At the church where I serve we are in the middle of our
Christmas sermon series entitled the original Christmas playlist. During this
series, we are going to discover that the Christmas story is told through song
as well and a recollection of events from history. And as we go
through this series, our hope and prayer is that God would move by the power of
the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts, and hands in a way the enables us to
learn several timeless truths that these songs teach us about the very first
Christmas and its place the grand story of God's activity in history.
This week I would like for us to
spend our time together looking at another song that was a part of the original
Christmas playlist that was written by a man named Simeon. And it is in this
song that Simeon composed during the very first Christmas that we discover a
timeless truth about Christmas and God's activity in history. However, before we look at Simeon’s
contribution to the original Christmas playlist, let's look at the
circumstances the led to his song. We find these circumstances, and his song,
in a section of an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of
Luke. So let's jump into this event from history together, beginning in Luke
2:21:
And when eight days had passed, before His circumcision,
His name was then called Jesus,
the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.
Luke begins
this section of his account of Jesus life by explaining that eight days after
Jesus birth, and before Jesus was circumcised, Mary and Joseph officially named
their child Jesus. Now a natural question that arises here is “Why did they
wait until eight days after Jesus was born to name Him?” In a letter in the Old
Testament of our Bibles called the book of Leviticus, we see God command that a
circumcision was to be performed on the 8th day after a male child
was born.
The reason
that circumcision was so significant was that circumcision was a covenant sign
that identified the Jewish people as being God’s people. Circumcision was a
religious act that was required to be performed under the Law so that you would
be able to be identified as being right with God as part of the Jewish
religious system. Here we see Luke reveal for us the reality that Mary and
Joseph were responding to the birth of Jesus by following and fulfilling God’s
commandments when it came to Jesus. Instead of naming Jesus, as the first born
son, after Joseph or another male family member, Mary and Joseph followed the
angel Gabriel’s command to name the baby Jesus.
And Mary and
Joseph also followed God’s command in the Law to have Jesus circumcised. Mary
and Joseph were responding in worship to God by being obedient to God. Mary and
Joseph were making sure that Jesus was identified with God’s people so that He
would be able to fulfill His role and be identified as the rescuer of God’s
people. But that is not the only way that Mary and Joseph were responding to
God’s call to worship, as we see in Luke 2:22-24:
And when the days
for their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they
brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (as it is written in the
Law of the Lord, "EVERY firstborn
MALE THAT OPENS THE WOMB SHALL BE CALLED HOLY TO THE LORD "), and
to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the Law of the Lord, "A
PAIR OF TURTLEDOVES OR TWO YOUNG PIGEONS."
Now to
understand what is happening here, we first need to ask and answer several
questions. First, what is Luke referring to when he talks about the days for
their purification? We discover the answer to that question in a letter that is
preserved and recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible, called the
book of Leviticus. In Leviticus 12:1-8, we discover that a Jewish mother would
be viewed as being unclean for 40 days after the birth of a male child.
Now a natural
question that arises here is “why? Why would a mother be viewed as being
unclean after giving birth? I mean doesn’t God command us to have children?
Aren’t children a blessing from the Lord?” To understand the answer to these
questions we first need to understand some biology and some theology.
The mother,
after the birth of a child was viewed as being ceremonially unclean and unable
to enter into the temple to worship because of the discharges of blood that
occurs after a woman gives birth to a child. In the Old Testament, bleeding or
the discharge from a body lacked wholeness and was therefore viewed as being
unclean. As we know, the loss of blood can lead to death, which is the
antithesis of a normal healthy life.
Thus, in the
Bible, we see blood portrayed as, on the one hand, representing a cleansing
agent for the selfishness and rebellion that separates us from God, and on the
other hand, a polluting substance when it is in the wrong place. And because
God is perfect; and because God is Holy, which means to be totally separate in
terms of character and conduct, God presence could not be present with anything
that was unclean.
So, after a
male child was born, on the 8th day that male child would be
circumcised, but the mother would remain unclean for 33 more days. During that
time, the mother was forbidden to enter into the temple area to worship God as
she recovered physically from giving birth. After the 40 days for her
purification were over, the mother was to present a lamb for a burnt offering
and a pigeon or a turtle dove for a sin offering.
This set of
offerings was required before the mother could return to the state of being
considered clean and able to participate in the worship of God. This leads to a
second question, which is, “why did the mother have to bring these offerings
and present her firstborn son to the Lord?” We find the answer that question in
the second letter in our Bibles, called the book of Exodus. In Exodus 13:1-2 we
see the Lord say the following to Moses:
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Sanctify to Me every firstborn,
the first offspring of every womb among the sons of Israel, both of man and
beast; it belongs to Me."
A few verses
later, in verse 11-15, we read the following:
"Now when the LORD brings you to the land of the Canaanite, as He
swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you, you shall devote to the
LORD the first offspring of every womb, and the first offspring of every beast
that you own; the males belong to the LORD. "But every first offspring of
a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck;
and every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. "And it shall
be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What is this?' then you
shall say to him, 'With a powerful hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, from
the house of slavery. 'It came about, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting
us go, that the LORD killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the
firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the LORD
the males, the first offspring of every womb, but every firstborn of my sons I
redeem.'
In these
verses we see God command the Jewish people to respond to what He had done to
deliver the Jewish people from slavery at the hands of the nation of Egypt. As
part of that deliverance, one evening, the Lord went through the
land of Egypt and struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, but He
passed over all of the Jewish homes who had marked their doors with the blood
of the lamb. This feast was referred to by the Jewish people as the Passover.
In addition to celebrating the Passover feast, God commanded that all firstborn sons of the Jewish people were to be
consecrated to the Lord as a response to the sparing of the lives of the
firstborn Jewish people during that first Passover.
Now, with
these questions answered, we get a picture of what Mary and Joseph were doing
in response to the birth of Jesus that first Christmas. Mary and Joseph were
responding to the birth of Jesus by following and fulfilling God’s commandments
to dedicate their firstborn son to be Holy to the Lord.
In other
words, Mary and Joseph were following God’s command to dedicate Jesus to be
wholly devoted to the Lord. Jesus was being dedicated to live a life that is
separated to God and separated from all that is unclean. Jesus was being
dedicated by his parents to live a life that was committed to God and the
mission of God in the world. Mary and Joseph worshiped God by giving their son
who was the Son of God back to God.
Now you might be
thinking to yourself “well Dave, why did Mary and Joseph offer up a pair of
turtledoves instead of a lamb?” If that question is running
through your mind, I want to let you know that is a great question to ask.
Tomorrow, we will discover the
answer to that question…
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