Luke 2:22–40

0:00 Some of you may remember from your high school or college days reading Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Macbeth is a play Shakespeare wrote in the 16th century. It tells the story of a Scottish nobleman who murders the king of Scotland in an effort to take the throne for himself. And the result of that is that it plunges the kingdom and therefore the life of Macbeth as well into chaos. There's one thing happens right after another. It's just a cacophony of chaos that happens throughout this play as Macbeth descends into chaos and madness.

0:36 There's a time near the end of the play when Macbeth has just learned of his wife's death, suicide in fact, and realizes sort of all of a sudden and in a crashing moment that all of his striving, all of his ambition, all of his violence, all these moves he's made politically have brought him to nothing but complete and total ruin. And he's got a soliloquy, a speech in the play where he attempts to describe what life is. What is the nature of life as he, Macbeth, has learned it?

1:08 It's one of the most famous passages in all of Shakespeare's works. Here's what Macbeth says about life. Here's how he describes what life is. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, one after another, they creep along in this petty pace from day to day to day until the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have only showed fools the way to dusty death.

1:39 Out, out, brief candle. Life's but a walking shadow. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing that's pretty despairing right life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury and signifying nothing that's mcbeth's portrait of despair nothing makes sense everything that we experience everything that we do in our life is just a noisy stage performance by some madman up on the skies up in the skies and it ultimately means nothing in the end there's no plot there's no meaning there's no significance no purpose and there is no resolution we just live one tomorrow after another until we come to the moment when our candle is snuffed out and we're shown the way

2:41 to dusty death it's just sound and fury signifying nothing and the thing is in a play part of what you expect is for the main character like Macbeth to sort of work his way out of that right to come to some conclusion because he realizes he has a he has a light that comes on at the end and he realizes okay maybe life is worth more than what I said in that soliloquy but the tragedy of the play Macbeth is that that never happens for him. He lives all his days and he ends all his days thinking that life is nothing. My question for you today is, are you ever tempted to think like that yourself? As you're making your way through the ins and outs of life, as you're dealing with the hardships that come and the just weird things that happen that mess up your plans, do you ever just want to throw your hands up in the air and say, this is nothing. This whole thing is just a tale told by an idiot and just declare it to be insignificant. Well, we're looking at a passage

3:44 today that asks the question, is that really true? Is Macbeth right? Is it true that it's all just a bunch of sound and fury and chaos and screaming? Or is there something in the middle of all the chaos that makes it make sense? Turn, if you've got a Bible, to Luke chapter 2. That's what we're going to be today. You may be wondering what happened to Luke chapter 2 verses 1 to 20. We're actually not going to be preaching those today. We had a family emergency last week, which is why I wasn't here. My mother-in-law, Mariah's mom, had a heart attack and had to go into the hospital, and it happened at like 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, and so we were working to get Mariah up there. She's okay. I think most of you will have gotten worried about that. They put a couple of stents in one of her arteries and sent her home, so thank God we're not going to be looking at surgery it looks like for now anyway. So I know a lot of you prayed for us. Thank you for that. Here's the thing about Luke chapter 2 verses 1 to 20. I actually preached those on a Sunday morning about a year and a half ago near the Christmas season. So what we're going to do

4:49 instead of me just kind of preaching that sermon again to you now, at least in its main points, is that we're in the prayer email that goes out after tonight, after the evening service. We're going to put a link to that sermon so that if you just really want to hear Luke 2, 1 through 20, again, you can find it there. But as for us this morning, we're going to go on to new fields, and that is Luke chapter 2, starting in verse 21. I will give you a little synopsis of the first 20 verses of this chapter, though. The first part of Luke 2, those first 20 verses, tell the story, as you will well know it, of Jesus's birth. It's got all that iconic stuff in it. The stable, the manger, the angels singing in the sky, the shepherds who came to see him, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill to men. All of that is there in those first 20 verses. It's a familiar scene. Everybody knows it because basically we read it more or less every Christmas season. We print it on our Hallmark cards. This is the, you know, the passage that Linus reads as he's holding his little security blanket and he ends it with, you know, and that's what Christmas is all about,

5:51 Charlie Brown, right? This is what's, this is the one of the most famous passages in the entire Bible. This is what we sing about when we sing the song Silent Night, and we say all is calm, all is bright. That's the sort of tenor of the first part of Luke chapter 2. All is calm, and all is bright. There's harmony in the singing. There's beauty in the shepherds coming to kneel before the baby. There's calmness in it, and there's brightness in it, and it's beautiful.

