SERMON MANUSCRIPT

Christmas is a time for hope, a season of the year that in the darkest of winter days offers light and warmth. What gives it such charm? For some, it is the gift giving around the Christmas tree. For others, it is the longing to be with family and friends once again, as we sit at the table and share good fellowship around a sumptuous meal. For believers, it is all of that and more. It is the joyous celebration of Jesus’ birth, the coming into the world of the one who is the hope of all mankind, our Saviour and Lord. 

But, for me and my four siblings when we were kids, it was the annual trip to Detroit on Christmas eve. Dad worked in a store there and Mom would pile us onto the Greyhound bus to Windsor so we could cross through the tunnel to Detroit. That was fun enough, but the best was yet to come. Us country bumpkin kids got to ride the escalators of the huge Hudson’s department store. Up and down we would go playing tag on the multiple floors of the giant complex. And then to enter childhood heaven in the endless labyrinth of the toy department, playing with the model trains and ogling the latest Schwinn bikes. Finally, we stopped at the Vernor’s soda pop factory for a ginger ale float before we arrived at Dad’s work. Dad would proudly show us off to his fellow workers and take us to his black Christian friend, the parking superintendent, to be prayed over. How we loved and longed for that day! It was our hope!

Hope is a wonderful thing. It is the expectation of good things. We don’t have those good things yet, but we long for them and anticipate them. Hope is more than just wishful thinking, it is a believing. It is faith directed towards the future. Those who have it live optimistically. For them, the future is bright. Those who don’t have hope live with pessimism and despair. And there is cause for pessimism these days, to be sure. What with Covid and its threats and restrictions and economic hardships. Add to that the environmental threats of chaotic weather and global warming. Not to mention the moral degeneration of society around us. If we focus primarily on these things, they will surely destroy any hope and bring in a depressed and soul-destroying gloom.

Enough of that! Time for a story of hope! And for our story of hope today, on this last Sunday before Christmas, we want to focus on a rather neglected part of the nativity pageant. It is the story of the presentation of the baby Jesus in the temple. We are going to look first at the gift of hope. And then we will focus in on the people of hope, and lastly make application for our own lives today. 

So let’s go to our text, Luke 2:21-40 and unwrap some of its treasures.

The gift of hope

After the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph remained in Bethlehem which was only a few kilometres from Jerusalem, because they knew that, according to the law of Moses, they had to make an offering at the temple for their firstborn son, Jesus. So, after the 40 days mandated for the time of Mary’s cleansing after the birth, they entered the temple courts and purchased the offering, a pair of doves or two young pigeons, to give to the officiating priest for sacrifice. This was the least expensive offering for those who could not afford a lamb for sacrifice. It pointed to the relative poverty of Joseph and Mary. This offering was instituted by God after the Passover night where the firstborn of all those who did not obey God’s instructions for protection died. The instruction was simple. Sacrifice a lamb and paint the doorposts and top of the door with its blood. When the angel of death passed through on that night, God promised he would himself pass over the homes so marked with the blood of the lamb and not allow the angel of death to strike. Following that, God said that the firstborns would belong to him and the only way to redeem them was to offer a sacrifice. 

A show of hands. How many of us here are firstborns? It would have been scary for you guys at that time. I can imagine a firstborn child asking his father, 

“Daddy, will I die tonight?” The man replies, “Son, have no fear. God will protect you. The sign of protection is on our door.” What a picture of Jesus, the lamb of God, dying for us so that we could be freed from death, the just penalty of our sins, and have eternal life. Jesus, God’s only Son, was born to fulfill this hope for a redeemer. He is the Passover lamb.  On the cross he presented himself as the offering for our sins. A beautiful verse in Hebrews tells us that those who trust in Jesus belong to the church of the firstborn.     

…. the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven (Heb.  12:23).

I’m a second born in my family but I am a firstborn in God’s family.

The hope for a saviour has been fulfilled. Sometimes when asked if a person is saved, they reply, “I hope so.” Dear friends, we can know so because it has already happened. The redeemer has come. His death has purchased our life. We are the church of the firstborn whose names have been recorded in the heavenly register. And because of that we can know that we have eternal life. We need not fear the judgment.  

