We
welcome you to a new year and a new sermon series. We’re calling this
sermon series “Beyond the Manger”.
Too many times, when Christmas is
over, we just move on. We leave the baby Jesus in the manger and go on to
something else. But this year, we’re not going to leave the baby Jesus in
the manger. We’re going to look at all the stuff that happened after
Jesus’ birth. And as you heard, we’re starting with Jesus being presented
at the temple.
Now first, we’re told that Jesus was circumcised when he was eight
days old. Then, we’re told of Jesus being presented at the temple of the
Lord. This happened, according to Luke, “when the time came for their
purification according to the law of Moses”, which would have been forty days
after Jesus was born. That means that at some point in those forty days,
Mary, Joseph, and Jesus made the trip from Bethlehem to Jerusalem.
That was not a long trip--it was about six miles. But, of
course, Mary and Joseph would’ve had to walk it, carrying Jesus, so it’s not
like it was really easy. You and I would probably be really upset if we
had to walk six miles carrying a baby. But back then, it was just the way
things were. People were used to walking everywhere they needed to go.
It was no big deal.
So Mary and Joseph walk the six miles from Bethlehem to Jerusalem,
and then walk some more until they get to the temple. They buy the
required sacrifice. And while they’re there, they meet two people.
The first was a man named Simeon. Simeon lived in Jerusalem,
and he had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he saw the
Savior. This day, this day when Mary and Joseph are presenting Jesus at
the temple, the Holy Spirit told him to go to the temple courts. We don’t
know if the Spirit told him why, but he went there. And he saw Jesus.
And as soon as he saw Jesus, Simeon knew that this was, in fact, the
Savior he had been kept alive to see.
And as you read what Simeon said, you get the impression that
Simeon understood, far better than most people at that time, just who the
Savior was going to be. Most people at that time thought the Savior would
be a great king, someone who would return Israel to power as a great nation.
But look at how Simeon describes Jesus: “a light for revelation to
the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” And then he tells
Mary: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in
Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of
many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul,
too.”
Simeon understood that Jesus was not going to be a political
leader. He was going to bring salvation to both the Gentiles and the
Jews, but that salvation would be spiritual salvation, not a political
salvation. And he would cause “the thoughts of many hearts” to be
revealed, both for better and for worse. Simeon understood exactly what
kind of Savior Jesus was going to be.
And then we meet Anna. Anna was a prophet. She was eighty-four years old. We’re
told she had lived with her husband for seven years after their marriage and
had been a widow ever since. Assuming
she was married young, as was often the case at that time, Anna may have been a
widow for sixty years or more. I know there are people here who’ve lost
spouses, but think of that. To be a widow or a widower for sixty years.
That’s a long time to be alone.
We’re told that she never left the temple, but worshiped night and
day, fasting and praying. We don’t know how long she’d been doing that.
It was not necessarily for the whole eighty-four years she’d been a
widow, or even for most of those years. But it seems like it must have
been a while. And just as Simeon finishes talking, Anna comes up, gives
thanks to God, and starts telling everyone about this child who’s going to be
the Savior.
So what’s the point? Why is this story in the Bible?
Is it just an interesting story, a little piece of the life of Jesus, or
is there more to it? What are we supposed to learn from this?
Well, I’m sure there’s more than one thing we can learn from it.
There almost always is, when we read the Bible. But here’s the one
I want to focus on today.
Have you ever had a time when you felt like God was giving you a
message? Or, have you ever felt like the Holy Spirit was leading you to
do something, or to say something, or to go somewhere? Or maybe you did
not recognize it as the Holy Spirit, but you just felt like there was something
inside you telling you that you needed to talk to some specific person, or go
to some specific place, or do some specific thing. You did not know why,
but you just had this strong feeling that this was what you were supposed to
do.
Have you ever had that? I think probably most of us have, at
one time or another. And probably most of us have followed that prompting,
at least some of the time.
But here’s the thing. Sometimes, we get that message, or we
follow that prompting--we do what we’re led to do, we go where we’re led to go,
we say what we’re led to say--and it seems like nothing happens. And some
time goes on, and nothing continues to happen. And we start to wonder.
Did God really give me a message? Was the Holy Spirit really
leading me to do that, or say that, or go there? Or was it something I
made up, something I imagined, something that came out of my own head or from
someone else and I just fooled myself into thinking it was from God?
When that happens, we need some confirmation. We need to get
some kind of a signal, some kind of sign. We need something to encourage
us to stay the course, something to let us know that yes, we really did get
that message from God. We really were led by the Holy Spirit. God
really did speak to us, and God really is going to be faithful and keep the
words God said.
God does not always give us that confirmation, and God does not
promise that God will give it to us. Sometimes we’re asked to have faith
and to trust and to keep believing. But sometimes, God will give us that
confirmation. God will give us that encouragement. God will give us
a signal, a sign, that we really did get that message from God that we thought
we did.
That’s what happened here. Look at Mary and Joseph.
The angel Gabriel had told them that their child was the divine Son of
God. They’d listened, and they’d believed. They’d gone everywhere
they were supposed to go, they’d done everything they were supposed to do.
But still, they had to wonder. You know, it had been several
months, at least, since they’d heard from Gabriel about who this baby was going
to be. They had to be thinking, you know, our baby looks like any other
baby. He acts like any other baby. Is he really going to be that
special? Are we really going to be raising the Savior of the world?
And then, when they take Jesus to the temple, here come Simeon and
Anna. And they say, yes. Yes, your child is going to be that
special. You really are going to be raising the Savior of the world.
All that stuff that Gabriel said is really true. You really have
received a message from God, and God will be faithful to God’s word. That
had to be a huge relief to them. It had to feel so wonderful, to have
someone come along and confirm that they really had received a message from
God, that things were going the way they were supposed to go, and that they
really could trust God’s promises.
You and I have been given messages from God, too. There are
places were supposed to go, words we’re supposed to say, things we’re supposed
to do. That’s true for us as individuals, and that’s true for us as a
church.
And a lot of us have been doing them. Some of us have been
doing them for a long time. And sometimes, we don’t seem to see any
results. We wish a Simeon, or an Anna, would come and confirm God’s
message for us. We wish they’d come and tell us that we really have
received a message from God, that we really are doing what we’re supposed to
do, that we really are going the way God wants us to go. We wish they’d
say things are going the way they’re supposed to go, that we really can trust
God’s promises.
Well, we don’t actually get Simeon and Anna. But I think
there are signs all around us, if we look for them. I can’t speak to each
person’s individual calling, but look at our parish. Look at the number
of kids we’re reaching in the Onida Sunday school and in Faith Builders.
Look at the people who are starting to come to church here who were not
before, and the people who are coming more often than they used to. Look
at all the kits we send to the mission fair every year. There are signs
of all kinds of good things going on here, if we look for them.
Does that mean everything’s perfect? Of course not.
Far from it. We have challenges. We’ll always have
challenges. Mary and Joseph had a lot of challenges, too, as we’ll see as
we continue this sermon series. God never promised us everything would be
smooth and easy.
But if we keep doing what we’re supposed to do, if we keep going
where God wants us to go, things will go the way they’re supposed to go.
God will confirm God’s message to us in any number of ways. God
really is speaking to us. And God’s word is always true.
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