Ready to Die

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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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

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke 2, verses 22 -40.

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When the time of their purification, according to the law of Moses, had been completed, Joseph and Mary took

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Him, Jesus, to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the

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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

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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

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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

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Lord's Christ. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child,

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Jesus, to do for him what the custom of the law required, Simeon took Him in his arms, praise

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God, saying, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace.

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For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all the people. A light for revelation to the

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Gentiles, and for the glory of your people Israel. The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him.

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Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, This child is destined to cause the falling and the 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.

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There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was very old.

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She had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was 84.

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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.

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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, and he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

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In the name of Jesus. Amen. Let me read the preceding verse to our gospel text this morning to give it a little bit of context.

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It says this, On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise Jesus, he was named Jesus. The name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.

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And then we continue into our text. And when the time for their purification, according to the law of Moses, had been completed,

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Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the

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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

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Lord, a pair of doves or two young pigeons. Now, lest you miss the importance of this, let's talk about what's going on.

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So it's a little bit of time has passed. Jesus has been born. And although we technically celebrate or recognize

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Christ's circumcision this week, eight days after Christmas, that's the eighth day of Christmas, we'll put it in today's text because we're not meeting again until next

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Sunday. And so Jesus has been circumcised, he's been named, and now he's to be presented to the

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Lord, and there has to be a sacrifice. And Mary also has to offer a sacrifice for her own purification, according to the

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Mosaic Covenant. And all of this is very important because Scripture tells us that Jesus is sinless.

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He's the sinless, spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

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Now, this is an important thing because not all of the commandments in the Mosaic Covenant can be obeyed actively.

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Some of the commandments that Christ obeyed, they were obeyed for him by his parents.

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For instance, his requirement to be circumcised, Jesus didn't circumcise himself, and he was circumcised on the eighth day after he was born according to the commandments.

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So it's rather fascinating that when we talk about Christ's sinless, spotless righteousness, which, by the way, is talked about in our

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Old Testament text this morning, and I'll show that to you toward the end of our sermon, but Jesus' sinless, spotless life is imputed to us as a gift by faith.

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God sees us righteous, not because we have been made righteous in the sense that somehow we've improved and morally done better, so that we've gone from being ugly sinner to climbing the ladder to becoming perfect, wonderful, holy, shiny saint by somehow curbing sin out of our life.

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No. Instead, we wretched sinners are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, and Christ here now is already at work for our salvation, even as an infant, fulfilling the commands of the law of the

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Lord, and in order to do this, he's doing it passively because his parents are doing the work for him.

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So it's important to think, keep this in mind, not all aspects of the law are obeyed actively.

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Some of them are obeyed passively. That's an important theological point. But here's the other thing. This text reveals to us something rather significant about Mary and Joseph.

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They are dirt poor. They are absolutely dirt poor.

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How do I know this? Well, it says that the sacrifice that was offered was a pair of doves or two young pigeons.

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Let me read to you from the Law of Moses, Leviticus chapter 12. This is where this particular commandment is recorded for us.

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Leviticus 12, I'll read verses 1 through 8. Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, saying,

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If a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean for seven days, as at the time of her menstruation she shall be unclean, and on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.

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Notice this is commanded. Then she shall continue for thirty -three days in the blood of her purifying.

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She shall not touch anything holy or come into the sanctuary until the days of her purifying are complete. But if she bears a female child, she shall be unclean for two weeks, as in her menstruation, and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying for sixty -six days.

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And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering.

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That's what the sacrifice needs to be, a lamb. Well, whoops.

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She didn't have the money for one of those. So here's what the law then says. A lamb a year old for a burnt offering and a pigeon or a turtle dove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the

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Lord and make atonement for her, and then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. And this is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female, and if she cannot afford a lamb, that's what it says, then she shall take two turtle doves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering, and the priest shall make atonement for her and she shall be clean.

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So think of it this way. Mary and Joseph, they're from a tiny, obscure, mean little town called

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Nazareth, a town of maybe a couple of dozen families, and Joseph here, yeah, his role is carpenter.

