The Sunday After Christmas 2017

Bible Text: Luke 2:22-40 | Preacher: Stefan Gramenz | Series: 2017

This Sunday, like the Sunday just after Easter, is usually a little anticlimactic – it doesn’t seem to measure up to the happiness and the excitement of Christmas a few days ago. Then, we sang all of the hymns that everyone waits for all year, we heard the story of Jesus’ birth from Luke’s Gospel, and many of our families got together and observed our usual Christmas traditions: eating, and opening gifts, and everything else we love about Christmas.

But what about now? The angels are nowhere in sight, the shepherds have gone back to their sheep, and that manger that Jesus was laying in is being used as a feeding trough again. And for us, it’s back to ordinary, everyday life. Back to school, back to work, back from vacation. And so it is for the holy family in the Gospel lesson today. They’re back to everyday life, back to the ordinary way of doing things. They’ve left Bethlehem, and they’ve gone up to Jerusalem and into the temple, so that they can fulfill the Law of God that said that every firstborn male must be presented in the temple to the Lord God.

And so we come to Simeon. Like the holy family, Simeon was not any ordinary man. St. Luke tells us that Simeon was unique: the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

Can you imagine what life must have been like for Simeon? He lived every day knowing that he wouldn’t die before he had seen the Christ. He went to sleep every night and opened his eyes every morning with the hope and expectation that today could be the day! Today could be the day that he would finally see the Christ. In a way, Simeon stands in for all the faithful people of God over the centuries. From Adam and Eve to Abraham and David and Isaiah, God promised that he would send the Christ to save his people. So Simeon stands there, himself representing all the Old Testament people of God who waited and watched, morning and night, for the coming of the Christ. All the people who lived under the Law of God, to whom God had promised the Messiah, and who had died trusting in that promise.

And so Simeon stands there in the temple, waiting; the last in a long line of the faithful who have waited for the Christ. But this Christ isn’t like anything that anyone ever expected. This Christ didn’t return to his temple in a blaze of glory and triumph, so that everyone would know that he had arrived. No, he returns as an infant, just like any other boy. Simeon only knows who he is because the Holy Spirit told him. So Simeon comes to meet the Holy Family, and the three of them – Simeon, Mary, and Joseph – stand together, holding Jesus, in the middle of the ordinary crowds of people coming and going and praying and making sacrifices and offering incense. Nobody  else knows. Nobody else realizes what is happening.

We’re not all that different. Here we are, gathered in the presence of Christ: a few people who have stopped what they are doing, who have put our lives on hold, and have come here, because Jesus holds our attention. While others have moved on from Christmas, while others go on with their ordinary lives and jobs, we realize that Jesus is still here, and that we aren’t done with Christmas yet. We’re only on the seventh day of Christmas, after all.

And the Holy Spirit isn’t quite done with Simeon yet. He’s told Simeon that this child is the one, and now Simeon turns to Mary, and speaks again, saying, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel.” Because Christmas isn’t all about stars and angels and shepherds. Christmas is about Jesus, about the God who is incarnate, who takes on human flesh and becomes a Child. And this child, this Jesus, will be the cause of people falling and rising, dying and being resurrected. The coming of Christ means death for the old ways of life – no more animal sacrifices, no more presentation of firstborn boys in the temple, no more burnt offerings. The coming of Christ means that the kingdom of God is expanding beyond the borders of Israel. It means new life and new hope for the whole world.

And now one more person in the temple notices. An eighty-four-year-old woman named Anna, who stays in the temple night and day, fasting and praying. She, too, sees Jesus. And she, like the shepherds before her, cannot contain her joy, but goes out and tells the whole city about the Christ, and about the coming redemption of God.

    And now you find yourself in the place of Anna and Simeon. You find yourself in the house of God, ready to approach the presence of Jesus in his holy sacrament. You see the incarnation again, as Jesus descends from heaven and takes his place beneath the forms of bread and wine. But you, unlike Simeon, don’t gather up an infant in your arms. You receive Jesus in your mouth.

So do as Simeon did, and receive him here in faith and in joy. Then live as Simeon lived. Wake up every morning with the joy that today could be the day your Savior returns. Live as Anna lived, waiting out your life in prayer and fasting and telling others about Jesus. And when you die, die as Simeon died. Depart in peace, knowing that the same Lord that you have seen here beneath a veil, you will see one day face to face with your own eyes.

