Luke #6: Waiting for the Lord (2:21-38)
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Luke 2:21-38
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Good morning, and welcome to family worship with the church body of Eastern Hills. Whether you are here in the room, or online, thanks for being part of our celebration of Jesus today.
If you are visiting with us for the first time today, thanks for choosing to worship with Eastern Hills! We would like to be able to thank you for your visit and to pray for you, so if you wouldn’t mind, please take a moment during the sermon to fill out a visitor card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you. If you’re online, you can let us know about your visit by filling out the communication form at the bottom of our “I’m new“ page. If you’re here in the room today, you can get that card back to us in one of two ways: you can put it in the boxes by the doors at the close of service, or I would love the opportunity to meet you personally, so after service, you can bring that card to me directly, and I have a gift to give you to thank you for your visit today.
I want to recognize and thank our Family Services ministry this week. They so much work in planning for, providing for, and setting up for events that take place in this building. For example, last week they did the Ladies’ Titus 2 Tea. This week, there will be a memorial service, and the Family Services Team will host a reception for the family afterwards. They make church-wide things like the wet cement session that we had this week fun and attractive with decorations and such. I know that I appreciate all that they do. So thanks Deanna, and thanks Family Services team for your ministry to this church family!
Announcements
Announcements
Our second wet cement feedback session on Wednesday night was great! The vision framing team met all day on Thursday and went through every one of the comments and notes that were generated by the tables that night, and as a result, we have made some changes to our Strategy and Outcomes.
I haven’t had time to put together any of the detail on those changes, with the exception of a modification to our Strategies graphic (I hope). Explain changes of removing boxes, and the name of Life Groups (which just seemed to keep everyone locked into the idea of Sunday morning Bible studies), to CONNECT Groups. Connecting to God, each other, and our mission as a church: People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day. Bible studies are Connect Groups, but not all Connect Groups are specifically Bible studies. Dinner for 8 is a good example of thinking of Connect Groups that aren’t Bible studies. It’s a question of focus and function. Plus, it removes the “small group” limitation. Connect groups can be mid-sized gatherings as well, such as the Ladies’ Titus 2 Tea last Saturday, or Men’s Breakfast on the 22nd of this month. But one thing I need to be clear on: we’re kind of “building the plane as we’re flying it.” We don’t have all of this in place: this is largely aspirational.
More to look forward to in this vision framing process: Plan to be here on Sunday morning, March 2, in order to take part in a very special time of worship together as we take our vision framing church survey. “How is taking a survey worship?” you ask. I’m glad you did. This survey is going to challenge us as followers of Jesus to take a few moments and examine ourselves in light of several questions about our faith journeys. Paul tells us to test ourselves—examine ourselves—regarding our faith in 2 Corinthians 13:5. I’ll speak more about this in the next couple of weeks, but the thing I want to encourage everyone to do starting now is to commit to and begin praying about being completely honest and transparent before God as an act of worship to Him. The survey will be anonymous and confidential as far as the church, but will give the team vital information about where we are as a body now and how effective our current ministry is at making disciples. And begin praying for the church as we take this next step in the vision framing process.
Opening
Opening
We know nearly nothing about the young life of Jesus. Almost all of what we do know about it comes from Luke, and is found in chapter 2 of his Gospel. Last week, we considered the how incredibly humble the birth of the King of kings was, but how the shepherds heard from the angel about the coming of the Savior, the Messiah, the Lord, and saw the reality of His birth, fulfilling the sign the angel said they would see.
Jesus was born into a particular people in a particular context: He was born a Jewish boy in Israel at the very end of what we now call the years BC, or “Before Christ,” the term for which was coined in AD 731 (200 years after the concept of using the estimated year of Christ’s birth as the breaking point of history). Incidentally, if you didn’t know, AD stands of anno domini, Latin for “in the year of our Lord.” The Jewish people had been waiting for literally hundreds of years for the birth of the Messiah, and He had finally come. But sadly, His arrival had been largely invisible to God’s chosen people. The truth was that very few of them were waiting well—they stopped looking, stopped hoping, stopped longing for the fulfillment of the promises of God. Everyone but a select few. It is a couple of these that we will consider this morning.