6:25 But things didn't stay calm for long. Because within a few days after Jesus' birth, Mary and Joseph were expected to show up with him at a synagogue in their town or at the temple in Jerusalem. And there was nothing calm about that ever. And so that's where we pick up the story today in the second part of Luke chapter 2. Look with me at verse 21. At the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel when he was conceived in the womb.

6:58 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, a pair of turtle doves or two 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.

7:30 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. 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.

8:12 And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was 84. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Israel. Now, that's quite a different scene from the silent night, holy night of the stable in the manger, isn't it?

8:44 I mean, instead of softly lowing cattle and buying lambs and reverent shepherds, now instead of that, you've got hundreds and maybe even thousands of yelling, jostling, pushing, sweaty, stinky people. Animals being bought and paid for and sacrificed and people hawking from tables and yelling and coins clinking and all the rest. And in the middle of it all, getting knocked around by the shoulders are this very young man and woman, Mary and Joseph, who probably weren't much older than 14 or 15 year olds themselves. And this newborn baby who you got to think in a situation like this was done with that whole no crying he makes thing.

9:22 He was probably making a scene because this is chaos, sound and fury. But here I think is what Luke wants you to see. In the midst of all the chaos, the cacophony, the turmoil, the madness. The words of one old man and one old woman struck like a lightning bolt. This baby in the midst of it all is God's own salvation. The Messiah who's come to save humanity from the chaos of their own sin. A lot of times in the book of Luke, Luke will just kind of move from one event to the next because that's sort of what happened, right?

9:57 and there's no particular theological connection between two events. But sometimes there is. Sometimes Luke will put stories together in a certain way so that you notice that you're supposed to compare them to one another and see how they're different and draw theological conclusions from that. Well, I think this is one of those times. The symbolism is rich here in Jesus' first trip to Jerusalem. See, for Jesus, the Messiah, there wasn't going to be any long, quiet recovery. There's no sort of convalescence. There's no break, no extended sterile separation from the world he had come to save.

10:34 No, immediately, seven days after he's born, he descends into the chaos. Immediately, he finds himself part of humanity and caught up in all of this swirling, screaming, bloody madness. Immediately, the Son of God is affected by our sin and its effects. And yet, even here, before he's even able to speak about who he is, God appoints a couple to come and declare for him who he is. The one who will finally beat back the chaos, defeat sin and death, and redeem those who had rebelled against God.

11:08 That's who he is. Here's the main idea. Marvel, brothers and sisters, marvel at the Son of God who left his throne and stepped into our madness to save us from our sin. Marvel at the Son of God who left his throne and stepped into our madness to save us from our sin. I want to unpack this passage with you today in three points. Three things I think this passage teaches us about Jesus. So here they are. Number one, Jesus is Israel's strength and consolation.

11:41 That's what Luke says about him, that Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel. He's Israel's strength and consolation. number two Jesus is the hope of all the earth not just the Jews but also the Gentiles in other words everybody and that's the main thing that Simeon makes clear in his song number three Jesus is the joy of every longing heart so those three things is what we're going to talk about today he is Israel's strength and consolation he is the hope of all the earth not just the Jews and he is the joy of every heart that longs for him. Now, just so you're not distracted trying to figure it out, all three of those points come from the lines of a single song, come thou long expected Jesus.

12:26 So there you go. There's the answer to that little riddle. You don't have to spend the entire sermon thinking about that. But my hope, other than you figuring out where those sermon points are from, my hope is that you'll realize this morning that Christianity is not just about God inviting you to have a break from the chaos and to find some peace in the services of his church. No, Christianity is about the fact that you, you yourself, whatever your name is, you yourself are inescapably part of the wreckage of a fallen humanity.

