Lord, You Let Your Servant Go in Peace

The Gospel Reading from Luke 2:22–40

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke chapter 2 verses 22 through 40. When the time of their purification according to the law of Moses had been completed Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as it is written in the law of the Lord.

Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the law of the Lord. A pair of doves or two young pigeons. Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon who was righteous and devout and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. Moved by the Spirit he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what was the custom, the law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God saying, 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. The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him.

Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, 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.

There was also a prophetess Anna the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was very old. She had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage and then was a widow until she was 84. She never left the temple but worshipped night and day fasting and praying.

Coming up to them at that very moment she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the law of the Lord they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth and the child grew and became strong.

Christ in the Temple as the Redeemed Redeemer

He was filled with wisdom and the grace of the Lord was upon him. In the name of Jesus Amen. Alright, our gospel text today is brimming, teeming, crackling with prophetic significance. Hopefully I'll be able to tease it out so that you can appreciate it.

We live in days when people try to crack all kinds of biblical codes and always they end up missing the whole point. The book of Revelation reveals that the spirit of prophecy or the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

It's all about Christ and what he's doing for us. And so it's important for us to note that this is the very first time our gospel text records that Jesus the Lord himself, God, enters into his temple.

It's a big deal. So, here's what our text says when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses you're going to hear this over and again in this text. According to the law of Moses.

According to the law of Moses. According to the law. And there's a reason for this. Because Jesus, although he's only a 40 day old infant at this point, is already doing the substitutionary work of saving you and me.

That requires him to be actively and passively obedient to God's law to keep it perfectly for us. And so, thankfully the Lord chose very wise parents for our Savior. Because there's things that have got to be done that Jesus can't do on his own.

He's got to be carried along to do so. I was thinking of Tyler as he was coming in this morning like this with Kinsley, right? Well, that's kind of Mary and Joseph today. They're kind of coming into the temple like that.

Jesus is not mobile on his own. So he's got to be brought. But all of these things need to be done to fulfill the law. The law must be kept perfectly. Otherwise Christ cannot be your substitute. Cannot be your Savior.

So we learn here, time came for their purification according to the law of Moses. Which kind of begs the question what on earth did Mary need to be purified from? Because she conceived Christ through her ears, if you would, through the word of God in the angel Gabriel.

Telling her that she would bear the Messiah. She was a virgin. I mean, you could not think of a more holy and pure conception and birth, right? Well, think of it this way. This is kind of where you start to begin to see that substitutionary work here.

Because it's going to say that Christ is going to be redeemed. But what does he need to be redeemed from? He is sinless. So what we're going to find here is that Christ, our Redeemer, is redeemed. Jesus becomes the redeemed Redeemer.

And Jesus, because ultimately when he goes to the cross, he's going to carry the sins of the world on his back and atone for them, if you would. Well, that means that he becomes the sinless sinner. So already you kind of start to see this in the text.

Where this work, where Christ is our substitute. He's all of humanity, squished into one dude. Come to redeem us. Maybe that's a little too casual, but you get the point. So, they brought him, Jesus 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.

A lot to unpack even in that small statement. Now, just so you know, we're 40 days after the birth of Christ. We fast forward a little bit. We're looking into the future, if you would, liturgically. If you do the math, and the church fathers have done the math on this, I went and did that terrible thing, math.

I mean, you know what I feel about math. But I had to double check to make sure this was legit. So I went and double checked. And sure enough, if you do the math, according to the chronology given to us by Luke himself in this gospel, it is 490 days when Jesus shows up at the temple.

It's 490 days since the appearance of the angel Gabriel in the temple to Zechariah announcing that his son would be the forerunner of the Messiah, announcing the arrival of the Messiah, if you would. Now, this is where it gets fun.

That is exactly 70 weeks. 70 weeks is hugely prophetic from the book of Daniel. We read 70 weeks, chapter 9, verse 24 and 25. 70 weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and profit, and to anoint a most holy place.

So here we have a literal 70 weeks from the announcing that the Messiah is on the way to now his first appearance in the temple. And Malachi 3 .1 starts to ring in here. Behold, I send my messenger. He will prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come into his temple.

And so he has. He's suddenly come into his temple. Granted, it's in a pram, but he's suddenly appeared in his temple. And that's kind of the thing. No one expected him to show up that way. And yet he did.

So the redeemed redeemer. This all points to Christ as our substitute, like I've said. The spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world or the sinless sinner has now appeared in the temple.

Because everything about Christ's life is ultimately about that blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. And even our text, our Old Testament text, we read from here that this Old Testament text is pointing to Jesus.

