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Luke 2:22-35
22 And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, 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. 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 servant1 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.”
33 And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
And so I invite you to open up to Luke chapter 2 Luke chapter 2. Last week, we looked at the song of Mary, and this morning we are gonna look at the song of Simeon. Luke chapter 2 verses 22, it's there in your worship guide. And when the time came for their purification, according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord. Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:A pair of turtledoves or 2 young pigeons. Now, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 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. 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, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word.
Joel Brooks:For my eyes have seen your salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people, Israel. And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed. And a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. This is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Thanks be to God. If you would, pray with me. Our Father, we ask that You would indeed open up our hearts this morning, that we would behold Jesus, that we would come and we would adore Him just as we sang. I pray that your spirit would truly open up your word to us. That my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:But, Lord, may Your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. If you could sum up the Advent season by by just looking at one person, that person would be Simeon. Simeon spent his life patiently waiting for the Messiah, waiting and waiting and praying and praying for the Lord's Christ to come.
Joel Brooks:He's described as a man who was righteous and who was devout, and who was waiting for the consolation of Israel. That this word's consolation of Israel, that's that's an allusion to Isaiah 40, in which we read these words, comfort comfort my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned. The Messiah would bring this consolation. He would end the warfare.
Joel Brooks:He would forgive sins, And Simeon waited patiently for him. When you think Advent, think Simeon. And after a no who knows how long that Simeon had waited, probably year after year after year, and and never getting to see the Christ, Finally one time, he sees Mary and he sees Joseph enter into the temple, and they're holding a baby, and immediately the spirit of God says them. It is that child. And so, he goes to this child, and he takes baby Jesus into his arms.
Joel Brooks:I don't know what what Mary and Joseph are thinking. I would not just hand my baby over to a stranger, but but they hand their baby over to this stranger, and he begins to sing over Jesus. What we have before us is a prose. He I guess he could have said it like poetry, but perhaps he sung these famous words. Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word.
Joel Brooks:For my eyes have seen your salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people, Israel. It's a beautiful song. Let me just say that if you want to someday die in peace like Simeon, you need to understand what he's singing about. You need to understand this song, because no one ever says, let me die now in peace because I finally got the home I've always wanted. Let me die in peace because I finally got that that office in the corner with a great view.
Joel Brooks:Let me die in peace because I've finally had the vacation of my dreams that I've always wanted, and I've been able to visit all the countries that I have wanted. That will never let you die in peace. You die in peace when you see Jesus as your salvation, which is what Simeon does here. Now, throughout church history, this song has often, been used as the benediction for the end of a Christmas service. It's used this way all across the globe, and it should be, because many of the themes that we associate with Christmas are all here.
Joel Brooks:Those words you associate with Christmas, peace, salvation, light, glory. All of those words are found in this very short song. However, Simeon doesn't stop there. Almost every Christmas sermon I've heard stops there, but Simeon actually doesn't stop there. He has more to say about this Christ child.
Joel Brooks:I can picture Simeon at first, he's probably laughing, he's filled with joy as he's holding baby Jesus up. And he's saying things like this, He's gonna be a light, he's gonna bring salvation, and then he's blessing Mary and Joseph. And probably as he's about to give back Jesus, the Lord gives him a new word, a word he hasn't heard before. His face begins to lose its smile, and he begins to get really serious. And that the whole tone changes as he looks at Mary.
Joel Brooks:He says, I've got a word for you also. Says, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and the rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that will be opposed, and a sword is gonna pierce through your own soul, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. And I'm sure that as he said this, a chill just went through Mary, because she was completely unprepared for these words. Actually, all of us are unprepared for these words because nothing so far in the Christmas story has led us to even think that these words would be uttered. So far as you've been reading through the Christmas story, and we've seen this this Christmas narrative, it's it's always been hopeful.
Joel Brooks:It's always been filled with joy, and with light, and with glory. It's it's been very positive. Gabriel comes to to Mary and says, greetings, oh favored one. Then He tells her, you're gonna have a child, and He's gonna be called the Son of the Most High. And He's gonna sit on His throne, the the throne of His father David.