13:00 And yet, even though that's true, Jesus stepped into it all to save people just like you, if you'll put your faith in him. All right, let's think about it. Number one, Jesus is, this passage reveals, Israel's strength and consolation. The whole setting of this passage actually is a set of rites and rituals and sacrifices that basically had to be performed after the birth of any baby. So in the law of Moses, the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. In those books, the law of Moses was very specific about what had to be done when you had a baby.

13:36 So as pious, God-fearing people who wanted to obey the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph followed that law to the letter. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. And there were essentially two stages to the process. So one of those stages would happen on the seventh or the eighth day. So seven days after the birth. That's when circumcision would take place. And then some days later, you would come to the temple in order to purify both the baby and the mother from the uncleanness of the whole birth process. So it's a two-stage process, and here in Luke, you get both of those processes.

14:09 The first of them was after seven days. The baby was named and circumcised, and that's what's happening in verse 21, if you look at it. At the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. Now, probably, even for Mary and Joseph, this part of the rite, this part of the ritual, didn't take place in Jerusalem. It didn't have to, according to the law. You could go to a synagogue in your local town. And so probably Mary and Joseph and the new baby stayed in Bethlehem.

14:40 Hopefully they weren't still in the stable after a week. Hopefully once the crowds cleared out, they got themselves a room at the end. But they stayed there, and after seven days, probably they took Jesus to the synagogue there. The whole thing was a fairly straightforward procedure. I'm not going to go into detail about circumcision, and you don't want me to go into detail about circumcision. But basically the synagogue leader would, you know, you'd stand in line because there would have been a lot of babies that had been born. And on that day, several, triple dozen maybe in a city that size. And they'd come into the synagogue and the synagogue leader is there.

15:12 And he would take each little baby and he would ask the parents what the name of the baby was. They would tell him. Maybe he would say a prayer for the family. And there would be a quick skilled flick of a knife and the cry would come out from the kid. And then you wrap him up, hand him back, and you move on to the next one. And that's what you did all day long. Luke doesn't spend a whole lot of time on it, but I don't want you to move too quickly over the details here. Because the details, even in just verse 21, help us to understand why Luke will call Jesus later in verse 25 the consolation of Israel. That's a term that is packed full of Old Testament meaning it means the comfort of Israel you remember from Isaiah the way the Lord comforts his people is that he cries out to them even when they're in exile comfort comfort ye my people and the way he comforts them is that he says I'm going to send you a servant of mine who will stand in your place and die for you so that your sins will be forgiven that's how you get comfort that's how

16:16 you get consolation. And so when Luke says in verse 25 that he is the consolation of Israel, he's saying, this is that guy, the Messiah that was promised to live and die in the place of his people so that their sins will be forgiven. This is him. This is the consolation of Israel. And there are certain details, even in 21, that help us see that. There are at least a couple of things to see here. First, there's just the name that they gave to the little boy, Jesus. Now, usually the naming of a kid is a somewhat, I don't know, it's not a huge deal, right? But it's not the most insignificant deal ever in life either. It's kind of a mid-level deal, right? You spend a lot of time talking about it with your spouse, you know. And that's the way it would have been in Israel too.

17:03 Maybe there was a family name that we learned from, you know, usually it was you name it after the father, or you name the kid after the grandfather, something like that. There'd be some discussion about which grandfather, or, you know, do we want to break tradition because granddad wasn't a good man, or, you know, some discussion about it, like any of us do. You know, they couldn't Google search it, but they'd probably talk to their friends and family and say, hey, can you think of any just really horrible nicknames that our kid is going to get from his friends if we give him his name? Make sure the name's not too popular, you know, that sort of thing. You got to check it out. Then you go up to the Levite at the synagogue, and the Levite asks you, what's he to be called? And you'd say, Joseph, or whatever. This process of choosing a name, though, was a little bit different, wasn't it? I mean, Luke says it there. This was the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And what's really fascinating about it is that Mary and Joseph had been told that name by the same angel, Gabriel, but they'd been told that

18:03 name at two separate occasions, right? So you can imagine those conversations that can, you know, wrap up, you know, us and our spouses for months sometimes trying to decide a name. I want to name him Dan. I don't like the name Dan. Let's name him Luke. I don't like Luke. That reminds me of this or that, right? Kid that bullied me in high school or whatever, right? For me, that's Jeremy. But imagine these conversations. Like Mary says, hey, Joseph, when this baby is born, what are you thinking we ought to name him?