Now, I don't know how many of you have read that book out there. It's called The Blessed Life. It's written by a gentleman by the name of Robert Morris. I do not recommend it because Robert Morris takes this text from Exodus and makes it about somehow some kind of principle of the first.

You give your first 10 and then God will bless the rest. That's a racket, alright? In the New Testament, we are not under the Old Testament commandments of the Mosaic Covenant to tithe. And so Exodus 13 isn't about you giving anything to God.

Exodus 13 is all about what Christ has done for you. And so now we learn from this of what's going on. Interesting phrase. Let's take a look again at our Old Testament text. Chapter 13, verse 1. The Lord said to Moses, consecrate to me all the firstborn, whatever is first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both man and beast.

A beast is mine. And truly, Jesus is the one who opened the womb of Mary. Not a man. It was he who did it. Interesting way of putting it. So then Moses said to the people, remember this day in which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

For by a strong hand, the Lord brought you out from this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to your forefathers, that he shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord.

All the first that opens the womb, all the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord's. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. Or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck.

Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. And when in time to come you ask your sons, what does this mean? You should say, by a strong hand the Lord has brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery.

For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first opened the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.

Interesting commandment. All of this in light of being brought out of slavery, which then shows us that the story of the Exodus ultimately points really to the same story that we find ourselves in. Just like the children of Israel were born in slavery, slavery under Pharaoh, a false god king, we are born in slavery.

Slavery to the devil, a false god king, one who exalts himself to be God who isn't. And the Lord is the one who mightily saves us. And this redeeming of the firstborn, all of this points to Christ. The firstborn Son of Mary and the only begotten Son of God.

All of this ultimately has its fulfillment in pointing to Him and to His sacrifice and what it means basically to redeem. In this case, so if you were living in Israel at the time, if you had a firstborn son, you'd take your son to the temple and you'd offer a sacrifice to redeem it.

You wouldn't break your son's neck, you'd redeem your son. Basically say, Lord, He's yours. Here's our sacrifice. May we have Him back for a little bit of time. Until he's old enough to drive. And then we'll buy him luggage or something.

That other part is stuff I added, but you get the point. So this is what's going on. Now, later in the Mosaic Covenant, when this law gets put into the covenant itself, there is a proviso. And the proviso is that if the people, the persons, the family who is redeeming their son cannot afford a lamb, then there's a poverty level sacrifice.

Two turtle doves. And that's what Christ was redeemed with. Mary and Joseph were poverty stricken. They couldn't even afford a lamb. And so when you read that Christ is redeemed according to the law with a pair of pigeons, two turtle doves, this shows that Mary and Joseph couldn't even afford a lamb.

And this points to how Christ Himself, God in human flesh, if you would, the richest, well, being, because He's not a creature, the richest being that ever was and ever will be has come into the world and humbled Himself to the point of being born in abject poverty.

This is all part of His emptying Himself. This is all part of His service to us. His humbling as He comes to serve us, not to be served. And so we now go back to our text. So while this is all going on, this redemption is going on, it says, 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.

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. Fascinating way of putting it. A pastor of mine noted years ago that Simeon wasn't given a death sentence.

He was given a life sentence. He was promised he would continue to live until he saw the Messiah. So he was given a life sentence. No death for you, Simeon. No death for you until, right? And so the Holy Spirit was upon him, and he came in 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.

There it is again. Sacrificial, substitutionary work. He took him up in his arms, and he blessed God and said, Lord, now you let your servant go in peace. Your word has been fulfilled. For my own eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the sight of all peoples.

A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel. Do those words sound familiar to any of you here? Alright. Some of you, yes. Some of you look at me like, what are you talking about?

Alright. Well, let me explain. In the historic liturgy, which the church has had for millennia, this is a song that's part of the liturgy, and it's called the Noctamitis. Alright? I'll torture you guys with my rendition of it, but it goes like this.

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace. Your word has been fulfilled. My own eyes have seen thy salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people. A light to reveal you to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.

And then everyone sings, glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and will be forever. Amen. I messed up the last part, but you get the point. That is a song that Christians have sung for millennia.

And these are the words of Simeon. It's called the Noctamitis. And the Lutherans did something outrageous. They tinkered with the liturgy shortly after the Reformation, and they moved the Noctamitis. They moved it.

And you know where they moved it to? Right after the Lord's Supper. Right after the Lord's Supper. That was the big Lutheran innovation. We took the song that everyone's been singing, and we stuck it right after that.

And here's why. Because Simeon says, Lord, now you let your servant go in peace. Your word has been fulfilled. Simeon is saying, Lord, now I'm ready to die. If you were to ask a Lutheran catechumen, a 12-year-old boy or girl getting ready to go into catechism class, what that song's all about, they'd probably say something to the effect of, well, that's the song we sing when church is over.

