Our Lord Jesus comes to His Temple as an infant. He will come many other times: when He is 12 to sit and teach the teachers, in His last week before His death to drive out the moneychangers. Jesus will also come to His Temple in mercy to proclaim the Kingdom of God and, on the darkest of Fridays, He will rip the veil of the Temple in two, showing the Old Covenant is no more.
Jesus comes to His Temple as a 40-day-old infant. Mary and Joseph bring Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to God’s Old-Covenant Law. Still, a joyful day greets them, a day of thanks. For Mary holds in her arms the One who will carry and take away the sin of the world.
How do they celebrate? They bring animals to kill, by sacrificing a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. God mandates a sacrifice for more than cleansing sin. He is also teaching about salvation: His grace and salvation cost something—if not from you, from someone or something else.
Redemption requires blood. God points us to blood through sight and sound, touch and aroma, and palate, which must spill for forgiveness and life to come to another. Without sacrifice, no forgiveness. The life of the creature flows within the blood. So, to save a life, life must be poured out and offered up.
The killing and sacrifice by Mary and Joseph are more than following the old ways. Their acts also confess what the baby they hold in their arms came to do: He will one day die for the salvation of the world. Yes, His sacrifice is still far off and abstract, but the day will come.
Luke reminds us, amid the joy of the Messiah’s advent: what Jesus comes to do is always before Him. He comes to fulfill the Law, to take away the sins of the world through His suffering and death on the cross. Luke records Jesus in the Temple to show us He is, when still an infant, doing His work of salvation.
So, the holy family goes into the Temple for the needed sacrifice. They enter and find someone waiting for them: Simeon, an old man, a devout and righteous man. He is waiting for Israel’s “Consolation.”
The Lord’s “Consolation” is the coming of His Messiah, the Anointed One, the Messenger of the New Covenant, the One chosen to bring eternal peace into the world. Simeon loiters at the Temple because the Holy Spirit told him he would not die before he held the long-promised Messiah.
Simeon, full of anticipation and expectation, recognizes the Messiah. He is looking forward with eager eyes. He beholds—not only some old promise now realized—but God’s salvation and mercy embodied in this nursing infant.
Learn from St. Simeon. The Lord sticks to His Word. Go to where God keeps His promises—in His Son. In Jesus, God satisfies the yearnings of the heart, in whom our longings and expectations come true. Simeon latches on and clings to God the Son, the Savior, in whom every promise of God becomes “Yes!” (2 Corinthians 1:20).
Such eagerness, longing, and joy prompt old Simeon to take the baby into his arms and praise God. His tongue is beyond restraint. He begins to intone a blessing, as the Jews of old often did: “Lord, now I can die in peace. For as You said, my eyes now see Your salvation.”
Don’t be fooled into thinking Simeon’s words reveal him to be nothing more an old man who’s tired of life’s frustrations, who is begging to die. Don’t think his words show him to be someone overwhelmed by the moment. No! By the Spirit, St. Simeon glimpses into the eyes of the infant: God in human flesh and the Savior of all is before him.
Simeon understands what his eyes take in. By the Spirit, he rejoices in God’s Glory and Light now before him, who became incarnate to enlighten, illumine, and shine into the heart and life of every person. By the same Spirit, St. Simeon embraces Life Himself—the Life who humbled Himself, leaving heaven’s glories for our salvation.
The old man is not crying out, “I can’t handle what God is revealing!” He doesn’t give voice to an excessive enthusiasm or an outlandish praise. How can he? He’s holding God in his hands. His eyes delight in God’s salvation. He’s tasting heaven before arriving in glory. He cradles Life Himself in his arms—but here’s the truth: Life Himself is holding Simeon, not the other way around.
Is anything else now left in life? Let me more than drink up the Lord’s visit or live in the moment. Jesus in his arms is now his entire life. For the first time, he is ready to live God’s presence forever.