18:39 And he goes, I'm thinking Jesus. And she goes, me too. And that was the end of it. Just like that, because the angel said, you will call his name Jesus. But here's the thing. It's not just that the name was given by an angel that makes it special. It is that in the meaning of the name Jesus itself, there's also layer upon layer of meaning. So let me show you what those are. The name Jesus was not an unpopular or uncommon name in Israel. It's the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua.

19:12 That's literally what it is. It's just the way the Greeks said the Hebrew name Joshua. Now, when I tell you that the Savior of the world is named Joshua, I hope a few things happen in your mind. First of all, I think you ought to sort of be thinking, that's a really ordinary name for a guy, right? Just a really ordinary name for the Messiah of the human race, right? Joshua, and yet there he is. Second thing I want you to notice is that it's the same name of the great leader and general of Israel who led the people of Israel into the promised land.

19:44 And there are certainly supposed to be resonances between that old savior of Israel and this greater savior of Israel. But there's more to it because Joshua in the Old Testament had not always been called Joshua. He got his name changed by God like so many other characters in the Old Testament. Moses actually changed his name from Hoshua to Joshua. Now what's the difference between Hoshua and Joshua?

20:16 Well, Hoshua just means salvation. That's what it means. Hoshua. Hoshua. Salvation. That's all it means. So Joshua means Jehovah or Yahweh. You hear the J at the beginning? Jehovah or Yahweh saves. So it's not just salvation disembodied. It's Yahweh saves. Now, there's nothing hugely revelatory there. Everybody knew that that's what Joshua meant.

20:47 And there were tons of kids named Joshua. And it means Jehovah or Yahweh saved. There's nothing unusual there. except for what the angel had said after he gave them the name. Do you remember what he said? You will call his name Joshua, Jesus, Yahweh saves. Why? Why do we call him Yahweh saves? Because this little baby will save his people from their sins. Do you see the connection there? You are to call him Yahweh saves, because this baby will save. Who does that mean this baby is? Yahweh. He saves. Yahweh saves.

21:33 Yahweh saves. He saves. And look what Simeon says about him. If you just let your eyes go down to 29 to 30. Simeon says about him there, my eyes have seen your salvation. he looks at this baby and he says my eyes have seen your salvation this thing that you've been promising for all of these centuries God that you were going to send someone to live and die in our place and to reign as king of kings and lord of lords that's what you promised that's the salvation and now looking into the face of this little baby my eyes have seen your salvation so what do you see I mean it wasn't the heavens breaking open into myriad upon myriad of angels that's not what happened. The Lord didn't put his arm down and draw his sword on the earth. That's not what he saw.

22:23 His eyes saw this baby because this was God's salvation. This was the consolation of Israel. This is Yahweh who has come to save his people from their sins. Here's another detail I want you to see. I want you to see in verse 21 the meaning, not just of the name of Jesus, as important as that is, I want you to see the meaning of the circumcision itself. I want you to see the meaning of circumcision itself, and more importantly, the meaning of the fact that Jesus got circumcised.

22:54 Now, here's a little history lesson for you. Do you remember why the Jews did circumcision in the first place? It wasn't for hygiene reasons. A lot of times, you know, when we circumcise our own children, we'll say, well, it's for hygiene reasons. We don't want them to get diseases and all this kind of stuff. For the Jews, it wasn't for hygiene reasons. Circumcision was the sign God had given to Israel 1,500 years before Jesus was even born that marked them out as his special people. So if you were a Jew, a true Israelite, descended from Abraham, part of the chosen nation and people of God, you were circumcised. That just was the fact for boys. And if you weren't circumcised, at least as a guy, then you were an outsider. You were a Gentile. You were a pagan. You were not one of the nation of Israel. You were excluded from the nation. So for Jesus to be circumcised on the eighth day just like all of his ancestors and countrymen had been circumcised was a moment of deep and profound identification with his people it was identification with his