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life (1 John 5:13).

So, how is Jesus a gift of hope for us today? It is the certainty that my future is secure. I’m heading for heaven and God will be with me every day of my journey until I get there. And not only that. As surely as Jesus came the first time he has promised to come again.    

I will come again and take you to be with me (John 14:3).

 More on that in a few minutes, but let’s get back to our text and look at the people of hope.   

The people of hope  

Simeon

Down through the years, since Moses and the prophets predicted the coming of Messiah, there was always a minority, called a remnant, of believers who hoped for the coming of the Saviour. These faithful ones in Israel are represented by two elderly believers who greeted Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus in the temple. First, we are introduced to Simeon. Simeon is not mentioned anywhere else in scripture, so all that we know of him is in these verses, but they reveal a lot. He lived in Jerusalem, right there in the city where the temple was. He was a righteous and devout man. His religion was not one of all show and no go. He practiced his faith and as a result led a holy life of devotion to the Lord. Then it says in verse 25 that he was waiting for the consolation of Israel. In other words, he was waiting for Messiah. The words ‘consolation of Israel’ speak of God comforting his people, and bring to mind those beautiful words spoken by Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 40:1.

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed—–” (Isaiah 40:1-2).

And when would that happen?   

“When the glory of the Lord would be revealed” (40:5).

In other words, when Messiah appeared he would bring comfort to his people. So, Simeon was a man of hope who longingly anticipated the coming of Messiah. This hope was for him a purifying hope. It kept him on the path of obedience. He was determined to be a man who was morally ready for the Lord to come, and he lived in constant communion with God.

Next, we learn that Simeon was a man who had received personal communication from the Holy Spirit. He was told by the Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the coming of Messiah. We’ll come back to that in a few minutes. Then, led by that same Spirit, he entered the temple courts on the very day Joseph and Mary came to the temple to present Jesus to the Lord. No doubt the Spirit also pointed out to him the very child out of the assembled throng because there would have been a lot of firstborns there with their parents, and this humbly dressed family weren’t wearing halos as some paintings suggest. He approached and asked to hold the infant Jesus. He is the only person in Scripture said to have held the baby Jesus in his arms. What a privilege! Then he spoke,

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace.   For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel (Luke 2:29-32).

Notice how he calls himself a servant. That is the proper attitude of heart of a follower of the Lord. It must be one of humility, just a servant. John the Baptist said, “He must increase, I must decrease.” But notice how he refers to Jesus. He calls him salvation. Salvation is not an event so much as it is a person. In fact, the name of our saviour is just that. The name Jesus means Yahweh is salvation. And that salvation is for all people. Many of the Jews thought that the work of Messiah was just for them, that he would free them from political bondage to the Romans. But Simeon knew the prophetic word and was no doubt quoting from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 60.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.  See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.  Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn (Isaiah 60:1-3).

Remember that the one who wrote this gospel was Luke, and Luke was the only Gentile writer of the Bible. How thankful he must have been for these words! And how thankful we Gentiles should be that we are included in the light of the gospel.

Then Simeon blessed the young family and finally spoke some ominous words to Mary herself.   

This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.  And a sword will pierce your own soul too (Luke 2:34-35).

The expression ‘the rising and falling of many’ indicates that people will not be neutral in their dealings with Christ. There is no middle ground, no room for apathy. You either believe or you don’t. You either believe and rise, or reject and fall. Apathy towards the Saviour puts you in the camp of the rejectors. And there would be rejectors, those who spoke against the Lord. A day was coming when the angry throng would falsely accuse him, beat him and crucify him. And Mary, a witness of those events, would keenly feel the sword of sorrow piercing her own heart.