Joel Brooks:Then the Lord sends a dream to Joseph. Says, you need to call this child Jesus because he's gonna save people from their sins. Then we have John the Baptist literally leaping in the womb as he gets near Mary and Jesus in her womb. When Jesus is born, angels appear to the shepherds, and they say those famous words, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy that will be for all the people, for unto you this day is born in the city of David a savior, Christ the Lord. And then, thousands upon thousands of angels begin singing, glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth.
Joel Brooks:Then you get this beautiful song sung by Simeon that reiterates all of those themes. So so far, not one negative thing has been said in the story of Jesus. Not one hint of pain. And then we have these words by Simeon, and we're caught off guard As he begins to talk about pain, and rejection, and division, and a and a sword, He's just been talking about the comfort of Israel, how warfare is going to end, and now he's talking about division and a sword and people opposing and rejecting this Messiah. So at the heart of Simeon's prophecy is this.
Joel Brooks:Jesus is going to be an extremely divisive person, an extremely divisive person. He's going to be opposed. He's going to be rejected, and that's actually why Jesus came. He came in order to be rejected. If you wanna understand Christmas, you need to understand that this is why Jesus came.
Joel Brooks:And so what I want us to do this morning is to look at the different reasons why Jesus was so divisive, why he was ultimately rejected by his people. We're just gonna look at a couple of them. The first reason is this, Jesus didn't look the part. He didn't look the part. I want you to imagine, maybe driving to Hale County or Perry County, 2 of the poorest counties in all of Alabama.
Joel Brooks:I want you to then imagine going into a store there, maybe the Dollar Store or a Walmart. As you're walking down the aisles, you see a a teenage girl. She's shopping, and she walks past you. She's obviously poor, likely uneducated. You could tell she's an she's an immigrant.
Joel Brooks:She's pushing a stroller, and she passes you by. You would never ever give that another thought and think that baby could be king. It would never cross your mind, yet that's how Jesus came. We we all know what presidents and kings are supposed to look like. They're supposed to be from prominent cities, not from out in the sticks, not from the countryside.
Joel Brooks:They're supposed to be educated at Ivy League Schools, go to Harvard or go to Yale, not be high school dropouts. They're wealthy, not poor. They're people of high social standing, not people of low class. And of course, they have to be good looking. They can't be homely in appearance.
Joel Brooks:Yet, look at Jesus. Our theme this Advent season has been to behold Jesus, and what I want us to do is really behold Him, to really look at who He is. Jesus was born in an obscure place to extremely poor parents. In verse 24, when it says his his parents came and they offered those 2 turtledoves, that's that's the offering for people who who could not afford a lamb. They couldn't even afford a lamb.
Joel Brooks:You know, we often picture Mary. She's riding in on a donkey to Bethlehem. She wouldn't have had a donkey. She can't afford such such luxury. She couldn't have a vehicle.
Joel Brooks:She had to walk or take the bus to where she wanted to go. Jesus was then raised in Nazareth. If you remember back when we were studying the gospel of John, we got, and we were talking about Nathaniel. Philip, or Nathaniel's friend Philip rushes up to Nathaniel says, hey, I found the Messiah is Jesus from Nazareth. Do you remember his response?
Joel Brooks:He basically laughs out loud. He's like, from Nazareth? What what good thing ever comes out of Nazareth? Nazareth is out in the sticks. It's backwoods.
Joel Brooks:It's full of uneducated, unsophisticated, poor people who will never amount to anything. Jesus would have spoke spoken with an accent. Probably said y'all. And on top of all of this, Jesus was homely in appearance. It's a nice way of saying this.
Joel Brooks:Isaiah 53 says that He had no form or majesty, that we should look at Him. He had no beauty that we should desire Him. Simply put, he was not a good looking man. There was absolutely nothing noble, or what we would call majestic about his appearance. He wasn't the kind of guy that that, you would in any way be naturally drawn to, or that you would ever want up speaking before a crowd.
Joel Brooks:You wouldn't want him as the head of a company. He's more of a behind the scenes kinda guy in a in a closed room there. And so you add all of this up, and you can see that Jesus, he just didn't simply I mean, he didn't fit the part, not of who we think a King should be, or any leader should be for that matter. We we just sang, I love the word, and hark the herald angels sing, that he was veiled in flesh, the Godhead sea. Veiled in flesh.