 

Eleventh Sunday After Trinity 2017

Bible Text: Luke 18:9-14 | Preacher: Stefan Gramenz | Series: 2017

Jesus tells us the story of two men who went up to the temple to pray – two very different men. One, a Pharisee: a man respected by everyone; in fact the most respectable of all fine, upstanding citizens. While we’ve heard most of our lives that the Pharisees were the “bad guys,” those who were first hearing the words of Jesus had quite the opposite understanding. This Pharisee was a man who tithed – who gave 10% of all that he had to God – who fasted twice a week, who did his best to keep the Law, who avoided sins of the flesh. All of this is good and commendable, even admirable. But where this Pharisee goes wrong is when he thinks that he is “not like other men.” In fact, he goes so far as to thank God that he isn’t like other men – especially not like that man – that tax collector.

We have much the same attitude. We say to ourselves, “Thanks be to God that I’m not one of those people – those people who voted for the wrong presidential candidate, those people who don’t pull their own weight, those people who selfishly hoard away their money, those people who can’t seem to do anything right, those people who think they’re perfect. Thank God I’m not like those people. Thank God that my politics are right, that I watch the right TV shows and read the right books and newspapers and share the right articles on Facebook. Thank God I’m not like them.

Repent. It wasn’t the Pharisee’s tithing or prayers or fasting that condemned him. It was his pride and unbelief. Likewise, your offerings and prayers and fasting do not condemn you – but your pride. The pride that says that you have no need of forgiveness, that you have no real sins to speak of, and that at least you’re still doing better than those around you – those tax collectors over there.

The tax collector, or the publican, as he was called in the King James Version, looked quite different from the Pharisee. He wasn’t respected by everyone. Most likely, he wasn’t respected by anyone. This tax collector wasn’t like a mid-level IRS bureaucrat, just following the rules, collecting taxes, and doing his job. To his fellow Jews, he was a traitor and a thief: a tool of the occupying Roman Empire, who collected from his countrymen not only what they owed Caesar, but also more than enough to line his own pockets. To the Romans, he was just another Hebrew, just another member of a conquered nation that wasn’t strong enough to withstand the might of Rome, and a particularly detestable one who wasn’t even loyal to his own people. Nobody liked tax collectors.

But for all the external differences between the two, the true difference, the difference that finally matters the most, is in what they believe, and in what they then say. As the Pharisee lauds himself on his many good deeds, he commits the gravest sin of all: he tells himself that he is righteous, that he needs no help, and that he can stand before his Heavenly Father unashamed. He doesn’t see that no amount of tithing, fasting, and prayer can make him righteous in the eyes of God. At its heart, his sin is unbelief – well, unbelief in God; he replaces his faith in God with faith in himself.

The tax collector, on the other hand, recognizes his sin. He, unlike the Pharisee, sees himself as he truly is. He sees himself as God sees him – as a poor, miserable, sinner. And because he recognizes his sin, because he knows his failures and errors, he can do what the Pharisee cannot – he can repent. He can repent because he knows he is a sinner, and he knows that he is someone who, in the end, has nothing to be proud of. He can repent because he knows that he has no righteousness in and of himself, and he sees clearly the only thing that he can do: plead for mercy.

Our English translations, perhaps, don’t quite do his words justice. The Greek text of St. Luke’s Gospel relates that the tax collector prayed something to this effect: “O God, be propitiated to me.” He prays not only that God would look upon him with kindness and mercy, but that God would make it right – that God would provide atonement for his sins, and that God would fix what man had broken.

This is why the tax collector went down to his house justified. Because he had faith that God would do as he promised. He had faith that God would repair what was broken, and would make atonement for his sins, and the sins of the whole world.

And this is why you are justified. This is why you are made righteous in the sight of God. Not because of your good works, or your lack thereof. Not because of what you have done, or what you have left undone. You are justified because God has made atonement for your sins in the sacrifice of His Son. He has given to Jesus the punishment that you deserved, and given to you the mercy and love that a Father shows to his children. You are justified because God has credited to you the good works of His Son, rather than your own pride and your own vanity.

And today, in this church and at this altar, He gives to you that same sacrifice, that same propitiation of Jesus’ Body and Blood which the tax collector prayed for, and which was offered up for our sins and the sins of every tax collector and Pharisee and prideful, self-righteous sinner on the altar of the cross. He gives to you the promise that you are reconciled with God and that your sins are atoned for. And you who have come up to this church today will return to your house justified.