Anna

Now we see the second person of hope coming to greet the baby Jesus. Once again, all we know of Anna is in these verses, but they communicate much about her in just a few words. We learn she is a prophetess. That means that she received messages from God directly. Other prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah received messages that applied to the whole of Israel and even the other nations, and their words became scripture, but prophets like Anna received messages concerning  smaller, more local issues, that are not recorded in God’s word. But certainly we can deduce that she was a very spiritual woman. Her behaviour gives further evidence of that. As a young woman she married, but sadly her husband died after seven years of marriage, and we hear of no children. What was this godly young woman going to do? Her answer was to devote herself to prayer and fasting in the temple. And not just for part of her time, it was full-time, night and day. And not just for a few years, it was lifelong, reaching to her 84^th year. Some translations say that her time in the temple alone came to 84 years, which would mean that she was at least 105 years old when she met the baby Jesus that day. That spells a lifetime of faithfulness inspired by hope. How do we know it was hope? We see that when she saw the Lord, she joyfully shared the message of his arrival to those gathered in the temple, who shared a similar hope of the redemption of Jerusalem. (verse 38) The term ‘redemption of Jerusalem’ indicates the spiritual nature of their hope. It wasn’t just for a political solution to their troubles, but a moral one. They knew they needed someone to deliver them from their sins. Anna knew the ones who hoped for this redemption and no doubt this community of believers encouraged themselves in the Lord for years before this glorious day came. So, Anna is our second person of hope. But I skipped over something wonderful for us to see back in verse 36.  Her name and genealogy are very significant here. Remember, we are not given the genealogy of Simeon, so why Anna’s?  Let’s unwrap this treasure.  

Anna is a shortened form of Hannah, and her name means ‘grace.’

Anna=grace

Her father’s name is Phanuel and that name means ‘the face of God’.

Phanuel=the face of God

Her tribe’s name is Asher, and that name means ‘blessed’.

Asher=blessed

When you put these names together, a message emerges. 

By grace I have seen the face of God and been blessed.  

When God appeared to Moses many centuries before this, he said, “No one can see my face and live”. But God became man in the person of His Son, Jesus. And on that day, when Anna gazed on the face of the baby Jesus, she was indeed seeing the face of God. And wonder of wonders, she does not die, instead she is blessed. That is the message of God’s grace beautifully hidden in these names.

Benefits of hope: lessons for us

From these two dear saints of God, we see three spiritual qualities that emerge when believers choose to hope in the Lord.

1.   Patience and perseverance

Patience is the ability to wait, and perseverance, the cousin of patience, is the ability to keep on keeping on. People who lack hope lack patience and perseverance. They see an uncertain or even a negative outcome in the future and that causes them to give up. Those who have a positive and optimistic view of the future can keep going. Both Simeon and Anna believed God’s promises that a Saviour was coming, and they chose to wait for that wonderful event. How long did they wait? For them it was a lifetime. They were waiting for God to act, and they persevered in that, right to the end of their lives. In the classic description of love in ICor.13:4 it starts by saying that love is patient.   If you were to describe love, would you start that way? But God does. Every day that they chose to wait, God took it as love for him. They hoped in the Lord and God took it as love. The apostle Paul puts it this way,

Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award me on that day, ——and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing (2 Timothy 4:8).

Evidently, Jesus loves it  when we are patient with him and persevere in our expectation and longing for his appearing, to the point of giving eternal reward to those who have done so. I know Simeon and Anna will get the crown of righteousness. What about you and me? What is your hope for the future? 

Brother, are you, like Simeon, waiting for Jesus to come again? Sister, are you like Anna, longing to see his face? We need to be daily praying that prayer at the end of the book of Revelation, Come, Lord Jesus!

•  Holiness of life

The second benefit of hope is holiness of life.

We see the connection between the development of godly character and hope in Simeon’s life. He is called righteous and devout. We got hint of the connection in the verse we just looked at in IITimothy. The crown for those who long for Christ’s appearing is called the crown of righteousness, and the crown is given by the ‘righteous’ judge. The point is this. Our hope is not only to be with Jesus when he comes, but to be like him.   

When he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure (1 John 3:2–3).

Show me a believer who is being careless in his life and is caught in immorality and I will show you a man who is not practicing hope. The last person we want to see when we are sinning is the Lord. But when we are being pure and holy in our behaviour, we are ready for his return. We want to see him and be like him. That is our hope.

