Sermon: WAIT! Luke 2:21-40 December 29, 2002
I. Introduction
A. I think the second most hated word in my household, after no, is wait! Wait you can open your present tomorrow. Wait a minute, you have to have dinner before you eat your candy. Wait, you have to play with that outside. Gene, you have to wait until after the kids go to bed to play with Miguel’s remote control car!
1. Waiting! We hate it! Yet, it seems as if all of life is about waiting. You wait for the baby to be born, you wait for it to say its the first word, to take its first step. You have to wait until you are 16 to drive a car. You wait for the right man or woman to come along to get married, you wait for that promotion, your first home, or that new car or van. You wait on your husband to fix something. You wait on your wife to get ready.
(a) Ed Watt was visiting a local department store with his wife. They had just purchased a piece of luggage and a cooler. As Ed was waiting for his wife to finish the rest of her shopping he dragged the luggage and cooler around with him to the shoe department. A clerk asked if he could be of assistance. “No, thank you," Ed replied. “I’m just waiting for my wife." At that point, a man behind him said, "I’m waiting for my wife, too, but I never thought of bringing a lunch and an overnight bag with me."
2. But waiting in real life isn’t always so humorous. It isn’t always about a positive expectation or change. Sometimes waiting is hard, even painful. Like when you are waiting while a loved one undergoes major surgery, waiting for test results regarding a life-threatening illness, waiting for your company decides who gets laid off, waiting at the bedside of a dying child.
3. Wait! Wait! Good or bad, the truth is most of us are waiting even now for something in our lives. And we don’t know what to do, we have no other choice but to wait for its outcome!
II. In this morning’s gospel lesson we find a story of people waiting, an example of how to wait. Turn with me if you will to this mornings text, Luke 2:21-38 READ
A. An angel had appeared to Mary and Joseph and told them they were going to have a son, not just any son but the Son of the Most High. That he would be given the throne of David and would reign over the house of Jacob forever!
1. And then that was it, for nine months they waited and waited. We don’t find in the scripture any more angelic visits or affirmation of what the angels had said. How hard it must have been for them to endure the gossip, and looks while they waited. How many times they must have questioned themselves, questioned Did we really see an angel? Did she really say this child was going to be given the throne of David?
2. And then, finally, their son was born. But the wait didn’t seem to be over. “Joseph, if our son is to sit on the throne then why is he being borne here, here in a stable? Why am I having to lay him in a manger.” “I don’t know Mary, we will just have to wait on the Lord.” “How long are we going to have to wait? I wish I knew Mary. Well, what do we do now?” “I don’t know I guess we just keep on living in accordance with God Word.”
3. And so, on the eighth day, Mary and Joseph, being of Jewish origin and living under the law of the Old Testament, took their baby boy to be circumcised and named. Then they waited thirty-three more days, as according to the law, and carried their small son three miles to Jerusalem for the redemption and purification ceremonies at the temple. These two ceremonies were traditional in a Jewish home under according to the Old Testament law.
(a) Exodus 12:2 says “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord,”: Holy as in belonging to God. In recognition it was required that the male child be taken to the temple and presented to before God for His service. The child was required to be given to the priest but, the child could be redeemed – or bought back – through by an offering to God five shekels to the priest. This ceremony was designed to remind the parents that their child belonged to God, and it was God alone has the power to give life and take it away. Not unlike what we in part celebrate with the baptism of our children today.
(b) The ceremony of purification was required for the mother. Under the law found in Leviticus 12: “And when the days of her purification are completed for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the doorway of the tent of meeting, a one year old lamb for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. Then he shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the flow of her blood…but if she cannot afford a lamb then she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, the 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.”
(c) All of this was done in fulfillment of Jesus’ words “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill it.” Paul wrote in Gal 4:4 “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that he might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might received the adoption as sons.”
(d) And so Mary and Joseph being poor took two turtledoves and headed for the temple
B. As they entered the temple area they were greeted by many different sights and sounds: the scent of incense; the money-changers at work; the lowing of the various animals awaiting purchase and sacrifice; the many priests with bloodied aprons; the prayers of those in the court of the women and Gentiles; the men reading out aloud scripture and a man by the name of Simeon.
1. We know very little of this man, Simeon. We do not know his tribe, whether he was married or had children. We know nothing of his occupation or age.
2. The only things know about Simeon are those things which matter most to God – things which pertain to his faith and character, things that tell about his relationship to God.
(a) Verse 25-27 (READ)
3. Simeon was no stranger to the temples, to the comings and goings of people, the rituals of the courtyard. He must of seen hundreds of parents bring their children to temple for redemption. When suddenly this couple, Mary and Joseph, catch his eye. He feels the Lord’s spirit drawing him near when suddenly it dawns on him.
