Title: Depart in peace according to your word!
Text: Luke 2:22-40
29“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation
31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”
In a speech made in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said:
"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."
God has indeed made us, and has remade us in Christ and as a result you can:
Depart in peace according to your word!
22 And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, [Mary and Joseph] brought [Jesus] up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord
St. Luke finds it necessary to explain to his gentile audience the rites connected with the purification because they were not familiar with Jewish laws. The mother was unclean, according to the ordinances of Moses, for seven days after the birth of a son, and must then remain separate for a matter of another thirty-three days. These forty days denoted the days of the cleansing, or purification, from Lev. 12. At the close of this period the parents went up to Jerusalem with the Child to present Him to the Lord, for the firstborn of man and beast belonged to the Lord, (Ex. 13:2) and had to be redeemed with a sacrifice.
Popular Commentary of the Bible PE Kretzmann NT Vol. 1 Pg 274
So Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple to make a sacrifice to the Lord of “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” And while there, to do as the Law required, they run into a man named Simeon who we are told was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, or the comfort and peace of God and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 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.
You may get a feel for this as we here at Peace too see when a baby is brought into the Lord’s house and all the people come and gather around wanting to hold the baby with smiles and joy on their faces. But this brings a bit of a different reaction:
27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, 28 he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,
29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation
31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”
The joy of seeing this child, this Jesus brought to fulfillment for Simeon what the Lord by the Holy Spirit had promised, that he would not die until he had seen the Christ. The joy in Simeon’s song is, and will be once again sung by this congregation following the reception of the Lord’s Supper, as we too will sing in joy with Simeon what the Lord has given for the forgiveness of the sins of the world.
Isaiah 61:10English Standard Version (ESV) OT lesson
10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Sin and its brokenness, brings death. That is what sin does. We who are born in sin will die. It is at that time when many of us who get older contemplate our life. Things we’ve done and things we wish we would have done and we look at our finite lives and the eternity that continues after death wondering what will be.
If you think about measuring up and being good enough, how good will you need to be? But, it’s bigger than that. It’s who we are. As those born in sin we come to this life separated from God. Hard as it may seem to us we are born God’s enemies and apart from God’s work we are condemned.
Simeon had,
26 [it] revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
He had great joy in the Good News that a savior – this baby - would be the reconciliation and the peace of Israel but not just the chosen people but for all whom the Lord would call tom himself. Even you and me can joy in the child that would be the peace between God and man.
Depart in peace according to your word!
Death’s sting has been swallowed up in victory by Jesus Christ and we can all have comfort in His blessed work and this blessed Good News. As we lose loved ones and think about this frail existence we inhabit here in this world we can have peace. Not on our feeling but on God’s word of promiss.
Luther in his poem, The Unchanging word says:
“Feelings come and feelings go,
And feelings are deceiving;
My warrant is the Word of God–
Naught else is worth believing.
Though all my heart should feel condemned
For want of some sweet token,
There is One greater than my heart
Whose Word cannot be broken.
I’ll trust in God’s unchanging Word
Till soul and body sever,
For, though all things shall pass away,
HIS WORD SHALL STAND FOREVER!” ― Martin Luther
Comfort and peace is in Christ, The Word of God, who has come to rescue you.
Comfort and peace knows the joy of Christ Jesus in your life.
Comfort and peace is being called to follow Christ by God’s Holy Spirit who indwells all believers and is called the comforter by Jesus himself.
“[Who is] the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through [him].
Dear friends, you have access to the father through Christ Jesus our Lord who came to live, suffer, die and rise again for each one of you and will give you true peace, the perfect peace, found only in His saving arms that were outstretched upon the cross as He gave His life for you. Because of his peace:
You rest beneath the Almighty's shade,
Your grief expires, your troubles cease;
Thou, Lord, on whom your soul is stayed,
Will keep you still in perfect peace.
Charles Wesley.
So when the trials of life burden you and the storms of life rage you can rest in the peace of Christ and in the loving hands of the savior who reminds us in the gospel of John:
7 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one.” (John 10:27-30)
That child, that babe that brought Simeon great joy is your joy as well. In him true peace is found.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit!
Amen
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