We're getting really close to it. Lord, let us go in peace. We're just about done. Thank God. That's how they talk. I don't know why they talk this way. Not like I've raised any Lutheran kids. The idea here, though, is that's not declaring that the service is over.

It's declaring that because we have seen the salvation of God, and truly we do see God's salvation, because Christ is present with us. We begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And God's word says where two or more are gathered in Christ's name, He is there among us. And He is also among us when we take the Lord's Supper and we come to the rail here. And you hear these words.

Take, eat. This is the body of Christ, broken for you. Take, drink. This is the true blood of Christ, shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. And so it's appropriate that we end and sing, Lord, now you let your servant go in peace.

Your word has been fulfilled. Because when you hear the absolution, when you hear the gospel of the forgiveness of your sins, when you receive Christ's body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins, you, like Simeon, are ready to die.

You really are. You can go in peace because God has made peace with you, for you, in Christ. And so these are very important words. And this is why the church historically has sung these words as part of the liturgy.

So depart in peace. So his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. Marveled. Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and the rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed.

Keep this in mind. When it comes to Jesus, you are either a believer or you are an unbeliever. You are either at peace with God and have received the forgiveness of your sins penitently on your knees, or you are hostile to God.

There is no third ground. No one is in Switzerland when it comes to Jesus. You can't say I'm neutral. No, it's one or the other. And so here Simeon is prophesying this and telling some important things to Mary.

That he's going to be assigned that is opposed and a sword will pierce through your own soul also. Have any of you seen that amazing Michelangelo statue of the Pieta? You know what that is? It's a statue and there's Mary and she's holding the dead corpse of Christ.

And where this is supposedly to have taken place is, well, she was there when Christ was crucified. She watched him die. And so after he's let down from the cross, well, the artists basically depict that moment in what's called the Pieta.

And if you think about it, all of us who are parents, the last thing on earth we ever want to see is one of our children die. And here, Simeon, moved by the Holy Spirit, prophetically is letting Mary know of the suffering that she's going to experience because of her own son.

She too will have a sword pierce her own soul as she watches her son and her Savior die. And then he concludes with this, so the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. And there was a prophetess, Anna, daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher.

Think of it this way. Simeon and Anna, really old. Really old. In a sense, they kind of represent the Old Covenant, the Old Testament. The Old Testament has run its course. It's become aged. It's got all kinds of wrinkles.

It's crackly. It's on its last leg. The new covenant is about to spring forth. So Anna and Simeon, in a very real way, kind of embody the prophets and Moses and the Old Covenant itself, ready to give way to the next generation, the new covenant.

And Anna, again, can't make this stuff up. She was married for seven years and biblically, seven is the perfect number for God. And how many tribes were there in Israel? Twelve. Well, seven times twelve is 84, and she's 84 years old.

Again, one of those things, you sit there and go, hmm, that's numerically interesting. Somewhat significant. There's a gentleman on YouTube by the name of William Tapley. I wish he'd spend more time trying to crack these kinds of codes.

But anyway, it says of Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, 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 and 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 Jerusalem.

Look at that. A woman prophet comes, picks up Jesus and says, this is the one. I'm sure there were people looking at her going, Granny, what are you talking about? You know, you're talking like this kid's the Messiah.

He is. He is. Right? And the Holy Spirit's the one who reveals all of this. It's amazing stuff. So when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, there it is again, performed everything according to the law.

Jesus has come to fulfill the law. Galatians 4 verses 4 through 5. When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law. Why? To redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Yeah. Jesus was born so that we can be born again. That's the idea here. And so He's already fulfilling His work. And then it says, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew, became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon Him.

Fascinating story, is it not? So what's it all mean? What's your application? Go and believe. Believe this, that God Himself has suddenly appeared in His temple and He's done so to redeem you. He who did not need to be redeemed was redeemed so that you can be redeemed.

That's a lot of redemption going on there. Right? Or, as Simeon says, now that you believe and you've seen your salvation, you now can depart in peace. You are ready to die. You are ready to die today, tomorrow, 30 years from now.

Or, ready to live when Christ appears. Because you have peace with God. Because your King has suddenly come into His temple and He has done so to fulfill the law in your place so that He can die in your place and be punished for your sins so that you might live and be adopted as sons.

And truly that's what you are. You washed, baptized believers here at Kongsvinger. You are the children of God. Adopted into His family and you pray things like, Our Father who art in heaven. You're not asking for a potential Father.

My potential Father who art in heaven. I hope that I'm good enough to hallow Thy name. No! You have been made good enough by what Christ has done for you. And all of this is gift. Which makes Christmas all the more better.

Does it not? In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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