4. The realization of who this little child is overwhelms him, fills his heart with immense joy that he can’t contain. He takes the babe in his arms, virtually dancing in the aisle, praising God and saying verse 29 READ …
5. the wait is over he has seen God’s salvation!
6. The people in the outer courtyard must have thought this old man had lost his mind with all his shouting and dancing and carrying on. The must have wondered what in the world he was talking about.
C. But there was one in the courtyard who did have to wonder at what he was saying. She knew – READ verse 36
1. Now isn’t that interesting, here we have a poor couple, a godly man speaking of salvation for both the Gentiles and Jews and a female prophetess proclaiming God’s redemption. Sound a little like Gal 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one Christ Jesus. Sound a little like our Lord’s ministry to all people everywhere regardless of their social or economic status in the world.
2. The wait is over for Simeon and Anna they have seen the Messiah. They can die in peace vs 29 – “you now dismiss your servant in peace” I have found salvation I can now die a happy man because God has fulfilled his promise.
D. How exciting this must have been for Mary and Joseph verse 33 “The child’s father and mother marveled a what was said about him.” How wonderful it must have been for up until this point no one had believed them. No one had notice the Son of God had been born in a manger except for a few lowly shepherds. No one had honored the birth of a king with even the slightest nod. But now here were two people, two people of God, two people clearly identified as righteous and devout Jews proclaiming what the angel had told them. That this, their son, was Son of the Most High, the messiah, God incarnate.
1. The smiles that must have danced upon their faces as the affirmation of God’s promise was given through two strangers. People who could not have known this was the Sovereign Lord except through the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. How astounding and amazing this must have been,
E. But then with tears of love in his eyes and sadness in his heart Simeon delivers a mixed blessing of prophecy. Vs 34 (READ).
1. Remarkable isn’t it that he gave it to Mary, not Joseph, as if to say Joseph you won’t see it but Mary will. Mary will have to endure the pain of watching her son rejected, betrayed and hung on the cross. Her heart will be pierced by the pain of having the Son of God as your son.
2. Simeon spoke this words as if to say, Mary the wait isn’t over yet, there is a long hard road ahead of you but wait on God’s ---- for in His providential timing and all will be fulfilled
III. And so, we too are a waiting people. Not for the coming of a Messiah to save his people. No we are people who are waiting for the return of Messiah, to take us to be with him to His Father’s house. And like Mary, Joseph, Simeon and Anna we need to be expectantly ready to receive God’s promise. We need to prepared ourselves by following His word, worshipping and praising him in his temple. By making ourselves available to receive his promise by being in his presence and following his example on a daily basis. We need to wait with open, eager hearts living out God’s promise by telling others about this child of God who is the salvation for all people.
A. Gary Preston tells a story in his book Character Forged from Conflict, that illustrates how we are to wait. He writes: “Back when the telegraph was the fastest means of long-distance communication, there was a story, perhaps apocryphal, about a young man who applied for a job as a Morse code operator. Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the address that was listed. When he arrived, he entered a large, noisy office.
1. In the background a telegraph clacked away. A sign on the receptionist’s counter instructed job applicants to fill out a form and wait until they were summoned to enter the inner office. The young man completed his form and sat down with seven other waiting applicants.
2. After a few minutes, the young man stood up, crossed the room to the door of the inner office, and walked right in. Naturally the other applicants perked up, wondering what was going on. Why had this man been so bold? They muttered among themselves that they hadn’t heard any summons yet. They took more than a little satisfaction in assuming the young man who went into the office would be reprimanded for his presumption and summarily disqualified for the job.
3. Within a few minutes the young man emerged from the inner office escorted by the interviewer, who announced to the other applicants, ‘Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, but the job has been filled by this young man.’ The other applicants began grumbling to each other, and then one spoke up, ‘Wait a minute! I don’t understand. He was the last one to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That’s not fair.’ The employer responded, ‘All the time you’ve been sitting here, the telegraph has been ticking out the following message in Morse code: “If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.” None of you heard it or understood it. This young man did. So the job is his.’”
4. The young man got the job because he was not just waiting — all of the other men were waiting — but he was waiting expectantly.
5. We are sitting in the waiting room life But it is how we wait, and what we do with the waiting, that is important. The young man in that office was listening. And because he was, he was rewarded. Waiting does not mean just sitting down and doing nothing. You have to be watching and looking for God to fulfill his promise. You have to believe he is going to do it.
B. Henri Nouwen, a distinguished theologian, says “Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.” It is not a static state, it is a time when God is working behind the scenes, and the primary focus of his work is on us. I love Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Romans 8:24: “Waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting” (The Message). God is creating his life within us, and we must wait for it to come to full term.
C. May God bless us and enrich us while we wait.
Amen and Amen
