A Light for Revelation and Glory

[00:00:01] Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. [00:00:12] Simeon had been waiting for this day for a long time. [00:00:16] The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he wouldn't die until he had seen the Christ, the promised one, the Messiah. Messiah means anointed one, somebody who's anointed. [00:00:32] Why would you be anointed? Well, you'd be anointed if you were going to be the king or a prophet. And so, for example, David was anointed when the prophet Samuel was sent by God to go and pick the king. God led him to David. And then he. He anointed him, saying, you're the king. So all through the Old Testament, God's people were waiting for the anointed one, the one who God had promised would reign on the throne of David forever. And who would save his people from their sins? [00:01:10] Jesus Christ. [00:01:13] So Simeon is. Well, he was told by the Holy Spirit that he would see the Lord's Christ, he would see the Messiah, that death would not come to him until he had seen the Messiah. All right, so we could say that he received God's word and this is what filled him. He meditated on God's word and his promise of the Messiah. That's what he was looking forward to. So he comes into the temple and promise fulfilled, there's Jesus. [00:01:53] Notice it says that there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. That's what that means. How do you wait for the consolation of Israel? Not like it's shoved away in a back corner of his mind, but when you wait for something, it's on your mind. When you wait for Christmas to come, you're thinking about Christmas. Otherwise, you're just sort of passively waiting. He's waiting for the consolation of Israel. [00:02:24] He's excited. This is an excited kind of waiting. It's on his mind, in his heart, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him. [00:02:40] You can't be excited for the consolation of Israel, for the fulfillment of God's promises, unless you have the Holy Spirit. No one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. So all of this comes through faith, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. [00:02:58] And he came in the spirit into the temple. [00:03:03] What do you think that means? He came the Spirit, into the temple. [00:03:12] Well, what would it look like not to come in the spirit? [00:03:17] Like for you and me? [00:03:19] What's the difference? To be sort of in the spirit or out of The Spirit. [00:03:25] What does that look like? [00:03:31] Well, we could say that it has to do with faith and perhaps what's on our mind, what's in our heart. In our epistle reading, we hear, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. [00:03:47] Well, that's a nice way to put it. [00:03:50] The word of God is dwelling in Simeon richly. The Holy Spirit is upon him, and he's waiting for the consolation of Israel. He's considering God's promises and thinking about them. You could say that in Simeon's mind, those things are. First, he's remembering God and his promises. [00:04:10] That's a gift of the Holy Spirit. [00:04:13] I think that's what it means to live in the Spirit, to be in the Spirit. He comes in the Spirit into the temple. He has God on his mind, in his heart. He has God's Word in his heart. [00:04:26] And that's the same thing as being guided by the Holy Spirit. He has God and his Word in his heart. He's being led by the Holy Spirit. How? Through faith, which looks to God, receives his Word, and then is shaped by it. [00:04:45] So Simeon comes into the temple in the Spirit, which means he's got his sort of priorities straight in terms of what he's focused on, what he's thinking about. Thinking about God's promises. He's ready to see Christ. [00:05:02] So 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 fulfilled your promise, letting your servant depart in peace. I'm ready to die because I've seen your salvation. [00:05:23] My eyes have seen your salvation. [00:05:26] Now, you see, this is the same pattern for us in faith. We come to worship Christ the King, right? Come and worship. Come and worship. Worship Christ the newborn king. Is that. No, No. I don't know. Something like that. We come to worship Christ, and so we come and the Holy Spirit has revealed to the eyes of our heart the Christ the Messiah. And we see him and rejoice, and we lift him up and say, my eyes have seen your salvation. A little bit later, we'll receive Jesus body and blood in the Lord's Supper, and we lift it up and we say, my eyes have seen your salvation, which you've prepared in the sight of all people, Jesus Christ. [00:06:15] Now, the readings are always put together for a reason. And it's always a fun puzzle to consider that, to chew on that, like, why have these been put together? I think there's always more Mystery more fun to be had than I tap into, but. [00:06:38] And then they're kind of tied together by the collect of the day. So here's the prayer of the day, the collect of the day. [00:06:45] O God, our Maker and Redeemer, you wonderfully created us, and in the incarnation of your Son, yet more wondrously restored our human nature. So creation of our nature and then restoration of that nature, grant that we may ever be alive in him who made himself to be like us. [00:07:05] So there's kind of a lot in there, but Christ has come and become like us to restore our nature. He who created us has come to restore our nature. And then we're praying that we would be alive in him, alive in Christ, who has in himself restored our nature. [00:07:26] All right, so let's go this direction. [00:07:30] We were made to look to God and his promises. Just like Simeon, who's got God's word dwelling in him richly. He's focused on God's promises and then rejoices in God's promises. God's promises are his life. He's ready to die. [00:07:49] You know, die in one sense because he's alive in another sense, in the truest sense, considering God's promises, he sees Christ, and Christ is his life. He is alive in Christ, and so he'd be okay, dying, just like St. Paul says, for me, to live is Christ, to die is gain, because he knows that in Christ he's alive. [00:08:20] Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another, skipping ahead. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. [00:08:41] Let the word of Christ dwell in you, richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. [00:08:49] This is what it looks like to let our hearts and minds dwell on Christ, to look to the Messiah, just like Simeon. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you, richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. [00:09:12] This is what we were created for, and this is what we've been restored to. [00:09:18] To dwell on God's word, to teach it to one another, admonish one another. [00:09:24] Although we wouldn't have had to do that. Well, maybe just encouragement in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts to God. [00:09:36] That's surely how Adam and Eve were made to look to God. He gave them His Word, and they were to look to him in faith, to hear his Word. And rejoice in their having been created by him and in being governed by him, by His Word, God's word, shaping their hearts and their life together. This is what we're restored to in Christ. [00:10:01] Looking to Christ and being governed by Him. [00:10:06] So look at then this epistle reading and what that does to us. [00:10:14] Look at the beauty of this. [00:10:16] Like Christ in governing our hearts, holds us together. [00:10:24] Because that's what these things do. Compassion. [00:10:28] Compassion is. Well, it pulls me to you. If I have compassion on you or if you have compassion on me, isn't there's a draw there that says, let me do for you whatever you need. [00:10:44] Pulls us together. [00:10:46] Kindness. [00:10:50] Humility. [00:10:51] Humility, which is the opposite of pride, which might. [00:10:56] Might make me get puffed up and then not have concern for you. [00:11:02] But in humility, as Paul says elsewhere, counting ourselves as less than the other, then we can all be joined together because nobody's refusing to be joined. Humility. Meekness. [00:11:19] Meekness which isn't ready to. To lash out or to be angry or to be carried away. But meekness is, I guess, a readiness to receive and to come together. [00:11:38] Patience. [00:11:40] Think of impatience in myself, you know, with my kids or something like that. [00:11:46] That's going to cause a problem bearing with one another. So if there were anything left that doesn't allow us to stick together and to pull together, bearing with one another covers it. [00:12:05] If one has a complaint against another forgiving each other, see, and then this is the healing that Christ brings is forgiveness. And that's then what dissolves problems between us. [00:12:23] Christ pulling us together, removing the barriers. And above all, above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. So now everything's held together in Jesus Christ. [00:12:42] And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. There it is. Christ rules in our hearts by faith. And that's what peace is. It's like the divisions have come away. [00:12:57] You could think in ourselves the impulses that would overthrow us or would take our mind a different direction, or would that then ends up growing into a bigger relational problem outside of us. [00:13:10] Peace. [00:13:12] Everything's balanced. My thoughts and desires, my fears, my words, everything working for building up rather than tearing down. We're pulling together rather than bringing apart. [00:13:28] But the peace of Christ rule in your hearts again. Adam and Eve were made to be ruled by God, by His word, to be governed by him in peace. This is what Christ gives to us by faith. [00:13:47] Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. [00:13:59] Simeon entered the temple with something at the forefront of his mind. [00:14:06] Where was his mind? And heart aimed toward Christ, toward Christ, who comes to bring peace, who comes to enlighten the Gentiles and, well, for glory to his people Israel. But Christ, who comes to enlightenment to give peace, to bring harmony and love. What's at the forefront of our minds this morning? I'm sure Simeon had his own things to think about. How was his health? [00:14:34] I don't know. [00:14:36] He's thinking he's going to die soon, I suppose, maybe. How was his health? [00:14:42] Did he have family problems? Did he have any broken relationships or difficulties? [00:14:48] What else did he have to think about? [00:14:51] Probably just as many things as we have to think about and to worry about or to prioritize. [00:14:58] But none of that mattered. All that was secondary. You know, it mattered. But it was secondary because he had God's word and promise and he was filled with the Spirit and received the joy and the peace of Christ governing his heart. [00:15:15] And that's for us as well, as we put Christ in the forefront of our mind in order to be governed and ruled by him. [00:15:23] When Paul says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, he's speaking. You could maybe say he's speaking on the individual level, but he's also speaking on the group level. [00:15:40] Let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts together as we live as his people. You can see that where he says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called. In one body, we all as one body, as Christ's body, governed by him, our head. [00:16:04] Let us let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, and may we look to him first. May Christ be the reason for our gathering together and the first thought in the forefront of our minds as we interact with one another. [00:16:22] In Jesus name, amen.