24:04 people Israel he hadn't come just from outside to visit them and look down on them from on high he was stepping into their stuff he was one of them he was caught up in their life in their experience their history their suffering and oppression and ultimately their sin it was Milton who said it so beautifully at this moment in the story he says alas alas how soon our sin seizes his infancy it was within days it was in days that jesus stepped into our muck and identified with us so with a quick flick of the wrist the silent night was over there was an ear-splitting scream and jesus was irreversibly and visibly one with his people friends i don't know how much you know about christianity i don't know how i don't know how

25:04 much you know about the gospel of jesus christ but that is the jaw-dropping thing about what christians have to say that's the jaw-dropping thing about the good news of jesus as opposed to the good news or middling news or bad news of any other religion on the planet it is that god doesn't just give us a second chance he doesn't just tell us to be good now he doesn't just give us a way to pull ourselves out of our own muck by our bootstraps and sit there with his arms crossed going, that's a pretty good effort, but you still failed. No, the good news of Christianity is that the Son of God became one of us. He submitted himself to our life, our experience, our pain, our sin, our knife, and ultimately our nails and spear. And here to me is the wonder of it all.

25:57 Here's the wonder of it all. He didn't have to do any of it. He knew it was all coming. And he didn't have to do any of it. I mean, I don't know. Is the human nature of Jesus any more sort of aware of what was going on than your typical eight-day-old baby? I don't know. But if he was, and if I was the son of God on the throne, even the thought of the circumcision would have made me go, hmm, let's just not.

26:30 But it was all voluntary. The circumcision, the poverty, the ridicule, the mockery, the nails, the spear, the crown of thorns, everything. He knew it was all coming, and yet he did it voluntarily. And for you and me, none of it's voluntary, right? None of it's voluntary. Nobody asks us if we want to be born. Nobody asks us if we want to be in existence. No, we're just born. And we scream and then we cry and there's light and sound. And here we are, like it or not, there's no choice in the matter.

27:05 And then for most of us, life kind of just happens to us. Not for Jesus. The Son of God knew exactly what was coming and still said, despite everything he would endure, still said, And yet, I love them, and I'm not going to let them die. And so I go. What incredible love that is. Thou who was rich, beyond all splendor, all for love's sake, became poor.

27:38 Thrones for a manger did surrender. Sapphire paved courts for stable floor. Thou who was rich beyond all splendor, all for love's sake, all for your sake, became poor. Jesus is the consolation of Israel. Number two, Jesus is the hope of all the earth. So the first stage of these rites had to be performed after the birth of a baby.

28:11 And it consisted of naming and, for boys, circumcision. But there was a second stage of the purification rites and all the rest that had to take place 33 days later. So that is on the 40th day after the birth. We don't know all the details about all of this. We know it's written in the Law of Moses, and it's not important for you to understand all the details. But essentially, that second part that happened on the 40th day, it too had two parts to it. So you had the ritual purification of the mother by the offering of a certain sacrifice. And then you had the ransom of the child if the child was the firstborn.

28:45 I'll tell you what that means in just a second. But I want you to see that starting in verse 22, that's what Mary and Joseph are doing when they come to Jerusalem for the first time. Now, again, you didn't have to go to the temple to do this. If you lived, you know, hundreds of miles away up in the far north of Israel or something, you could go to the synagogue in order to accomplish this. But Jerusalem was understood to be the best place to do it. And so since Joseph and Mary were only, you know, five miles away or so in Bethlehem, they just traveled into the city to the temple in order to do these rituals there.

29:18 Luke, if you look at verse 22 to 24, he kind of mashes up the parts of this whole thing. But I think you can see them. You can see, first of all, the purification of the mother there in 22. And the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, right? You can see that there in 22. And then the sacrifice that goes along with it in 24. To offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord. A pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now that's interesting. A pair of turtle doves or pigeons.

29:49 Those are like the same thing. So it's saying you can offer two turtle doves which are pigeons. But that's interesting. Because the law, at least in the first instance, actually required not two pigeons but a lamb and a pigeon to be sacrificed. But if you were poor, in the second instance, the law allowed you to substitute for the more expensive lamb a cheaper second pigeon. And so when Luke says in verse 24 that the way Mary and Joseph did it is with a second pigeon rather than a lamb, what he's doing there is reminding you that Jesus was not born into riches.