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That's his job. It's his vocation, but he doesn't make a lot of money doing it, and it's so embarrassingly sad as far as how much money he's able to generate that they can't even afford to purchase a lamb for the sacrifice needed for Mary's purification.

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So they resort to the two turtle doves. Jesus did not choose to be born in a palace.

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He chose to be born to people who were poor, poorest of the poor. We're talking like, you know, if this were happening today, braces are out of the question, private school, not even an option.

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College, you've got to be kidding me. If this kid wants the ability to maybe purchase some things, you know, once he's old enough, he's going to need to get a paper route or find some odd jobs in order to make some money.

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His parents just don't have it. And this tells you something about our

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God. He exalts the humble, and he humbles those who exalt themselves.

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Christ is not born in any kind of a place that people, you know, by the world's standards, would be looking for the

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King of kings and Lord of lords. Tells us something about his nature. So, imagine now what's happened is that they've got to fulfill the law of the

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Lord. God chose wise parents. They're going to obey what God commands. And they show up in the temple, and this is a big deal.

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The Lord himself, the Lord of glory, the true temple, has finally arrived. He's on the scene.

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He's at the temple himself. And so, this is what our sermon hymn this morning said.

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In his temple, now behold him. See the long -expected Lord. Well, there he is.

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What's he doing? He's pooping his diapers, being held, right?

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He's just a tiny, tiny, tiny little wee baby. And for anybody who was there that day, if you were just looking with your eyes and thinking away the way the world thinks, you would have never suspected that the

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Lord of glory had now finally entered into his temple. Jesus is already at work, fulfilling the law for us.

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And so, he comes in, and they're just going about their business. And those of you who remember when your kids were tiny,

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I remember each time we had infants in the house. We'd put them into the stroller. We'd go out to Walmart or to the mall or whatever.

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And whenever you're out in public with a tiny little baby, oh, there's somebody who's just got to see the baby.

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So you're walking along, and all of a sudden, oh, your baby's so cute. And then they're like, oh, can

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I touch him? That kind of thing. It's kind of weird. So here we've got something similar to this, except for watch how this plays out.

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Now, there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon who was righteous and he was devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the

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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

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Lord's Christ, or you could say the Messiah. So moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts.

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He's on a mission. He's here. He's here. The Messiah's here. I know he's here. The Lord has come into his temple.

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He knows this. So he went into the temple courts, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the law required,

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Simeon took him up in his arms. It's not like, oh, let me see the baby. It's like, he's got to hold him.

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And here's what he says. Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace.

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Literally, this man is saying, Lord, I'm now ready to die. I'm now ready to die.

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And his words, by the way, if you've ever been in a church that follows the, like, not just the lectionary, but it's liturgical, his song, his words become part of a song that has been sung in the church for millennia called the

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Noctimitus. Lord, now you let your servant go in peace. Your word has been fulfilled. For my own eyes have seen our 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

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Israel. This is a song that the church has sung for millennia. And it used to be sung here.

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I actually checked. I looked back in your old hymnals, and yes, you guys used to sing the Noctimitus, which is Simeon's words.

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These words put the song. And so he says he's ready to die. And so he was.

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Now, make something very clear. This text isn't about you. This is about Christ and what he's doing for you.

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But I want you to notice something, that you and I all have something in common with Simeon. And that is this.

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We too who are in Christ, who've met Christ, we too are prepared like he is to die.

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Because being prepared to die is not about somehow making yourself righteous before God or doing enough good works or somehow cleaning up your act so that you're ready to meet

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God. No, no, no, no, no. You've actually met Jesus. Not face to face, but he promises to be here for you.

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Remember, Scripture says where two or more are gathered, Christ is truly present. So Christ is here today.

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He's promised to be here today. Christ promises that in the waters of your baptism, he has washed you from the tide that flows from his pierced side, as the hymn says, the

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Easter hymn says, right? You have met him in the waters of your baptism and he has washed away your sins.

