We find ourselves this morning, in Luke’s gospel, in the temple in Jerusalem. At this point in the gospel of Luke we’ve had the birth of Jesus, Shepherds have visited, angels have sung and now we find ourselves with a month old baby Jesus, with Mary and Joseph visiting the Temple in Jerusalem. Why? 2 reasons. Firstly, according to the law of Moses (Leviticus 12) once a woman had given birth she was considered ceremoniously unclean and so was required to make a sacrifice in order to become clean again. Secondly, the Jewish tradition was to offer the first born son to God (in parallel to the Passover in exodus) and then to buy him back.
Piety
As we can see from chapters 22 to 24 Luke doesn’t go into a huge amount of detail here about what all this involved, in fact, he doesn’t even make it clear that these are two separate things. And because of that theologians often seem to get themselves wrapped up looking at the detail of why did Luke exclude part of x of this tradition or why did Mary and Joseph bring doves instead of a lamb, which is also mentioned in Leviticus 12. Now it’s believed that Luke was not Jewish and was writing primarily to a non – Jewish audience so you would think that perhaps he would include a bit more information regarding the details of what was happening here but I think that we will see that he included what he needed to make a specific point. Note the repetition in what Luke says –
Chapters 22-24 he is constantly referring to the law of Moses/law of the Lord.
Chapter 25 – there was a man named Simeon who was righteous and devout.
Chapter 38 – Anna worshipped night and day, fasting and praying.
Chapter 39 – Mary and Joseph had done everything the law required.
Luke makes a big deal about piety, about being faithful to God’s ways. All the people that Luke talks about in this passage, the people who are witnesses to Jesus being the Messiah are devout followers of God, they are devoted to him and God honours that devotion. God loves their devotion.
Sometimes it’s easy for us to misinterpret parts of the gospels, we see Jesus befriending sinners and clashing with the pharisees and it’s easy to think that God welcomes the outsider while rebuking the religious. But in actual fact God loves both equally and that is why he calls the sinner to repentance. Calls the rebel back to obedience. Luke 5:31-32 “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Yes Jesus is the friend of sinners, and he is calls them to follow him, he calls them back to obedience.
And so Luke emphasises that this life of devotion, of repentance, of faithfulness is pleasing to God and that those who witness to the Messiah are living this life.
What can we take from this? That the way we live our lives, as well as the things we say can be a witness to Christ. That we can point others towards Christ by living as followers of his.
Spirit
Coupled with this emphasis on devotion to God, Luke also makes a big deal of the work of the Holy Spirit, especially when it comes to Simeon. Verse 25 to 27 we see the spirit mentioned three times in reference to Simeon, it is upon him, it reveals to him and it moves him. This is really important because let’s be honest, pious devotion is great and we can all try as hard as we possibly can and be as good as we can but we really just can’t do it on our own. I can put in hours of work preparing a sermon but to be honest, by myself, it would probably just sound like a load of nonsense, maybe it does anyway. But with the Holy Spirit upon me, revealing to me, moving me, I might stand some chance of preaching Christ to you. With the Holy Spirit we can be equipped to carry out his will.
That seems to be what we see happen in these verses. The Holy Spirit revealed to Simeon that he wouldn’t die before seeing the Messiah, and it moved him to act upon that revelation. So that he would go to the Temple, meet Jesus there and speak these words. (v29 – 32). So we see a relationship between people and God whereby the Holy Spirit works alongside the devout to proclaim Christ.
God clearly has a plan, which is to for Jesus to be the Messiah, and the spirit is working throughout history to make this plan come to fruition and what we see here is God’s Holy Spirit working alongside Simeon’s obedience to proclaim this.
Following Christ isn’t just about working hard to follow the rules and be “Holy”. We need to listen to the Spirit, welcome it in, allow it to reveal Christ to us and allow it to move us. We need to have that relationship. Giving ourselves to him and receiving him to achieve his glory.
God keeps his promises
The third thing that Luke emphasises in our reading this morning is God’s promise of salvation through Jesus. Who is this Messiah that Simeon and Anna are witnesses to? He is the fulfilment of a promise.
In verse 38 we read that Anna “gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Israel.” This idea of somebody coming to save the people, wasn’t something new. No, it was something God had promised his people years earlier through the prophet Isaiah and so people were looking forward to it. Although many had mixed this promise up with the politics the day and believed it would be only for the redemption of the Jews.
We see in the words of Simeon though (v30-32) that this salvation has been prepared in the eyes of all nations, a light of revelation for the gentile to the gentiles and the glory of Israel. In other words, this is a Messiah for everyone. God has fulfilled his promise of sending a saviour, a redeemer, and it is more glorious than most had imagined because it is a saviour for ALL people to save them from the consequence of their sin.
What is interesting is that in the words of Simeon we see both the inclusivity of Christ and also division in the reactions to Christ. v34-35. – Although Christ has come to redeem ALL people regardless of whether they are Jew or Gentile, he will be the falling and rising of many. A sign to be spoken against – hearts will be revealed. Some will not recognise him as the Messiah, they will not believe in him and as such they will not receive the gift of his salvation.
Remember from Luke 5: 32 “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” The thing about seeing the doctor, he can give you a prescription but if you don’t take it will do nothing. It will only get worse. So it is with Jesus, Jesus is the saviour we need but he is not always the saviour we want and so if we need to make that decision to believe in him, to receive his gift and to repent of our sins.
So in the words of both Simeon and Anna we see that God has fulfilled his promise to his people, that he would send a redeemer in this baby Jesus and we can take encouragement from this, because God has also promised us that if we believe we will receive eternal and we know that God will fulfil his promise. So as we go into this new week, lets remember that we have been redeemed. Remember that we have salvation. Remember that we have been promised eternal life by the God who keeps his promises. And let’s consider our response to that. Are we responding with rebellion or obedience? Are we responding by welcoming the Holy Spirit? And are we allowing it to work alongside our obedience to proclaim Christ to the world?