30:27 This is a poor family that had to have a baby on a stable floor for crying out loud. And they can't afford the more expensive lamb to purify Mary. So they give to turtle doves or to pigeons. I wonder if you see the significance of that. I wonder if you see the significance of why God in his providence would send Jesus to the bottom of the social ladder rather than the top. I mean, if you're going to make an announcement about the king of kings and lord of lords entering the world, probably the way you're going to do it is with as much fanfare as possible.

30:59 Not God. He sent him to the bottom rung of the ladder. He sent him to the poor. He sent him to the slums. He sent him to the stable floor. Why? Why? Because it's on those who are in the greatest darkness that the light shines most brightly. And God intends it to be so. He wants you to know, friend, that no matter how deep sunk in your sin you think you are, there is literally nowhere so deep that God's hand cannot reach you.

31:31 Nowhere so deep that God's hand cannot reach you. You may think of yourself as being in the Marianas trench of your sin. As deep as you've ever been and with no hope of escaping it. And yet, there's God's hand right beside you. Wide open for you to take it and find mercy in him. He sent him to the bottom rung of the ladder. Also, you've got the presentation of Jesus there to the Lord in verse 22. where basically his life was going to be ransomed by a payment of five shekels.

32:04 You can see this in verse 23. So they brought him up to Jerusalem. They're going to present the baby before the Lord. That's the end of verse 22. And why are they doing that? Well, because it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. Now, being called holy to the Lord there does not mean super righteous. It doesn't mean he's a priest. It doesn't mean that he's especially moral character. that is not what it means what it means is set apart and not for a good thing necessarily it means you are holy to the lord you're set apart for the lord you belong to the lord for what to be killed that's what you're set apart from the lord the firstborn of every israelite is set aside for the lord to be killed okay why you know where this law came from it came from the passover That's where it came from.

33:00 So on the last night that Israel, the nation, was sunk in slavery in Egypt, right before they were exiled, God sent a Passover angel, right, throughout all of Egypt and killed all the firstborn of Egypt. And he said to the Israelites, if you'll take a lamb and sacrifice it and put the blood on the door, the lintel, the post of your home, the angel will see the blood and he'll pass over and he won't kill your firstborn. But do you know what he didn't tell them? Do you know what he did not say to the Israelites? He did not say to them, you are innocent, you are better than the Egyptians, and you do not deserve this, therefore the angel will pass over you.

33:38 No, what he wanted them to understand is, you guys, you Israelites, are just as guilty of sin as the Egyptians. You are just as liable to the penalty of death as the Egyptians. And if I don't step in with the blood of the lamb, your firstborn are going to die right along with them because you deserve it. So the Passover happened and the Lord, in order to sort of, you know, just drive that lesson in, said to them after the fact, all right, look, I saved your firstborn through the blood of the lamb that you put on the door of your house.

34:11 I saved your firstborn, but they still belong to me because you are still guilty. So every time a firstborn comes along, you're going to set him aside and we're going to kill him. Just like the Egyptians got killed. Except, except in my grace, you can either offer a bull as a sacrifice to ransom your son out of death. Or you can pay five little pennies to ransom your son out of death. You see the lesson that he's teaching them?

34:42 He's teaching them that nobody is innocent. Everyone deserves to die. Everyone is guilty. Everyone's under the sentence of death. And yet that sentence of death can be removed by a sacrifice. That's what he's teaching them. There can be a substitute. There can be a sacrifice of atonement who dies in the sinner's place. And that's what Joseph and Mary have come to do symbolically with Jesus. Just like all the other Jewish people would have done.

35:15 Well, in the midst of all this, something extraordinary happens. They're, you know, gathering together the pigeons and turtle doves that they need and getting their five shekels out and all the rest. They're getting ready to do it all. And in the middle of all that craziness, a man walks up to them out of the crowd and takes the baby Jesus in his arms and speaks what is essentially a prophecy. Look at 29 to 32. He says, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation that you've prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people, Israel.