Joel Brooks:His flesh hid who he really was. Nobody would recognize that this was the Son of God just by looking at him. Yet, anybody who's been paying attention to how God has worked in the past would have been open to seeing that this is this is the Son of God. They would not have been taken by surprise because this is how God works, and you see it all throughout the Old Testament. So God does things like He chooses a little shepherd boy who's never been in the army.
Joel Brooks:He says, I'm gonna use you to take on a giant, just not even on people's radar that that boy should do that. And I love it. It wasn't on, the prophet, Samuel's radar either. When he when he goes, he goes to Jesse, because the Spirit of God said, I want you to go to Jesse's house, because there, I want you to anoint the new king. And so he goes to Jesse's house, and he's like, Hey, can you gather your children before me?
Joel Brooks:And Jesse gathers his children, and he looks at Eliab, this tall, strong, strapping young man, good looking. And he's already getting his his oil out ready to anoint. And God's like, no. No. No.
Joel Brooks:No. That's that's not who I want to be king. So I was like, oh, okay. But let let me try the the second born. No.
Joel Brooks:And 1 by 1, God tells Samuel, like, this isn't this isn't who I want you to anoint as king. I don't look at the outward appearance like you do. I look at the heart. It strikes me as just fascinating that Jesse thought so little of David. He didn't even bring him forward, not even as a little courtesy.
Joel Brooks:So so when Samuel has to ask, do you have any other kids? He's like, no. What? Well, actually, I do have this one other little boy. I just keep him far from the house just with the sheep, and that would become the greatest king in Israel's history.
Joel Brooks:David's story is not an anomaly. All throughout the Old Testament, God picks. He picks that kid who at recess, nobody picks. Alright? The one when you're playing kickball or something like that is always going to be last.
Joel Brooks:That's the one who the Lord picks first. And you see it over and over. Firstborn children throughout the Old Testament, during those times, they're the ones who had all the rights, all the inheritance, all the rights, and yet God rarely chose firstborns. He chose Abel over Cain. Isaac over Ishmael.
Joel Brooks:Jacob over Esau. Ephraim over Manasseh, David over Eliab, Solomon over Absalom, and we could go on. He would choose women who had a past, People like Tamar in Genesis 38, who dresses up like a prostitute and sleeps with her father-in-law. So kinda use that person or people like Rahab who actually was a prostitute. He he uses social outcasts, like like the barren woman.
Joel Brooks:Sarah, who was way beyond her years of ever having a child, she would eventually give birth to Isaac. Isaac's wife, Rebecca, she was barren, and yet God would do the miraculous and would give her Jacob. Hannah would eventually give birth to the prophet Samuel. Samson's mother, she was barren for a long time. And as we look at the Christmas story, I mean, how can we forget, Mary's cousin Elizabeth, who also was barren, and then God miraculously gives her John the Baptist?
Joel Brooks:The Lord has a way of doing this, of finding the the outcast, finding the underdog, finding the one that no one thinks about, and he says, that's the person I'm going to use. Do you see the pattern throughout scripture? God seems to work through people who don't look the part, And Jesus certainly does not look the part. He has nothing going for him. And one of the things that this should mean to us is that, as Christians, we should never ever look down on anyone.
Joel Brooks:We should never have a sense of superiority as we look at others. As Mary is saying in her Magnificat that we looked at last week, God has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and He has exalted those of a humble estate. So let's get practical. In a couple of weeks, you're gonna be home, you're gonna be with family. Family.
Joel Brooks:Family that, you like there to be a distance between you 2. It's gonna take a lot of eggnog to get through the the weeks ahead. And family, that if you were quite honest, you might even be embarrassed by, because you're nothing likes them. You kinda think you've outgrown them. They irritate you to no end, but you need to value your family like Christ values them.
Joel Brooks:They have incredible worth. God places tremendous values on people like the Uncle Eddies that are out there. God's like, I I use people like that, and don't you ever look down on them. Don't you ever? As a matter of fact, one of the best ways for you to celebrate this Christmas is for you to find someone that you can honor who doesn't seem to fit the part.