Please stand as you are able to in honor of the reading of the Word of God, and turn in your Bibles or Bible apps to Luke 2:21-38:
21 When the eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus—the name given by the angel before he was conceived. 22 And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were finished, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every firstborn male will be dedicated to the Lord) 24 and to offer a sacrifice (according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons). 25 There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to Israel’s consolation, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, he entered the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him up in his arms, praised God, and said, 29 Now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you promised. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation. 31 You have prepared it in the presence of all peoples— 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel. 33 His father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and told his mother Mary, “Indeed, this child is destined to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed—35 and a sword will pierce your own soul—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” 36 There was also a prophetess, Anna, a daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was well along in years, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and was a widow for eighty-four years. She did not leave the temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayers. 38 At that very moment, she came up and began to thank God and to speak about him to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
PRAYER (Vivian family)
I would say that, as a society, we are not particularly good at waiting. I confess that sometimes I’m not. Especially since the invention of the smart phone, we struggle to wait for things. Instant gratification and satisfaction are a part of our collective thinking. Consider how much faster and more convenient we have made things, even in just the last 10 years, and especially since COVID. Don’t know a piece of information? Pull out your phone and Google it, or better yet, ask an AI bot. Want something in a hurry but don’t want to go shopping? Order it on Amazon, and if it’s in stock at the distribution center out on the west side, it might arrive at your door by this afternoon. If we wait longer than 4 minutes in a drive-thru line, we say that McDonald’s is taking forever. It seems as if we want everything to move more rapidly, happen more quickly, or take less time.
But sometimes, we have to wait. And waiting can be really hard. And because it can be so hard, we often are just not good at it. We get frustrated. We complain. We get angry. We give up. We need to learn to wait well. Especially when the One we are waiting on is God, we need to learn to wait in obedience, to wait in faith, and to wait in patience if we are going to learn to wait well.
This morning, we are going to see three snapshots of waiting well. Jesus’s parents had to wait. Simeon had to wait. Anna had to wait. But we don’t see any of them struggling with it. We can learn something about waiting well from them all.
1: Waiting well demands obedience.
1: Waiting well demands obedience.
Remember that we celebrated Christmas last week, and left off with the shepherds returning to the fields after seeing Jesus, glorifying and praising God for what they had seen and heard that night. Our focal passage this morning begins eight days later.
21 When the eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus—the name given by the angel before he was conceived. 22 And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were finished, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every firstborn male will be dedicated to the Lord) 24 and to offer a sacrifice (according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons).
Remember that Mary and Joseph were from Nazareth, but Jesus had been born in Bethlehem because of the necessity of going there to be registered because of the census. Bethlehem was only a few miles south of Jerusalem, but Nazareth was over 60 miles away to the north of it. So Mary and Joseph stayed with Joseph’s relatives in Bethlehem while they did the things required for Jesus and for Mary, according to verse 39, which Rich will start with next week:
39 When they had completed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.
They first waited the necessary week for Jesus’s circumcision, which certainly took place in Bethlehem. Luke again compares Jesus’s life with the life of John the Baptist, revealing that Jesus was named at His circumcision as well, just like John. Matthew gives us the reason for his name in
I can’t imagine having a baby and then having to stay away from home for over a month. When Abbie was born, Melanie had postpartum hypertension (high blood pressure), and wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital until it subsided. Maggie was eight and in school, so she and I went back and forth to and from the hospital every day. We ate a lot of Subway that week. Abbie was born on the 16th, and they didn’t get to come home until the 20th. I’m pretty sure that by the time she got to leave, the reason she had high blood pressure was because she wasn’t able to leave. It drove us nuts, and we only had to be there for five days. We didn’t wait particularly well.
But one thing that we did well was to follow all of the instructions they gave us. We knew that we wanted to get out of there, so we diligently obeyed every instruction.
