Text:  Luke 2: 25-40                                                                                 1^st Sunday after Christmas           

 Seeing Christ

            In the name of him who was worshipped by shepherds and angels, dear friends in Christ:  I expect most of you have found yourself in a situation in which it seemed that everybody knew what was going on—except for you.  Maybe you missed the first couple minutes of a program and none of it was making any sense to you, but every time you asked what was going on, the others watching were too engrossed to fill you in; or there are those times when there’s an inside joke between some people, and you say something that makes them all laugh while you stand there wondering what was so funny.  Things like that happen to all of us; and when they do, it’s frustrating because you feel left out, and you really want to be in on it and know what’s going on.

            Have you ever felt that way in church?  Now, I know it happens when you visit other churches.  Everyone there knows the routine but you don’t; and so you find yourself feeling very self-conscious, sure that everyone is watching you, and scared you’re going to make some dumb mistake that will either offend everyone, or make them laugh at you.  I’m sure first time visitors here feel that way (maybe even after several visits: our liturgies are a little complicated and the hymnal can be less than user friendly) – and by the way, if you find yourself sitting next to someone who seems lost, give them a friendly, understanding smile and help them out.  Nobody wants to feel lost in the crowd.

But I wonder, have you ever felt left out in this church, doing precisely the things we always do here?  Say, maybe when you’re listening to a reading, and you’re wondering what in the world this passage has to do with anything – you know it must mean something; but whatever it is, who knows? Or maybe when you’re kneeling here for the Lord’s Supper and you know that you’ve been taught that something deep and mysterious is going on in the Sacrament, but whatever it is seems to be escaping you, and you feel instead that you’re just going through the motions without really capturing it.  Does that sound familiar?

Or how about Christmas?  Throughout the season of Advent we build up the expectation of the coming of the Christ Child – and then Christmas comes and … well, then life goes on pretty much as it did before.  We know the true meaning of Christmas; but somehow the great moment seems like an anti-climax.  Big drum roll – and then a fizzle.  Just the same old stuff we do every year.  Just going through the motions.  And we wish deep down that things could be different ... that this year might have been special – that we’d experience some kind of spiritual breakthrough that would set us on the higher path of truly walking with Christ.

Oh well: but here we are let down again. And sometimes we blame the times in which we live.  We think how that God doesn’t operate like he did in the past.   We think that if we had actually been there to see it all happen, maybe then things would be different.  One of the songs the children sang Christmas Eve said it:  “I wish I could have been there.”  We’re certain that if somehow we could actually have seen the Christ Child ... ah, then Christmas would have made an impact.  If only I could have seen him with my own eyes, then it would be more meaningful to me.

            But I don’t think so.  Suppose you were one of the Bethlehem shepherds.  Let’s say you’d been sent into town to pick up a midnight snack, and so you missed that whole thing with the angels.  And on the way back out to fields you run into the others as they’re coming in to see what they’d been told about.  They say, “C’mon with us.  You’ve got to see this.  The Christ has come!  Angels from heaven told us.  We’re going to check it out.”  You’re pretty sure that they got into the stash of wine while you were away.  You hope they saved you some.  But you go with them and spend some time wandering around the dark streets.  At last, on the outskirts of town, in a shallow cave, where a rock overhang makes a natural shelter that keeps the feed dry, your group finds a poor, young couple from out of town and their newborn baby.  The shepherds with you say, “Wow.  Just like the angels said.”  And you’re thinking, “Huh?  It’s some poor, out of luck travelers and their kid.  So what?”  You ask, “What’s so special about this?”  They respond in hushed awe, “He’s wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” At this point you are quite certain they didn’t save any wine for you.  “You’ve got to be kidding.  Swaddling clothes?  That’s what you do with babies – every baby in Judea is wearing swaddling clothes.  It makes them comfortable and keeps you dry.  And a manger?  Well what were they supposed to do, lay the kid on the ground in the donkey dung?” But because you don’t want to stand there looking stupid, you bow down with the others – all the while thinking, “I don’t get it.  What do they see that I don’t?”

And I wonder if things were much different in the holy family itself.  Mary and Joseph know that this child is Immanuel:  God with us. Think about that for a moment. The eternal God whose powerful word created the world now in the convenient “take home package”, fitting neatly into the crook of your arm.  Too much to try to understand:  the baby I can see, but God?  Sure doesn’t look like him.  And about the upteenth time Mary wipes some sticky goo from his cherubic little face, she looks up at Joseph and asks, “Tell me again exactly what the angel said to you.”  My point is I’m not sure that even the people who were there and had all the information really knew what was going on around them; and if you had been there, even if you had seen him, it probably wouldn’t have meant much to you either.