Simeon does not sing a death wish. He sings a song of faith, a hymn of heaven for our ears to grace on earth. Simeon gives us words to use to thank God for His grace and kindness resident in the Christ-Child, in One who is destined to die so we might live.
Simeon gives us words so we can respond to the Messiah. Jesus takes our human experience into Himself—our sin, suffering, sickness, heartache, and death—so we can receive and share in the life, righteousness, forgiveness, and mercy, which Jesus both gives and is. No wonder the old man sings!
Simeon doesn’t understand all the specifics of how the Messiah’s life will go. He is confident, however, of this Child being the Father’s sacrifice for the salvation of the world. So, Simeon speaks of nothing else—only the Lord Jesus, for he now holds in his arms the Life of the world. When you carry the Life of all the living in your arms, what else can compare?
Simeon sees—more than a 40-day-old infant, more than hope for the future, more than a child whom God sets apart for the world’s salvation. Simeon also takes in what this means to him. Jesus becomes personal: cleansing, purifying, converting, and making him righteous.
Jesus is not here only for the whole world, but also for Simeon, for you. The full exchange between Christ and Simeon causes a holy reverence to pierce deep within him. Jesus becomes everything he is so Simeon can be everything Jesus gives him.
The sins of Simeon now belong to Jesus. Jesus takes his fears and frailties. Jesus hugs and assumes into Himself Simeon’s sinful flesh and evil cravings, becoming Simeon’s death. The Life of Jesus becomes Simeon’s Life.
So, Simeon is now ready to die. Jesus gives him the right to call God, “Father.” Jesus plants God’s mercy in Simeon and prepares his flesh for the resurrection, for God, in Christ by the Spirit, comes and makes His home in Simeon.
No wonder Simeon can sing of the peace God gives to him. Our Lord comes to give peace, which is only real because He put on our human flesh. He enters our human experience to become Peace itself, ending the warfare of sin’s rebellion against God, taking our rebellion into Himself and dying to win the victory. Peace with God once more is made beginning with our Lord’s incarnation, lived out in His life, achieved on the cross, made real by the resurrection, and glorified in His ascension.
No wonder Simeon can die in peace. But he’s not done, for this peace from God is not only for the Jews or himself but also for the Gentiles. Jesus is “a light for revelation to the Gentiles.” The peace of God in Christ Jesus is not for a select group but everyone. God’s mercy, shown to us in Christ, is for all! God gives forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to all through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Today, we do more than learn from Simeon; we also live in his faith. For what Simeon hopes for and delights in is also true for you. You rejoice in Jesus as Simeon did. Simeon got to hold the Lord Jesus in his arms. The same God comes to you in His preached Word and His Word of Absolution.
You also receive the same Lord and Christ, the same God and Savior before your eyes, placed into your hands, entering your mouth into your body. Jesus, the Messiah, lives in your heart (Ephesians 3:17). God comforts you, “I will never leave you or abandon you” (Hebrews 13:5). Jesus graces you in His body and blood, in His Holy Supper, which is why we often sing Simeon’s song after receiving Jesus. Jesus for you becomes Jesus in you.
So, Simeon’s song also becomes our song. For the salvation, which fills Simeon with wonder, is prepared—not only in front of everyone—but also for the benefit of all. Everyone who gazes on the Christ-Child in faith lives in the salvation of God.
Everyone whom the Holy Spirit plunges into this Child’s death in the waters of Holy Baptism receives the Life He is, which gives us purpose and goes beyond any living we can do. Everyone who partakes of this Child’s blood and body eats and drinks in God’s goodness. Everyone receiving the fullness of our Lord’s saving life is brought into God Himself and lives in Him as He lives in them.
Simeon awaited the coming of the Christ, the Bringer of peace. Jesus gives us the same peace now, which He speaks into our ears, realized in full on the Last Day. So, we can rejoice in this peace though the whole world may be at war. For in Christ, what He is, is ours. So, you can live, go, and die in His peace. Amen.