They first waited the necessary week for Jesus’s circumcision, and in keeping with the comparison with John the Baptist, named Him Jesus on the eighth day, as Gabriel had instructed them. Matthew’s Gospel explains the name:
21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
The name Jesus is a derivative of Joshua, which means “Yahweh saves.”
But then, they had to wait an additional 33 days for Mary’s purification rite, according to Mosaic Law, as well as the dedication of the firstborn son. These instructions for the Jews are found in Leviticus 12 and Exodus 13, respectively:
6 “When her days of purification are complete, whether for a son or daughter, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting a year-old male lamb for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. 7 He will present them before the Lord and make atonement on her behalf; she will be clean from her discharge of blood. This is the law for a woman giving birth, whether to a male or female. 8 But if she doesn’t have sufficient means for a sheep, she may take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. Then the priest will make atonement on her behalf, and she will be clean.”
1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 “Consecrate every firstborn male to me, the firstborn from every womb among the Israelites, both man and domestic animal; it is mine.”
The cost of dedication was five shekels of silver, according to Numbers 18:16.
And one more interesting thing to note here: we find in this passage that Mary and Joseph were not a wealthy couple. Jesus, the Lord of the universe, was born into poverty. The passage we just saw in Leviticus showed us that the standard sacrifice for being made clean following the birth of a child was a year-old lamb. Alternatively, those who couldn’t afford a lamb could sacrifice two turtledoves or two young pigeons. This is what Mary and Joseph did. Side note: This also shows us that the wise men hadn’t come with their valuable gifts yet, as they would have been able to afford a lamb if they had received the wise men’s gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They would be along later, according to Matthew.
But Mary and Joseph were miles from home, didn’t have much money, and they had a newborn son to boot. Their circumstances were not ideal. But their obedience wasn’t based on their circumstances. They remained obedient to what God had commanded, even though it likely wasn’t easy. They waited well.
We are called to obedience while we wait also—not to the same things Mary and Joseph faced—but if we claim to be disciples, followers of Jesus, then we have been told how we are to live our lives:
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.
Brothers and sisters, we’re waiting, according to Romans 8:23. We’re waiting for our adoption, the fullness of our redemption in the resurrection, when Jesus returns. But are we waiting well?
This was one of the issues that Peter dealt with in his second epistle, by the way—people who thought that since Jesus hadn’t come back by their time, then perhaps He wasn’t coming back at all, and so they could live their lives the way they wanted to, in disobedience.
3 Above all, be aware of this: Scoffers will come in the last days scoffing and following their own evil desires, 4 saying, “Where is his ‘coming’ that he promised? Ever since our ancestors fell asleep, all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.”
But Peter reminds us that the Lord is not late in keeping His promise, but is intentionally patient with mankind because of His grace:
9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.
And he sums up his argument by saying that it is clear how we should live as we wait: we should wait well by being obedient to our Lord in the meantime.
11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, it is clear what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness 12 as you wait for the day of God and hasten its coming. Because of that day, the heavens will be dissolved with fire and the elements will melt with heat. 13 But based on his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
Jesus is coming back, and we are called to wait in obedience to what He has commanded us. Step back for a moment and consider your life. Is it characterized by obedience to the things that you know are true according to the Scriptures? Are you living out the unexpected love of Jesus every day, and helping others do the same?
Being a disciple of Jesus means that we follow Him obediently. But in order to do that long-term, we have to walk by faith and not by sight. And we see in the rest of our focal passage this morning that they were not the only ones in Jerusalem that day who were walking in obedience that day. There were two others who had been doing so for a LONG time.
2: Waiting well requires faith.
2: Waiting well requires faith.
Simeon is a great figure in the New Testament. Luke 2:25-35 is the only record we have of his existence, the only knowledge we have of what he said and how God used him. We can safely assume that Simeon was not a young man, and in fact was probably much older than Joseph or Mary. He was in the temple complex the day that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus came for the purification and redemption rites:
25 There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to Israel’s consolation, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, he entered the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him up in his arms, praised God, and said, 29 Now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you promised. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation. 31 You have prepared it in the presence of all peoples— 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel.
