Law-Abiding Citizens
There was a family who had no interest in spiritual things, & therefore never went to S.S. or church. But one Christmas their little boy was invited by his best friend to attend the S.S. Christmas Program, & he went. This was a new experience for him, & when he got home he was all excited & eager to tell what he had learned about the very first Christmas. Here is a part of what he told them:
"Well, way back then they didn’t have any Santa Claus, so they had these three skinny guys riding around on camels passing out gifts. They didn’t have Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer to guide them through the darkness. So they had to use this bright, shiny light that kind of lit up all the world."
Now, that young man was a little confused about how the Christmas story actually went, but we don’t have that problem, now do we? We know what Christmas is. Christmas is cards, and gifts, and lights, and trees. Right?
Christmas is about seeing friends, and parties, and caroling. That’s what Christmas is all about, right? You look like maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. That is not what Christmas is about? Well, maybe we need to look deeper.
You’re right. If we really, I mean REALLY, celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, then we need to get beyond the fleeting, here today – gone tomorrow, gimme, gimme, secular idea of how to celebrate Christmas. We need to look deeper and see that Christmas is that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. That is what Christmas is all about.
The Christmas story is familiar. We hear about it every year, during the four weeks of Advent, on Christmas Eve, and all the way through Epiphany. We are so used to hearing the story of the shepherds, wisemen, Mary & Joseph and the babe in a manger.
Then, in the church, we go into a lull where we just kind of coast along until we arrive at Ash Wednesday and Lent, then Easter and the resurrection of Jesus. We tend to ignore, as Paul Harvey would put it, “the rest of the story”.
Because there is more to the story. The story continues of Mary & Joseph, our law-abiding citizens. You see, Mary & Joseph are not just followers of God in faith but also in following the “Law of the Lord”. Law is mentioned 5 times in our text for today. It must be pretty important if it’s mentioned 5 times. And so we see Mary & Joseph obeying the law.
As a law-abiding Jewish family, they were to go through 3 ceremonies after the birth of a firstborn son. First was the circumcision, a sign of the Jews’ covenant with God. Lev. 12:3 tells us that each Hebrew boy was to be circumcised on the 8th day after his birth.
The second ceremony was the redemption of the firstborn. Each firstborn son was presented to God, a dedication acknowledging that he belonged to God. The child would be redeemed, or repurchased, by giving a sacrificial offering in his place.
The third ceremony was the purification of the mother. For 40 days following the birth of a son, a mother was considered unclean. At the end, a sacrifice was offered as part of her cleansing process.
We pick up the story as Mary & Joseph are coming to the temple to present Jesus to the Lord. This presentation included the payment of the redemption fee. In Mary & Joseph’s case it was a pair of doves or 2 young pigeons.
This payment goes back to the time when God rescued His people from Egypt. God said the firstborn of each family belonged to Him. But in place of death, God said that He would accept from the tribe of Levi lifelong service in the temple and from the first born of the other tribes, five shekels. This payment redeemed their lives from the penalty of the sin in which they were born.
Now, you might be thinking, why did Jesus need to be redeemed? He was sinless, conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born without the inherited sin of Adam. Even here we are shown that he came for our sins. Being presented, his parents paying the redemption fee, being crucified on the cross, Jesus is treated as a sinner. That’s why He came.
So as they enter the temple, they meet Simeon, a man filled with the Holy Spirit. Simeon is part of a group of Hebrew men called the “quiet of Israel”. They were men who devoted their lives to praying, reading God’s word, and waiting for the Messiah. Simeon had received a special revelation from God that he would not die before seeing the Christ. When Mary & Joseph enter the temple, the Spirit says to Simeon, “This is the one”. This is the moment he has been waiting for all his life.
And Simeon went over and held Jesus in his arms. Imagine his delight as he held this child and he remembered what God had revealed to him. And now it was happening!
Simeon knew! God had told him that he would not die until he saw the Messiah. He praised God saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word;” What he had been waiting for had happened. He was thinking, “Now I’ve seen it all. I can die a happy man.”
He continues on “for my eyes have seen your salvation.” Salvation, Savior, Messiah. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Simeon is holding the baby Jesus saying, “Here He is, our salvation.”
He continues on saying how Jesus is the light for the world. Jesus is “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”
There is a darkness of evil in our world and it is to our world that the light has come. Jesus is the light and the darkness shall not overcome it.
Then we read that Mary & Joseph are “amazed”. On one hand we think, “Jeez, don’t they remember what the angel Gabriel had said just 10-12 months ago?” On the other hand, being law-abiding citizens, they are bringing him to the temple to present him to the Lord. They are probably so focused on that ritual that they have put in the back of their minds who he is. I’m sure some of you know what I mean.
And maybe since that night, no one has really come out and said out loud who Jesus is. It’s one thing to ponder it, as Mary did, and quite another to hear the words spoken.
That’s what we need to hear often ourselves. We need to hear often that Jesus came to be salvation for black people & white people & brown people & yellow people & rich people & old people - people who live here & people who live there. He came to be the Savior of the world.
We go on to read about the prophetess Anna, who was also in the temple. Never left, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And basically Anna, echoing what Simeon said about Jesus, goes, “Yeah, what he said.” She also praises God and speaks about this child being the redemption of Jerusalem.
There’s that word again. Redemption. Mary & Joseph brought Jesus into the temple to pay the redemption fee. What about us? What about our redemption fee? The good news of the gospel is that our redemption fee has been paid. Jesus paid our redemption fee. We have been redeemed.
We don’t know about Anna, but we do know that for Simeon, this event in the temple when he held Jesus, our salvation, in his arms, was the final, most important moment in his life. The thing he had longed for most had finally happened. His life was complete. Now he could finally stand back & say, "God, I’m ready to die & be with you for all eternity."
What is the one thing that would cause your life to be complete? What would it take for you to say, "God, I’m ready to die & be with you for all eternity"?
Let me just leave you with this one thought: you can have all the things of the world, but if you don’t have Jesus, you have nothing. Or you can have Jesus & none of the things of the world & yet, still have everything. The choice is yours.
