Luke 2:21-40

Bringing the sermon home:

What would lead a person to joyfully pray to God, “Now I can depart in peace. Lord, let me die”?

Faithful first century Jews like Simeon and Anna had spent their lives waiting for the visible dwelling presence of God to return to the earth, having departed from the first temple when it was destroyed in 586 BC.

And in Luke 2:27, for the first time, the visible dwelling presence of God was carried into the second temple, and Simeon took God the Son incarnate “up in his arms” and declared: “My eyes have seen your salvation! Now I can die in peace, for God has come to His temple!”

It was a foretaste of the new heavens and the new earth that is to come, which we read about in Revelation 21:3, when the voice from the throne will declare: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

This is the salvation that God the Son came to bring: a people made clean by His blood, that we might dwell in His presence forever.

May we all be given the spiritual eyes to see salvation in this child, so that we may be prepared to depart from this world in peace, having seen Jesus and knowing who is awaiting us in heaven.