Consolation and Redemption

Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40

This is an attempt at a New Year’s sermon. I admit upfront that I failed to create the sense that I wanted for New Year’s Eve that I wanted to. The texts of the day just wouldn’t allow it. I’m not sure if I combed through the bible I could find exactly that text. But I don’t think what I ended up with is bad. The text is really about Simeon and Anna and that is what the focus in on – and primarily the differences in Luke’s pairing of these two. Simeon is waiting for consolation; Anna is looking for redemption. Consolation and Redemption you could say are both modes of justification, the gift of God, but they are quite different. Consolation might be more appropriate for New Year’s, but that is me. This sermon explores these and how they are fulfilled in the Christ child.

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Waiting for Consolation

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Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40

This sermon is some ways continues the contemplation between fortune and blessing started last Sunday, but it stands by itself, that continuation is just the pattern of the Chistian life. One person’s praise becomes the next person’s blessing and promise. This sermon focuses on the characters of Simeon and Anna, and specifically how they receive the blessings of God. There are three different ways we might respond. The pattern of Simeon is for us. He is “righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.” If we receive the blessing, this is the pattern. (I’ve also left in a couple verses of a couple of the hymns sung. You forget how good “See Amid the Winter’s Snow” is.)

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A Sign of Opposition

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Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40

This sermon owes a bunch to Luther’s Postil sermon on this text for this 1st Sunday after Christmas. That published sermon of Luther’s is one of those great overstuffed things. There are about 6 different sermons attempting to break out. In some ways I imagine the great man might have been under some of the similar pressures. He’d probably preached three times in the week already and had a few other things due. And then the next Sunday is there. What do you say? There is always a lot in God’s word, the real work of preaching is picking and expressing one specific thing. But sometimes you just don’t have the bandwidth for that work. So you offer up a smorgasbord.

Solid potato dish – The faith of Simeon & Anna/Joseph & Mary.

Vegetables – The humility of Christ in this group

Fish – Typology, Anna as Old Testament Saints/Temple; Mary as New/Church

Desert (don’t take too much) – Some numbers, 7 & 84

Prime Rib – The sign of opposition

Ham – The Christmas promise against that sign

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The Light on Groundhog Day

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Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40

February 2nd, commonly known as groundhog day, in the church is Candlemas or The Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Jesus. Candlemas is actually a lot older than the groundhog, but it doesn’t have a cute animal mascot. In pre-electric times it had a great ceremony, but candles just aren’t as important as they used to be. Anyway, the point of the day is seeing the light. Regardless of what extreme we are coming from – male or female, jew or gentile – the light of our salvation has come. This sermon invites us to ponder the reality of Jesus, redeemed by Mary and Joseph as true man, but also true God, and how that redeems us.

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Ceremonial Niceness

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Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40

The text for the Sunday after Christmas this year was the Purification and the Presentation of Jesus at the temple. These are actually two separate things. The Old Testament laws that are being fulfilled are from two separate places. The OT text of the day is the basis of the Presentation of Jesus. The Purification is from Leviticus. The Sermon is an attempt to ponder what odd ceremonial laws have to do with us today. I think they might mean more than we would give them credit for.

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Backwards and Forwards, Grounding and Hope

Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40
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New Year’s Eve is not something on the Traditional Church calendar, it is the 7th day of Christmas for those who follow the liturgical calendar. I know that other Protestant traditions (typically Reformed) have a long history of worship on New Years, but here, as I mention in the sermon, it is the first time in my pastorate that I’ve had the pulpit on the Eve. A new year automatically creates a looking backward and a looking forward. What this sermon attempts to do is ground it in the saintly examples of Simeon, Anna and the Holy Family. Instead of wishing the old gone and the new on our strength alone, the old is our grounding and the new we look for is the strength of God. Happy New Year, and may the consolation of Israel be found in your hearts.

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The Consolation of Israel

Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40
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This sermon in the third in a week, and the last, so instead of the polish of a story, it is more intensely on the text itself. The good thing, I think, is that the text lends itself to such a homiletic study. I would be helpful to have the text in front of you while listening. You can double check my referents that way and see how the text is constructed. I’m not going to tell you the main purpose right here, because I think that would betray the purpose of the text and sermon which is understanding. And understanding takes some marveling.

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Spiritual and Religious

Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40
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The text is the presentation of Jesus and the purification of Mary. It is a text deeply rooted in the religion of Israel. It is also with Simeon and Anna a text populated with the advent of the Holy Spirit. What the sermon does is look at what happens when we treat the Spirit and Religion as either/or instead of both/and. From Anderson Cooper and Gwenyth Paltrow to Anna/Simeon as models for the church.

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The Location of Security

Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40
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If you ask the question How do you know, the vast majority of answers come down to some form of “internal” knowledge. Whether that knowledge is feelings or intellectual or sensory it depends upon you. Yet all of those things are highly suspect. Which is part of the good news. The acts of God come from outside of us. Christ came into the world, to us, but remained what he was. Jesus himself is the light of revelation to the Gentiles as Simeon sings. Part of what he reveals is our salvation. And that doesn’t depend on us or anything in us.

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A Sword Will Pierce Your Soul – Pondering Cultural Lostness

Biblical Texts: Luke 2:22-40, Romans 1:18-32, Psalm 34:4-8
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There have been a string of national and then local tragedies. Unfortunately this sermon is something of a continuation of one just two weeks ago. I never meant for there to be a continuation, but events experienced called for it. In the middle of joyful events – like Christmas – as Simeon will say to Mary, there are swords to the heart.

I reviewed that sermon from Dec 16th a little, and I think it is the proper response for an individual. And one individual, ourselves, is all we can actually control (the fruit of the spirit of self-control – Gal 5:23). But that sermon left something unexplained or unexamined. What about the collective us? We ask questions like “what have we become?” And that question comes off the lips of a man who in no way has become what he is pondering, yet he supplies the “we”. It is another form of the “why?” question – why do such atrocities happen, one that actual betrays a developed conscience in that responsibility is placed on the right people. If we are asking “why me”, that individual question is not something that God tends to answer. But, if we are asking collectively, “why us” or “what have we become”, then I believe God has given us an answer, through St. Paul in Romans 1.

The first sin is forgetting or abandoning God. A trespass of the first commandment. From that trespass come all the others. Sin is both the cause of our troubles and the judgment. When we abandon God, He hands us over to our sins. When you are looking at a larger culture, that can get very evil very quickly. And if Paul is right (which I believe he is), the end point of that isn’t just sins but a collective culture that gives approval to their practice (Rom 1:32).

Why have we become a greedy, violent, lustful, callous, warlike and spiritually barren people? Because we have collectively abandoned the fear of God. And He has handed us collectively over to the rot of our collective culture.

What is the gospel? First, Simeon’s song. My eyes have seen your salvation/That you have prepared in the presence of all peoples/A light for revelation to the Gentiles/And the glory of your people Israel. God has sent a savior in Jesus Christ and we have seen his light. God doesn’t make false promises, and today is still a day of grace. Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near. Second, our hope is not in this flesh or this collective people. Our hope is in the resurrection and the New Jerusalem. The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them (Psalm 34:7).

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