35:48 Now, a lot of what Simeon says there in the first part of it is the same kind of stuff we've heard from, you know, first John the Baptist's father, Zechariah, and then Mary, his mother, in the song, The Magnificat. But there's one particular thing that he says that is different from anything we've heard so far. And that's in verse 32. That this Messiah has come to be a light for revelation to the Gentiles. Which to anybody standing around, to literally anybody standing around, even if they believed Jesus was the Messiah, even if they could have come to that realization, they would have gone, what are you talking about?

36:27 The Messiah is for Israel, not for the Gentiles. So this declaration that this Messiah would bring about a universal salvation would have been just shocking to everybody. So here's a question for you. For those of you like me, who are Gentiles, no Jewish descent as far as I know, do you ever stop and thank Jesus for saving you as a Gentile?

37:00 I think that's an important thing to do, and it's something you'll kind of naturally do if you're steeped in the story of the Bible. I mean, you probably don't, that would be my guess, because most of us don't think of ourselves like that. We don't think of ourselves as the Gentile as opposed to the Jew, right? But it's true. And all you gotta do is read the Bible to understand that all these Jews, Paul, Peter, all of them, they all thought of you like that. They thought of you as a Gentile. You are a goy. You are a barbarian. You are an outsider.

37:33 And yet after Jesus, they would look at you and go, and yet God saved even you. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom of God for from him and through him and to him are all things. That's how Paul ended when he thought about that, that you, a Gentile, would be saved. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom of God who has been his counselor, who has ever given him any advice. It's incredible.

38:06 Look, here's what I want you to see, and here's what Simeon is saying that would have been so amazing. It is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a universal, worldwide offer of salvation. It throws the doors of heaven wide open and says, everyone, anyone, Jew, Gentile, sunk in sin, think in their self-righteous, whoever you are, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. It's amazing to me when Christianity gets dinged so often as being exclusive, when in actuality it offers a wide open universal salvation.

38:46 If you just recognize Jesus for who he is and come to him, you will be saved. It's that wide open. But I think some of that, you know, charge of exclusivity comes because what the gospel offers is in fact an invitation. It's an invitation. And therefore you have to accept it. It's not just a sort of blanket salvation that's thrown out. No, the king sits on his throne and extends his hand of mercy. And if you'll come to him and take his hand and take mercy from him, you'll be saved.

39:20 But if you don't, you won't. And that's what Simeon means in 34, 35, when he says there, Simeon blessed him and said to his mother Mary, Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed. The falling and rising. What he means is that if you come to Jesus and take mercy from his hand, you will be raised to heavens, to the new heavens and new earth, to glory. But if you reject him, if you oppose him, you will fall.

39:56 Because you'll stumble, as the Old Testament says, over the rock that is the Messiah. Jesus is the hope of all the earth. Not just the Jews, but all of us. Friend, don't go away from this place without that hope. Don't go away from this place wondering what happens to you after you're laid in dusty death, as Macbeth said it. Make sure. Come to Jesus in faith and make sure that your end is not dusty death, but glorious life.

40:35 Last thing. Finally, number three, Jesus is the joy of every longing heart. One last thing that I want you to see in this passage. It's absolutely, if you look at it and think about it, it's absolutely chock full of longing. and sometimes long, painful waiting. And you can see it in this old man, Simeon. Verse 25 says that he was waiting for the consolation of Israel.

41:07 It doesn't say specifically, but probably Simeon was advanced in years, right? He was an old man because the Lord had comforted him all his life with a promise that he wasn't going to die before he saw the Lord's Christ. You got a promise from God. I'm not going to let you die until you lay your eyes on the Lord's Christ. And the way he responds to that makes it clear that he's been waiting a long time. I mean, look at 29. Lord, now you are letting me depart in peace. That now is full of meaning. And it basically means, at last, finally I can die because I've seen your Christ.

41:45 You can also see this note of longing and waiting in Anna. This prophetess who just walks up on the whole scene. Luke tells us there, if you look at it, in verse 37, tells us that she was at least 84 years old. And you can actually read the Greek to mean not that she was 84 years old and a widow, but that she was a widow for 84 years. Which could have put her at something like 104, 105, 115 years old. Something like that. she's old and all those years all those days she'd been coming to the temple every single time the doors were open and what does she do when she sees him what does she do when she's when she sees this baby finally she starts to talk to those who are around her who are waiting there's the word again for the redemption of Israel and then there's Mary herself even in the midst of all this celebration about this baby, there's this chilling parenthesis, this aside, there's a little side

42:47 comment that Simeon makes to her in 35, that a sword was going to pierce her own heart. Well, why is that? Well, that's a reference to the crucifixion, right? It's a reference to the flogging and the nails and the spear and the crucifixion, all of which Mary was there for. Her son's mission of redeeming the world was just beginning, and he wanted her to know it's not going to be an easy when it's full of suffering and pain and ultimately death. And right to the very end, Mary, his mother, you're going to be there to witness it all.