            All of which brings us to the Gospel reading for this morning, and the one fellow who really seems to understand what Christmas was all about.  We find Joseph and Mary in the temple in Jerusalem, forty days after Jesus was born.  They are here to offer a sacrifice for their son, Jesus, because as a first born son, the law said that he officially belonged to the Lord, and that a sacrifice is required to redeem him, or “buy him back” from God – which, under the circumstances, is quite ironic:  they’ve come to redeem the Redeemer.  But what I’d like to focus on is that Mary and Joseph have come here to the temple to fulfill their religious obligations.  They’re here to offer up the sacrifices that God required – to perform the ceremonial motions that point to the real sacrifice that will be made by God himself – in the very baby they hold in their arms.  And picture the scene:  New parents, from the country, a little uncertain of themselves, now in the busy hubbub of the temple complex, here to do something they’d never done before. They’re probably somewhat awed by the temple, and the crowds, and all the sacrifices and worshipping going on around them; and they don’t have the slightest clue that it is only because of this child that they hold in their arms that this temple and the worship conducted here has any meaning at all.  They are missing a profound spiritual moment.  They really don’t see what’s going on.

            What is happening?  This is the fulfillment of several very important prophecies.  But to understand the moment we’re going to need a little historical background.  You may remember last week we heard about King David planning to build a temple for the Lord.  God told him that he, as a warrior, was not to do it; rather, that one of his sons – a man of peace, would build the house of the Lord.  As it turns out, Solomon (whose name means “peace”) built the temple in Jerusalem.  It was a fantastically lavish building with marble columns and gold everywhere.  When they finished it, they brought the Ark of the Covenant – the sacred box containing the tablets of stone Moses received from God on Mt. Sinai – and they placed it in the temple.  And as they did, God came down in a visible cloud of glory.  Brilliant light and smoke filled the temple so that everyone could see that God was entering his house.  There was a message here.  The Lord was saying, “This is where I will be with you.  This is where you can find me.  Here I will be present in a merciful, gracious, and very evident way.” And so, in a very real sense, the temple was the place of “Immanuel”:  God with us.

            Unfortunately, the arrangement didn’t last.  Though God was present in the temple, over time his people forgot about him.  Over the centuries, they drifted into all kinds of immorality and idolatry.  After many unsuccessful attempts to bring the people back to himself, the Lord, with reluctance, withdrew himself from his own temple.  The prophet Ezekiel recorded watching in horror as the visible glory of God lifted and departed from his people.  God had left the building.  Shortly thereafter, enemy armies came and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, completely leveling Solomon’s temple.  The Ark of the Covenant was forever lost.  And the few survivors were taken into exile far away from the Promised Land.

            But God is faithful even if his people are not.  Years later, he allowed some of the exiles to return and rebuild the city and the temple.  Unlike the first, this second temple was a built on a shoestring budget.  When they laid the foundation for the new building, older people who had actually seen the former openly wept seeing that this was going to be only a pathetic shadow of what had once stood on this sacred ground. But God comforted the people and promised that despite its outward appearance, the true glory of this comparatively shabby second temple would far exceed that of the old one.  But of course, when God speaks of glory, he’s not talking about how pretty or fancy the building was going to be; but rather about how his own glory would be present in the building.  But when they finished the second temple, more than 500 years before the birth of Christ, there was no reappearance of the Lord. The brilliant light of God’s glorious presence never made a grand entrance in as it had in the first temple. And so for these five hundred years the Jews carried on their worship and sacrifices eagerly waiting the day when the promised greater glory of God would be revealed.  That’s what’s happening this day.  That’s what Mary and Joseph carry with them.  But when it finally happens, nobody notices; nobody ... except Simeon.

            Think about that:  here’s a whole temple full of faithful people at the end of a five hundred year season of Advent.  All of them are filled with the hope of the coming revelation of God and his Christ; but Christmas comes and goes, the long-promised Savior comes right to them, and God himself appears in his temple in a more gracious way that he had ever before appeared, and no one knows what’s going on – not even Mary and Joseph. But all of a sudden, an old man approaches them.  He walks right past half a dozen other couples who are standing in line waiting to do the same sacrifices they’ve come for.  Tears of joy are streaming down his wrinkled face as he gently takes the baby from Mary.  They stand stunned at his words of praise and thanksgiving as he claims now to have seen the Saving God, the Light to the Gentiles, and the Glory of Israel.   He’s right, of course; but only this one man really sees Christ the Lord.

            So how is it that no one else can see that which is so very clear to Simeon?   Well, let’s face it:  we’re not any different than these people in the temple.   We want the Lord’s coming to be more spectacular – something that will make an impact:  Angels, bright light, lot’s of smoke – maybe an earthquake  ...  something that we can experience.  But instead God comes to us gently, quietly, and veiled in humility.   And we can thank God that he does not come to us like we think we want him to, but rather in the way that we need him.  When in the past God appeared with bright lights and smoke, it didn’t work to change his people – and it won’t work now either.  When I can think of God as someone who sits in unapproachable glory in a temple surrounded by walls (or way up in Heaven somewhere like we sometimes do), then we can come, fulfill our religious obligations, make him happy, and then go home and live life pretty much as before; that is, without God. In fact, fulfilling our religious obligations and sacrifices like that would be an effective way to keep God out of our lives – and we can go home secure in the knowledge that we’ve done our part; that God is happy with us because we’ve met his requirements.  And that’s the kind of god we really want – a god who gives us the dignity of reinforcing our high opinion of ourselves and of our own ability to meet his standards; and then who leaves us alone to live our lives as we please. 