Simeon walked in the obedience that we just spoke about in our first point. He was “righteous and devout,” and he was looking forward to how God was going to “console” or “comfort” Israel through the Messiah, and the Holy Spirit was with him. He knew, because the Spirit had told him, that he was not going to die before seeing the Messiah. And there he waited in the temple courts.
What must it have been like for Simeon that day? How excited would he have been, do you think, having been prompted by the Holy Spirit that this was the day—the day that he had waited on, trusted God for, and longed to experience? Well, when he saw Jesus, he took Him and held Him and thanked the Lord for fulfilling His promises to the old man.
Simeon essentially says that he is ready to die, because God had done as He had promised, and Simeon had seen God’s plan to save humanity. Notice that fact: He said that the promise was in the presence of all peoples, a light for the Gentiles so that they might see the truth, and glory to Israel because they were receiving what God had promised to do through them. No one expected that it would be for everyone, even though we see it in the Old Testament:
6 he says, “It is not enough for you to be my servant raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the protected ones of Israel. I will also make you a light for the nations, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
But Simeon knew it because he walked by faith. He trusted the Lord and didn’t waver, knowing that God is faithful to keep His promises. He waited well, exercising his faith while he waited for the fulfillment of what he had been promised. He was able to declare the truth that Jesus was the means of salvation for both the Jew and the Gentile when little Jesus was only a month old, because he listened to the Spirit.
In a broad stroke, Simeon declared the truth of the Gospel: That Jesus Christ had come to save sinful man. We know the whole story. God made us, loves us, and wants to be in relationship with us. But our sinful choices—our rebellion against Him—separates us from Him, with no way for us to fix it. So He sent His perfectly sinless Son to die in the place of sinners, so that the price for sin would be completely paid. And Jesus was buried, and was raised again on the third day according to the Scriptures, and He has risen into heaven, but will return as I said earlier to restore the world. We can only be saved through faith—believing in the completed work of Jesus on your behalf—that He died and rose so you could be forgiven and saved.
And if you’re already saved, then waiting with the eyes of faith is waiting well. Watch for what God is doing around you, and join Him in that work. “Be ready in season and out of season,” Paul said to Timothy (2 Tim 4:2). Serve as God leads, and follow Him in the work He calls you to.
Now, Simeon wasn’t quite done. He still had one message to share after his prophetic blessing of Jesus. He had to speak to Mary:
33 His father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and told his mother Mary, “Indeed, this child is destined to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed—35 and a sword will pierce your own soul—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
Note that there’s nothing wrong with referring to Joseph as Jesus’s “father.” This isn’t to deny His Divine nature and the virgin birth. Legally, that’s exactly what Joseph was—Jesus’s father. I suppose if Luke had wanted to be technically precise, I suppose he could have said something like, “His adoptive, but not physical, father, and His virgin mother,” but that seems awfully pointless.
Simeon blessed the family, but then spoke directly to Mary, telling her that Jesus would cause the “fall and rise” of many, and that He will be opposed. How we respond to Jesus is either for or against. Not to surrender TO Jesus is to rebel AGAINST Jesus. There is no such thing as “kind of saved.” People will either believe in Jesus and rise, or deny Jesus and fall.
And that opposition he mentioned? Jesus was crucified, and Mary was around to see it. I can’t imagine any more soul-piercing experience than to watch your child die. But Mary would see it. And through the opposition and crucifixion of Jesus, the darkness in the hearts of many in the nation of Israel was brought to light, as they cried, “Crucify, crucify!”
What a thing for Mary to later witness. Joseph was almost certainly no longer alive at the time of the crucifixion, which is perhaps why Simeon spoke about this directly to her.
And there was one more person there in the temple that day who was waiting well, and had been waiting for a VERY long time. She showed incredible patience.
3: Waiting well requires patience.
3: Waiting well requires patience.