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On the Sundays when we have communion, the Lord is truly present in body and blood for you to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of your sins.

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You too have met Jesus. Just not face to face like Simeon has, but you will meet him face to face someday.

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And here's the fun part, is that Jesus says that if you believe in him, even though you die, yet shall you live.

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And he says, and you will never die. And you sit there and go, yeah, but I know for a fact my body's going to stop doing the breathing thing and they're going to stick it in a box and put it under the ground, right?

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But Jesus says, yeah, despite all of that, you will not even taste death. And so we, like Simeon, are prepared to die, why?

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Because we have met Jesus. Jesus has come to us, just like he came to Simeon in the temple.

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And so you, in a very real way, have met the Lord's Christ, the Lord's anointed. And like Simeon, you can say,

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Lord, now 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.

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You too can pray and sing and say Simeon's words as if they're your own, because in a very real way, they are your own.

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Christ has made them your own because of what he's done for us. And so Simeon, the story continues.

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So the child's father and mother, they marveled at what was said about him. So then

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Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, this child is destined to cause the falling and the rising of many in Israel and to be assigned to be spoken against so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.

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Yeah, Jesus, to say he was controversial, well, that's an understatement. He still continues to be controversial. People bristle at his works, bristle at his miracles.

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They scoff at what he's done and what he's said and what he's accomplished. And many people are incensed by this whole idea that somebody would have to die for their sins.

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And so people today still speak against Christ. Many worship him. Many scoff at him. And then we have these words, and a sword will pierce your own soul too.

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Direct reference to the fact that Scripture records for us that this same Mary who was there, who gave birth to Jesus, the

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Virgin, who heard the announcement of the angel, it says here that her soul, her very heart, is going to be pierced too because Scripture also records that she was at the foot of the cross watching her

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Lord and Savior and Son bleeding and dying for her.

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So truly, that had to be a wretched thing to have to go through and to experience. And if you've ever seen

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Michelangelo's Pieta in Rome, it's that sculpture where Mary is holding the dead corpse of Jesus.

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Great piece of artwork. And that's what this is referring to, that moment. It also says this.

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There was 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.

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Man, and women got married young then. So you figure if she got married 15, 16, she's widowed by her mid -20s, and she never remarried.

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And it says she's a prophetess. This is a rare bird. Prophetesses are very rare in Scripture.

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And here we have one of them. You can almost say she is like the last

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Old Testament prophetess. This is the last of them. And here's what she has to say. She was very old.

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She was a widow too. She had never left the temple. She worshiped night and day, fasting and praying, coming up to them at that very moment she gave thanks to God.

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And she spoke about the child to all who are looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. So there they are.

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They're in the temple. No sooner are they done with Simeon than this prophetess, Anna, shows up. And what does she do?

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She announced, she taught everybody, this is him. He's here. You're looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

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That's our Lord right there, impromptu preaching, if you would, in the temple itself.

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And Mary and Joseph, you know, And they just are awestruck with what's going on here.

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So Mary and Joseph, after this, they return to Galilee. And the child, Jesus, grew and became strong, and he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

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And this is one of the things that's scandalous about Jesus. Scripture says that Christ, even though he's the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he humbled himself and became a servant and was obedient even to death on a cross.

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So here we have the Son of God, God in human flesh, and God is omnipotent, all -powerful, all of these amazing things, these powers, and Jesus avails himself of none of it.

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And Jesus, just like any other Jewish boy growing up in Judea at that time, he had to learn his alephs, his baiths, his gimels, his daleths.

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That's ABCs in Hebrew, right? He had to learn all that. And it says he grew in wisdom.

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He grew. So he has access to all of this, and he empties himself and makes use of none of it, and he has as close to a normal childhood as you can have if you're a sinless boy.

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And this is almost the last thing we hear about his childhood. We get to hear one more thing, one tiny little bit of information about Jesus' childhood, and then he disappears until he's like 30 -something, and he begins his ministry and is baptized.

