Are You Expecting a Baby?

First Sunday of Christmas

December 27, 2015

Luke 2:25

Are You Expecting a Baby?

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I.

Simeon was an old man who was waiting for the consolation of Israel. He was waiting for the Messiah, the Anointed Savior from the Lord. But was he expecting the Messiah to be a baby?

And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. (Luke 2:25-26)

Maybe he had heard about some strange goings on in the little town of Bethlehem a few miles away from the big city of Jerusalem. Perhaps he'd heard of the shepherds' account of the angels and their trip to the bedside of the Christ. Perhaps, perhaps not. (The Magi hadn't reached Jerusalem at this time.)

So Simeon is waiting for the Messiah. And one day―eight days after Jesus is born―the Holy Spirit ushered Simeon into church, the Temple in Jerusalem.

Is he expecting to see a baby?

II.

We live in a world that loves babies (except when we are busily murdering 700,000 of them a year). But we love babies that we can hold in our arms.

So this love of babies is especially true of Cute Little Baby Jesus. The world is filled with Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Pantheists, Hindus, and “Christians” who despise the Christ of the cross, yet many of them still love Cute Little Baby Jesus.

We sing carols romanticizing the Babe of Bethlehem who no crying He makes. The point isn't that that song is bad; the point is that believers and unbelievers alike are more inclined to focus on cute little Baby Jesus than at any other stage of His life.

Attendance at church is high among church members who despise Preaching and the Sacrament the rest of the year. That's partly nostalgia, but it also that Cute Little Baby Jesus is easier to push around. It's easier to make Cute Little Baby Jesus a symbol for whatever you want―how about world peace―than say the grown-up Jesus driving out the money-changers from the Temple with a whip or even more, the bloody Jesus Christ hanging from the cross.

We live in a world that loves to welcome Cute Little Baby Jesus. But is that whom Simeon was expecting?

III.

Babies can't do a lot. They do a few things really well, but after that, nothing. So wouldn't Simeon have been expecting a grown-up? A man who can do things? The Holy Spirit ushers Simeon into church and there's a baby! What can a baby do? Sure, the baby can grow up, but Simeon wouldn't be around for that.

Whatever disappointment sinful Simeon may or may not have had upon laying eyes on the little baby Jesus, his doubts were destroyed by the word of God. These words poured out of his mouth. He didn't care who heard. He cared only for the Child before him, his Savior for whom he had waited for his whole life. He wouldn't be around to see Jesus suffer, die, and rise again, but for Simeon it was as good as done. That's why he died happy and blessed in the name of the Lord.

IV.

Are you expecting a baby? What are you expecting when the Holy Spirit ushers you into church? Sometimes you might feel like our imagined Simeon. That's it? That's my Salvation? Just a baby. Just some bread and wine. Just some words and some hymns. That doesn't seem like much.

But as you see Christ's body before you and receive it, you realize the joy of Simeon. This is Christ.

Like Simeon, you didn't see Jesus suffer, die, and rise again, but it is done. God's Word destroys your doubt and unbelief, and replaces it with trust that Christ is for you. That's why you, too, will die happy and blessed in the name of the Lord.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21