Have any of you ever prayed the ironic prayer, "Lord, grant me patience, and please grant it right now.” I have. Does that usually work? I don’t know. But regardless, this is not what the prophetess Anna did. She showed incredible patience through her life of waiting for Messiah:
36 There was also a prophetess, Anna, a daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was well along in years, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and was a widow for eighty-four years. She did not leave the temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayers. 38 At that very moment, she came up and began to thank God and to speak about him to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
Catch this: the youngest that Anna could have been at this point was 84, but that is almost certainly not the case. She was almost certainly at least 100, and possibly as old as 107. She had likely, as Mary had, been married at around 16, had been married for 7 years, and then was widowed. 84 years later, and likely for nearly the entirety of that 84 years according to the language, she was serving the Lord in the temple courts. She likely lived very nearby, as it is almost certain that she did not live in the temple courts themselves, as people were not allowed to live on the temple grounds. “Night and day” should not be pressed to mean twenty-four hours a day every day because of this. Instead, it should be interpreted as meaning all of the time that it was possible, as we would today if someone used such a phrase.
“At church,” all day, every day? Some of us are starting to get antsy now because noon isn’t too far off, and we’d like to get to lunch. And to do that every day, for 84 years? Anna was patient! And because of that, she waited WELL.
She was living in hope, and that hope gave her the patience to wait so well. It’s like Paul said in Romans 8:25:
25 Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.
But now, she got to see what she had been hoping for for so long! And as she came upon the baby King, she first thanked the Lord for what He had done, and then she started preaching to anyone who was there who was waiting for the same thing that she and Simeon had been waiting for.
Here’s one thing that I want to point out: Can you feel Anna’s joy in this passage? This is a 100+ year old woman who likely had no children (because they were not mentioned), and who had been living as a widow for 84 years, and in really just a single verse, you can feel her joy overflowing!
In Paul’s prayer for the church at Colosse, he prayed that they would
9 ... We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, 10 so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
As we wait patiently for the Lord, we should be filled with joy because the gratitude that we have for the Lord’s provision for our salvation in Christ! The joy of our salvation should be evident. And I’ll confess that sometimes because I lack patience, or lack gratitude, my heart forgets to tell my face that I have joy. Any of you have the same problem?
We should be like Anna, rejoicing because of what God has done, telling anyone who will listen about King Jesus and the redemption that He has provided for us!
Closing
Closing
Mary and Joseph, Simeon, and Anna all waited well. They each had a different kind of waiting, and a different response to the birth of Christ. Mary and Joseph had a job to do. Simeon was awaiting the fulfillment of a revelation, and Anna was a faithful, patient servant who loved the Lord with joy. Ultimately, we are still waiting for Jesus, but in a different sense from all four of these. He is coming back to set the world right, to receive those who belong to Him unto Himself. Will we wait well? Will we walk in obedience, in faith, and in patience?
If you haven’t ever trusted Christ, then you are waiting, but not the same kind of waiting. Believers wait like the psalmist in Psalm 130:5: Psalm 130:5 “5 I wait for the Lord; I wait and put my hope in his word.” But the one who doesn’t belong to Jesus waits without hope. There’s going to come a time when it is too late: You will die and meet your maker without Christ, or Jesus will return and you’ll face Him on your own merit. But God doesn’t grade on a curve. The standard is perfection. Either you have Jesus’s perfection given to you through faith in His work to save you, or you have to hope you’re perfect when the time comes (spoiler alert: you can’t be). So I call on you to trust Christ for your salvation this morning and come to Him in surrender and belief. Listen to the work of the Spirit and respond in faith. Come and let us know that if it’s you. Send an email if you’re online.
Baptism
Church membership
Prayer
Giving
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Bible reading (Jer 49, Ps 33)
No Pastor’s Study tonight, but not because of the Super Bowl.
The Sunday night Ladies’ Bible Study will not meet tonight either.
Prayer Meeting this Wednesday, along with the restart of choir
Savannah Carter Memorial on Saturday at 1:00 pm
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. 14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. 15 And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