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But we know this, despite the fact that Jesus is none other than the Son of God in human flesh, he grows and becomes strong, and he grows in wisdom and knowledge.

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This is an amazing mystery. And why is he doing this? He's doing this to save us.

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Because as our epistle text says, it says this, When the time had fully come, God sent his

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Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those who are under the law.

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That would be all of us. So that we might receive the full rights of sons. If you want kind of a historical analogy, just imagine yourself in 19th century pre -Civil

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War Mississippi. And you're out on the plantation. Do any of those

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Africans have any rights as sons on those plantations? They're all slaves.

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That's all of us. We were born slaves. Born slaves to sin, death, and the devil.

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And Christ comes and he redeems us. He pays the slave price, not to make us slaves again, but to make us sons.

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We're set free and we're adopted. So this is the equivalent. You can go back to the 19th century

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Mississippi plantation here. This would be the equivalent as if some slave owner basically went out and bought a whole bunch of slaves, paid the redemption price, and then wrote them all into his will and said,

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You guys are not slaves. You are my sons. Here's my inheritance. And upon his death, they inherit the whole estate.

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And isn't it interesting that Scripture always talks about our heavenly reward as an inheritance. In order for it to be an inheritance, somebody has to die.

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Wills are not, you know, estates are not divvied up until somebody dies.

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And so it is. We receive an inheritance. And who is the one who died? Christ.

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He is. He's done this all for us. And so we come now back to our Old Testament text. First few verses read this.

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He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest and as a bride adorns herself with jewels.

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So why was Christ presented in the temple? Why was he circumcised? All to fulfill the law. He was born under the law so that you can become a son.

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And it says here that God himself arrays us, clothes us with garments of salvation and puts on us a robe of righteousness.

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And that righteousness is none other than the perfect righteousness of Christ. He lived perfectly, sinless for you.

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And remember, it says in Isaiah that when he's on the cross, he's pierced, punished, bruised, beaten for our sins.

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For the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. So all of us who are baptized, who are brought to penitent faith in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, that perfect, spotless, beautiful, shining robe of Jesus' sinless righteousness by faith, that's laid on us.

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And that's what our Old Testament text says. And that's the importance of Jesus being presented in the temple.

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He's already gone to work, fulfilling the law perfectly so that that perfect robe of Christ's righteousness now is resting upon us.

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So that we who are in him are truly saved by grace alone through faith and not of ourselves.

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It's a gift from God, this wonderful robe of righteousness, won by Christ for us.

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So let us then wear these robes of righteousness in ways that befit them, knowing that we are sinners, yet Christ has made us clean.

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We were beggars. We had nothing, not even clothed, naked and bleeding. And he has clothed us in his righteousness.

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He has redeemed us, purchased us from the slave block, and has made us his sons and daughters, all as a gift because God is merciful.

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God is good. God is just. And he does not desire your death. He desires your life.

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So much so that you can almost say that Jesus was hell -bent on saving you. So much so that he became a man and grew in wisdom and stature and ultimately went to the cross to bleed and to die for you.

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You are in him. You are washed. You are redeemed. You are here hearing his gospel and his words this morning.

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And on those Sundays we receive the Lord's Supper, that same Jesus who was presented in the temple is there in body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins.

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Let us trust these great promises that Christ has given to us of our salvation, our redemption, and our being clothed in these garments of salvation because truly without these there is no hope.

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If you look deep into your soul, you don't have to look too hard, really. Just be honest with yourself.

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Do you really think you're righteous? When you look at those ten commandments, I like to think of those as like the ten different ways that people go badly astray.

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And I think I head off in all ten different directions at the same time oftentimes. You don't measure up.

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I don't measure up. But Christ has measured up for you, and he saves you.

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He redeems you. He purchases, and he's got you. Let us rejoice in this great salvation that Christ has won for us even on the day that he was presented in the temple.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to And again, that address is

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We thank you for your support. All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.