Joel Brooks:Find someone to honor whom the world is never gonna honor. That's a great way for you to celebrate Christmas and why Jesus came. Now another reason why why Jesus is gonna be rejected is because He is going to expose people. Simeon says that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed, and notice what he says earlier in verse 35 when he looks at Mary, and he says, and a sword is gonna pierce your own soul also? And then, He says, so that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed.
Joel Brooks:The imagery is this. Jesus is going to cut you in order to expose you. It's gonna hurt. Jesus is going to bring conflict. He's gonna bring out the sword so that He might eventually be the consolation of Israel.
Joel Brooks:He might bring the comfort. Light exposes darkness. The world would never know how dark it was unless the light of the world came and exposed it, But, nobody likes being exposed. I can't think of anyone who likes being exposed. Does anyone like being told who they really are?
Joel Brooks:I mean, a lot of times we ask, give me an honest evaluation, but you really don't want an honest evaluation. You don't wanna be told who you really are. Would any of you actually like it if your friends could read your mind? Maybe the friends that judge you and you think, oh, I am so unjustly judged. Well, what if they could read your mind?
Joel Brooks:You're like, Well, then they haven't judged me enough. Leave a note for somebody, just kinda shove it in. If they have a little window in their car that's kinda slightly down, shove it in there that just says, I saw what you did. Just just just do that. Does that happen to you?
Joel Brooks:You're like, I was you you feel exposed. We don't want people looking in there. So we would do almost anything to not let people know what's really in our hearts, and then Jesus comes. Jesus comes, and He exposes all of our greed, all of our selfishness, all of our snobbery, our vanity, our arrogance, our lack of compassion, all of our lust, all of our evil desires, it's all brought into the daylight, and it hurts to be so exposed. When the wise men came to Herod and they said, we're here to worship the king.
Joel Brooks:How do you think Herod immediately felt? Joy? Thankfulness? He felt exposed as a fraud. I mean, I mean, you have these Magi, and and they're coming in, and they come to visit Herod.
Joel Brooks:He's sitting on a throne. He's wearing a crown. He has a scepter in his hand and they're like, have you seen the king? Nobody wants to be treated like that. Of course, he wants to put an end to that threat because he has just been exposed as a fraud.
Joel Brooks:He's not really the true King. If you wanna worship Jesus as king, you're gonna have to not just identify in that story with the Magi, but identify yourself with Herod. Nobody wants to be taken off their throne. Nobody. Unless the Spirit of God changes your hearts, there's no way that you wanna say, no longer do I want self rule.
Joel Brooks:No longer do I want to make my own decisions. No. Whenever we are confronted by Jesus, a rebellion rises up with us. We're exposed. We don't wanna submit to the absolute lordship of another.
Joel Brooks:So when Jesus comes, and He demands absolute allegiance from us, demands that we totally surrender to Him as King, and we resist, that resistance to submit to a holy and righteous King exposes us for who we really are. That we don't wanna bend the knee to that. So Jesus, He He would be rejected, because He didn't look the part, and He would be rejected because he would expose people for who they were. You know that Mary, Mary actually had a hard time accepting the lordship of Jesus. I know that last week, we looked at Mary, and we saw how that she's put forward as a, as really a model to us in her obedience, and she certainly was a model to us in her obedience.
Joel Brooks:But something changed in her over the years. You really did. You see a change in her. When Simeon tells her that a sword is gonna pierce her own soul, we immediately, we think of the cross, and we think, okay, that's what Simeon is talking about, that when she sees her son on the cross, it's going to crush her, and of course that's right, that is true. But that is not the only place that a sword pierced her soul.
Joel Brooks:She had apparently been pricked many, many times throughout her entire life. If you're a parent, you you kind of understand this already because it's true of all parents. There's a pain that we experience as we watch our children grow. I was doing a wedding yesterday, and and the the father is as he's walking his his daughter down, I mean, just tears. Joy, sadness, his soul was being pricked.