            But a God who comes hidden in human flesh brings a different message:  one that says something we really don’t want to hear; one that is a sign that will be spoken against.  God in humble, weak, suffering flesh tells me that all the sacrifices I make are not obligations that I can fulfill to meet his standards, but are instead reminders of the death I deserve because I fall so miserably short of his standards.  And this God is very difficult to see because deep down we really don’t want to see him. Why?  Because before we see him, we have to see the ugly truth about ourselves.

            Simeon sees what no one else can because he sees through the eyes of faith, and he knows the truth about himself.   We’re told that even though Simeon was righteous and devout, he was patiently expecting the “consolation of Israel”.  Now, a person who was by his own merit truly righteous and devout would have no need of consolation.  He’d have a clear conscience.  He’d have no fear of meeting God as his judge, because, after all, he would have nothing to be ashamed of.  But because the Holy Spirit was with Simeon, he understood exactly where he stood before God.  The sword of the word had pierced his soul and revealed the secrets of his heart – and he was terrified of death and the judgment that would follow.  To this terrified sinner the Holy Spirit revealed the righteousness of God, which is the gift that comes by faith.  To him was revealed the truth of the sacrifice that would be made for him by God in flesh.  So that, by faith, when he saw the Christ Child, he knew the promise was being fulfilled.  And seeing the promise fulfilled, he was no longer terrified, but was at peace with God, and ready to die sure in the knowledge that he would rise again and live in glory.       

            But what about us?  Here we are:  not quite two thousand years into the Advent of our Lord’s second coming in glory; and also now just having completed another Advent and Christmas reflecting upon his first coming in humility.  My question is this:  Do we see the meaning of what we are doing here?  Do we, like Simeon, see Christ?  Or are you here just going through the motions like all those people in the temple?  Did Christmas come and go leaving you with only the vague feeling that whatever it was that happened so long ago when Jesus was born was a good thing, but is so very far removed from you and your life that you came, and heard, and went home to live life pretty much as before?  Did you miss Christmas?   Well, if you have that feeling that something is going on and your just not getting it, then I invite you to answer the Spirit’s call to join Simeon this morning to go into the temple to see the Lord’s Christ.

            He’s here; but he’s veiled in humility.  As a matter of fact, he came in with you.  Like Mary and Joseph, you brought him here this morning, for as many of you as were Baptized into Christ have put on Christ; and now you live in him and he lives in you.  On the day of your Baptism, God exposed your sin and made you fall with Christ into death, and then raised you again with Christ to live a new life with him:  with the glorious presence of God that once filled the temple now in you. That’s why Scripture calls our bodies his temple, and refers to us collectively as the living stones of God’s house.  It’s here in us individually and with us as a group that Christ dwells so that we can really say that here is Immanuel, God with us.

And here we gather as his temple to hear him speak to us through his Word.  Sure, I read to you; but Christ speaks to you.  By the power of the Holy Spirit in your heart you hear and receive him again, just as you did earlier this service when you confessed your sin and Christ once again entered and cleansed this temple. Likewise, when you celebrate the Lord’s Supper here, you eat simple bread and wine; but you receive God in flesh for the forgiveness of your sin, just like Simeon did; the only difference is that he received looking forward to the sacrifice of Jesus, and you receive looking back at it.  So it’s no coincidence that after communion we sing with Simeon, “Lord now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your Salvation.”

            But it doesn’t end there.  Christ isn’t with us for only an hour or so on Sunday morning.  Christ’s coming at Christmas means he is with us all the time. Like Mary and Joseph, we take him home with us; and you can see him there too.  Where do you see him?  Just as Christ came in need as a helpless infant, so we see him in one another’s needs. Take a look at the people sitting around you.  What do they need?  Are they hungry, thirsty, naked, sick?  When you respond to such needs, whom does Jesus say you are serving? Remember?  “You did it for me.”  Well, of course, when you serve a member of Christ’s body, you serve Christ. Perhaps the needs are spiritual. Is someone hungry for a word of comfort or encouragement? – Thirsty for the Gospel of Jesus?   Does someone need you to cover the naked shame of some sin? Is someone sick with worry?  Is someone trapped in the prison of loneliness? How can you help?

And in this way not only will you see Christ in one another’s needs, but you will also see him in how others respond to your needs.  Just as Christ came in flesh to serve us, so we see Christ in our flesh when we serve one another.  We become living displays of the Lord.  And when you as a Christian walk into a room of unbelievers, where will they see Christ? Well, in you of course!  You are the appearance of Christ to them, which is exactly what Jesus means when he says, “so let your light shine before men, so that they will see your good works and give glory to God.”

            It is my prayer this morning, that by the faith the Holy Spirit is working in your hearts, each of you is able to experience the true joy of Christmas by seeing Christ here in this assembly, and also that you see him in one another. It’s also my prayer that this glorious, visible, presence of God among you becomes a bright light to those who have not yet seen Christ, so that they will be drawn to him by seeing Christ in you. In this way may the Lord grant us and many others a truly blessed Christmas.  Amen

Soli Deo Gloria!