no one and no thing will remain unchanged. “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
There was another who noticed Jesus that day in the temple, an aged woman named Anna who had dedicated the bulk of her life to fasting and prayer in the temple, waiting for the arrival of the promised Messiah. When she beheld the holy family and the infant Jesus, “she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Undoubtedly, both Anna and Simeon were thought to be fanatics, kooks, or otherwise. Why all this fuss about a lowly family from backwater Galilee? But things are often not as they appear, particularly when we consider our holy and righteous God and the complete and utter darkness of our sin and death.
Israel was a stump, a great olive tree that had been cut down flush with the earth, and worse, burned out with fire, lifeless and dead. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be hoped to bring it to life again. That was the state of Israel at the time of Jesus’ birth. They had been under Roman subjugation for about sixty years at the time and only a faithful remnant was hopefully anticipating a savior, and most of them had the wrong idea of what a savior would look like or do. Among this remnant were faithful Hebrew men and women the likes of Joseph and Mary, Zechariah and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, the men Jesus later called to be his Apostles, and others. But no one was expecting how God would act, what that would look like, or when exactly it might happen. This is summed up well in the Christmas Eve antiphon, “When all was still and it was midnight, God’s almighty Word descended from the royal throne.” That is to say, when no one was expecting it, and in a way that no one could have imagined, God acted; indeed, that is when God always acts. A shoot came forth from the burned out lifeless dead stump of Jesse; a branch from his root began to bear fruit. Surprise! Merry Christmas!
The temptation is always to be just a little too content with yourself, your life, and your world. A little too comfortable; a little too complacent; a little too rooted in this life and world which is passing away. The Christmas story, the story of Jesus can serve to wake you up and break you out of such complacency and help you to see with your ears and hearken to the word of the Lord regardless of what your eyes behold, and your reason seeks to dismiss, distort, and reject. Your salvation is not in a temple or church made by human hands. Nor is it in your works and obedience under the Law. Nor is it in your sacrifices or prayers or even in your faith in and of itself. But your salvation is in the temple built not by human hands, nor by the will or participation of a man. It is not located upon a throne in a palace, in a mighty army, or in riches, power, or prestige. But your salvation is located in the Son of God and the Son of David born of the flesh of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit of God – something unthinkable, unbelievable, impossible, scandalous, foolish to fallen human reason, wisdom, values, virtues, and expectations, but the wisdom and the power and the glory of God, nonetheless.
“But 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.” Grant that we may ever be alive in Him who made Himself to be like us.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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