And
Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother,
Behold,
this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel;
and
for a sign which shall be spoken against;
Yea,
a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,
that
the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
In our Gospel lesson from
Luke 2, Mary and Joseph presented Jesus at the Temple according to the commands
of the Mosaic Law, to redeem the child before the Lord. Since every male who opened the womb was
considered sacred to God, and in particular the first-born male as a
remembrance of God’s deliverance of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage, Jesus
was brought to the Temple with a sacrifice to offer in his stead. What was revealed to Mary and Joseph was that
Jesus was sent not to be redeemed before God, but to be the Redeemer of the
world, and a miraculous sign by which the thoughts of many hearts would be
known. Jesus, as the Incarnate Word and
Eternally begotten Son of God, was the Messiah that had long been foretold and
foreshadowed in the Hebrew Scriptures for centuries, as in the stories of the
Prophet Samuel. Yet while Samuel was
sent to rescue ancient Israel from political abuse by pagan civilizations, and
religious corruption within his own land near the end of the age of the Judges,
Jesus was sent in the fullness of time roughly 1,100 years later to rescue His
people from sin, death, hell, and the devil.
The story of Samuel
contains much foreshadowing of Jesus’ later arrival: his birth was an act of
God and a gift to his previously barren mother; though sacrifice was made for
him, he was not redeemed from service to God, but rather devoted to God’s
service entirely; God spoke to Samuel, and Samuel was faithful to the Word of
the Lord even when present religious authorities were not; God worked through
Samuel to establish the Davidic Kingdom and the rescue of Israel from all their
harassing enemies round about them. Even
Eli, who was the priest and Judge who allowed his sons to desecrate their
priestly office and lead pious people into sin, recognized the blessing which
was upon Samuel, harkening forward to faithful Simeon who greeted the Holy
Family in the Temple at Jesus’ Presentation.
Samuel became the last and greatest of the 400+ years of Judges, and an
important pivot from an era of tribal chaos into an age of order and promise. Yet unlike Jesus, Samuel was merely a man in
need of the same salvation that all other people required, and in his service
to God and the people, he lived out his faith in repentance and hope, always
grounded in the saving Word of the Lord.
It is a common and
repeated problem across history that people misunderstand the purpose of Jesus’
coming into the world, and of the foreshadowing of that momentous event found throughout
the Hebrew Scriptures. Since the dawn of
man and our fall into sin, and through the millennia which transpired until
Jesus’ time, God promised a Savior to the world by His Word given to the
Prophets, and His people looked forward in hope for that Savior. While many saviors or messiahs were sent by
God to rescue His people from the lesser perils of temporal calamity, such as
Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samson, Samuel, David, and others, the
true fulfilment of God’s promise of salvation would come through Jesus
Christ. Jesus didn’t overthrow the
Romans or their puppet government in Jerusalem, anymore than He would overthrow
the religious authorities of the Sadducees and Pharisees. While Jesus knew that people would need their
daily bread and rescue from physical dangers, He also knew the greater danger
and oppression of man was that of his sin—an enslavement of the mind and soul
to the devil, destined for destruction in the fires of hell forever. No matter what political or ecclesiastical
phenomena were present in this or any age, the real need of man was rescue from
his own just condemnation, and reconciliation to God their Creator. No matter of temporal consequence held even
the faintest candle to the consequences of eternity.
And so, Jesus came and
accomplished His mission of salvation through His Incarnation, Crucifixion, and
Resurrection. His Word, as the Word Incarnate,
exposed the pride and hypocrisy in the hearts of fallen men, calling all people
to faith and repentance that they might live in His grace rather than die in
their sins. For Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world—they had
accomplished that all on their own.
Rather, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, who could not of their
own power save themselves from hell. He
became in His life, death, and resurrection, the Sign which would be believed
by the faithful even as the reprobate rejected it, so that the true thoughts of
all men might be brought into focus.
Jesus forced no man to receive His Light and eternal life, but offered
it through His own shed blood to all people, so that the rain of His grace and
providence might fall upon the good and the evil alike. No one could be saved apart from Him, no
matter how pious they thought themselves to be, and no one was beyond the
preaching of His Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ
alone. While the physical blessings of
health, prosperity, and joy in our work are lesser things God would continue to
grant according to His wisdom, grace, and measure, the riches of His grace in
His Son would be lavishly poured out upon all who would call upon Him in faith.
Throughout the Hebrew Old
Testament and the Greek New Testament, the Apostolic Age though the present parish
and missionary work of the Church in every land and tongue, the work of the
Lord has always been the salvation of His people. No one is beyond the love of God in Christ
Jesus, and no one is beyond the Vicarious Atonement of His blood shed for the
sins of all people. While He will grant
the desires of a heart that prefers hell over His fellowship, His desire is
that no one would be lost, and that all might come to a saving knowledge of the
Truth: that Jesus Christ has come to
save sinners, just like you and me. Hear
the Word of the Lord as it comes to you this day, that you may live in faith
and repentance before the throne of the God who has always sought you, will
always love you, and will forever give to you the blessings of forgiveness,
life and salvation—all for Jesus’s sake.
Soli Deo Gloria! Amen.