Joel Brooks:But, there's a pain that we experience as we watch our children grow up, as we watch them gain independence from us. It kinda hurts. You want it, but it it hurts. You know, for for a while, as a dad, you think you're everything to your child. You are everything to your child.
Joel Brooks:They they think the world of you. They laugh at every joke. They they never want to to leave your your lap. They think you know everything, and then they start growing up, and you're exposed, exposed for who you really are. Your jokes really are not funny.
Joel Brooks:You you begin to realize that they're not just little miniaturized versions of you, but but they actually have their own thoughts. They have their own interests apart from you, and soon they are making their own decisions. They might even, at times, be embarrassed by you, and it gets a little painful. Alright. Can you imagine how that would have been for Mary?
Joel Brooks:I mean, have you ever thought at what point did Jesus become independent? When did that happen? At what point was Mary no longer his teacher, but he became her teacher? When did that transition happen? At what point was she to obey him instead of him obeying her?
Joel Brooks:I bet those were some awkward years. I mean, at what point was she supposed to completely submit to His lordship? Total allegiance to the child she gave birth to. We don't know the answers to those questions. We only know that Mary actually had a hard time with it.
Joel Brooks:And maybe it was because Jesus looked so ordinary. Even after all the prophecies, after all the angelic visitations, after all of this, when it finally he's grown up, he just looked so ordinary. Maybe that was it. Or maybe it was just too hard for a mother to submit to her child. Or maybe she just thought Jesus got a little too extreme.
Joel Brooks:Whatever it was, we find out later that Mary was not submitting to His lordship. In Mark 3, we read that Mary, along with Jesus's brothers, came to seize him because they thought he was out of his mind. That's an intervention, is what is being described there. They literally think Jesus is crazy, and so Mary and all of Jesus's brothers are like, we've got to put an end to this. We've got to seize, we've got to grab Him, we've got to bring Him home, before he does even more damage, before he keeps embarrassing himself.
Joel Brooks:It's an intervention. They think he is delusional. And so when Jesus, he gets word that his mother and his brothers are outside, he pricks. He says, my my mother, my brothers? Who are my mother and my brothers?
Joel Brooks:Anyone who does the will of God is my brother, and my sister, and my mother. In other words, it's only those who submit to my lordship, who's family. The sword is going through Mary. As Jesus is telling her, even you have to submit to who I am. There is no special privilege here, and that had to be hard.
Joel Brooks:I know it's hard. I mean, it's hard for me. It's hard for all of us because there are certain things that we want to do, there's a certain way that we wanna live our life, and all of this has to be surrendered to Jesus. Yes. He's he's going to bring us peace, but it's gonna come through the sword.
Joel Brooks:It's gonna be come by first bringing in this inner conflict and warfare in us. He's gotta first shine light of all of that darkness in us and bring us to a place of repentance. I would go so far as to say this. If you never, when you're thinking about Jesus, if you never feel exposed, you really don't understand who Jesus is. Jesus will always expose you.
Joel Brooks:If you don't ever feel that inner conflict and inner warfare, it's because you haven't encountered the real Jesus. The Christmas story is peace on earth, but it's a peace that comes through being pierced. So why was Jesus rejected? Well, He certainly didn't look the part. He didn't look like a king.
Joel Brooks:He was also rejected because He exposes us for who we are, and finally, He was rejected in order that we might never be by his father. Peace comes to us because Jesus was rejected. And now, the good news of all of this, this entire story here, is that Jesus wasn't rejected, so that we would never be rejected. The good news is that although Mary's heart was pierced, although our hearts were pierced, no one was pierced like Jesus. He went through the ultimate piercing on the cross.
Joel Brooks:He was rejected. He was pierced. He was judged in order that we might be totally accepted. That's what we celebrate this Christmas. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, we want to behold you, Behold you for who you really are. We don't wanna look at all those outward appearances. We wanna we wanna see you for who you are as the Son of God, And if that means wreaking havoc in our lives, wreak havoc. May your sword pierce us. May we submit to your lordship as painful as that is.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus, we thank you that you came to be rejected so that we might never be rejected by God. And I pray that would be in our hearts all this season as we think of this wonderful Christmas story. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.