43:18 And the sword is going to pierce your own heart as you see it. See, even here, when she's rejoicing over the birth of her baby, Mary now has to continue waiting for more to happen. It's always been that way for us, hasn't it, as Christians? We as Christians are a longing people, a waiting people, where things like longing and waiting are just not well thought of.

43:50 Everything around us, from our phones to Twitter to billboards to the television, it all screams at us that what we deserve is instant gratification of getting what we want right now. No wait. Amazon Prime, baby. But friends, the whole story, the whole story of Jesus, the whole story of the Bible points us to the necessity of waiting patiently on God to fulfill his promises. Waiting patiently on God to fulfill his promise.

44:22 You ever wondered why God did it like that? I mean, why isn't it that God just didn't do it all like thunderously? Whoa, right? Send the Messiah. Take all his people. Make sure all the elect are already born. And whoop, pop them up to heaven, right? Why is this plan taking thousands and thousands and thousands of years? Well, I love the way Jonathan Edwards answers that question. He's an 18th century American preacher. And he asked that very question. Why does God take so long to do the thing that he's doing?

44:53 And he said, look, if God did it all in one sort of nuclear explosion of redemptive history in an instant, It would all be too much for us to take in and glorify him for. But the way God has decided to do it by flipping over one glory after another through centuries allows us to stand in awe of him again and again and again. We are longing and waiting people precisely so that we may give God more glory.

45:32 And you know what that means in some ways, in some really important ways? The fact that we are a longing and waiting people, the fact that that makes up part of our identity and self-understanding, means that in a lot of important ways, we are never, ever, ever going to fit well into this world. We're just not. And the reason we're not is because we're looking forward, as Hebrews puts it, to something that the rest of the world around us doesn't even think exists. But friend, if you're a Christian, that's the brief.

46:05 That's what you sign up for when you become a Christian. To be thought weird. To be thought a little bit crazy by people who don't see what you see. To be thought nuts by people whose treasure is in this world. And who wonder why you're not pursuing the same treasure they are. It's because, friends, our treasure is in an unseen heaven. And not here in this age. on this earth. But see, that's just the thing.

46:36 That treasure that we're storing up in an unseen heaven, it's not going to be unseen forever. And one day there's going to come a day, finally, when we say what Simeon said. Now my eyes see. So I wonder if sometimes you feel tempted sometimes to feel like Macbeth when you survey your life. He strove and he schemed and he worked and he had ambition.

47:15 At the end of it all, he could see nothing. No redemption. No good, just noise and fury and death. No meaning, no salvation, no point. And that is what makes that fictional character so different from the real character of Simeon. Because Simeon, after all his years of waiting, looks into the face of a child in the midst of all the chaos around him and says, my eyes have seen not chaos, but salvation. And friends, that difference, that difference between the fiction of Macbeth and the reality of Simeon is everything.

47:52 Macbeth stared at it and saw nothing. Simeon stared through it and saw Christ. And saw redemption. I wonder, friend, if you can say the same thing today. I pray so. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you and praise you as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the suffering servant of God, the consolation of Israel, and the comfort of your people.

48:28 Our Lord, we thank you for stepping into our muck, stepping into our chaos, stepping into our shoes so that you could stand as our king, our representative, our substitute, and our champion. We thank you for what you did for us in living the life we should have lived, dying the death that we deserve for our sins, and then rising again so that if we're united to you by faith, if we just put our trust in you to save us from our sins, we will be saved for all eternity. Lord, what amazing good news that is. We pray you'll help us to exult in it this morning.

49:01 And if there are people here today who have not believed it, oh God, we pray that you would help them to believe and therefore to be forgiven. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.