•  Loving service

The third benefit of hope is loving service

Anna spent her life in devoted service to God because she had her eyes on the redemption of Jerusalem, that day when Messiah would come. Her particular calling was to fast and pray in the temple. And she did it day after day for years and years. Those who think that waiting for the Lord to come involves sitting on the sofa and whiling away the hours watching TV have got the wrong idea. The hope of Christ’s return leads us to use the days available to us on earth to serve the Lord. We are looking forward to the day of review when the good things done here on earth will receive a joyful ‘well done’ from our Lord. The apostle Paul puts it this way,

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm.  Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

So, here is a big question. When will Jesus come again? After all, it has been 2000 years since he came the first time. Personally, I believe the Lord’s coming again is very near. To emphasize this point I want to take you back to what was promised to Simeon in verse 26

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ (Luke 2:26).

Somebody knew when Jesus was coming the first time, and that was Simeon. He knew not the exact hour or day, but certainly the time period. It would be before he died, and it surely came to pass. True to God’s promise, Simeon witnessed the coming of the Lord.

What about Jesus’ second coming? We know not the exact hour or day because Jesus tells us this directly.   

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father (Matthew 13:32).

But there is a prophecy that Jesus makes just prior to this verse about a whole generation of people who, like Simeon, would not pass away before they witnessed the second coming of the Lord. 

Now learn a lesson from the fig tree: as soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door.  I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened (Mark 13:28-30).

We know that the fig tree is a symbol of the nation of Israel. In Mark 11, Jesus cursed the fig tree as a symbol of Israel’s coming judgment for not receiving their Messiah. Now he is saying that the fig tree will bud and blossom again. That happened in 1948. That was when Israel came back into their land in  Palestine, after a period of 1900 years of dispersion, and they became a sovereign nation again. The prophetic events of Mark 13 are all based on Israel being back in their land. There are a generation of people in this room who were alive for that event, and I am one of them. If this is the correct interpretation, then my generation will witness the coming of the Lord. If this is so, then most of us will actually experience that awesome event. Of all past generations of believers, we are certainly most blessed to have such a hope. 

And there is another beautiful connection between the story of Simeon and Anna and future events concerning the coming of the Lord. We are told in I Thessalonians 4 that before Christ comes back to earth in glory, he will call all his loved ones to meet him in the air to be with him forever. But those who have died as believers will come with him from heaven. Simeon represents those believers who moved by the Spirit, are caught up to be with the Lord. Anna was already in the temple, the Father’s house, that was her home for many years, so she did not need to be called to that meeting with Jesus. She was already there. She represents those believers who have gone on before us into glory and are already in the Father’s house, some having been there for 2000 years.

The truth is that Jesus is coming again and his people will be called to meet him in the air. On the night Jesus the angelic hosts appeared in the air to announce the Lord’s coming and to serenade them with celestial music. When Jesus come for us, we will not remain standing in the field as observers, we will be caught up to join the choir!

But the question before us today is, do we hope for it, do we anticipate it with joy, is it the chief longing of our hearts? Do we earnestly pray, Come, Lord Jesus? And do we, as Simeon and Anna did so long ago, order our lives according to this hope? I can thankfully and humbly testify to this as I am sure many of you can as well, that the hope of the Lord’s coming has been a constant desire in my life since I learned this truth as a young man. And it has kept me true to Jesus for all these years, preserving me from sin, inspiring me to service, and giving me optimism for the future. And I love sharing this truth with others, and reassuring Christians who are struggling with their lives.  I tell them,

 “Your future looks great!  Jesus is coming soon.  You are going to be with the Lord forever.” 

 What a wonderful Christmas present that will be!

In these days of trouble and uncertainty we can easily get bogged down with despair. And in these days of materialism and self-serving indulgence we can be distracted from the Lord and forget our purpose and our destiny.   We need to consciously and continually choose to hope in the Lord, to long for his coming. May God help us to do so for our blessing and his glory.

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