Luke 2:21
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
16 And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
17 And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.
18 And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
21 And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
22 And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;
23 (As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;)
24 And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.
25 And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him.
26 And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
27 And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,
28 Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said,
29 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
30 For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
31 Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
32 A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.
33 And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.
34 And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;
35 (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
36 And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity;
37 And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.
38 And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
Luke 2:21-35
At the time of Jesus’ birth, like we talked on Sunday morning, it wasn’t a pleasant time to be alive in the world. And we have been so blessed in America with the freedoms that we’ve had and the opportunities that we’ve had pretty much since our nation was founded that most nations have never seen.
And the things that we’re experiencing now with some of the awful things that have happened in the last few years in our country, that was reality for the people in Israel. That was reality for the people in the world. And the people were looking for someone to deliver them out from underneath all of the things that were happening in the Roman Empire and in the world at that time.
The nation of Israel had been promised a Messiah. And as we sang in the hymns and as we studied on Sunday morning, the fulfillment of that promise of the Messiah that was coming was realized when Jesus, whose Jewish name, Yeshua, means salvation of the Lord, had come. And it was proclaimed first to the shepherds, and they proclaimed it throughout all the Bethlehem area.
And now we’re seeing the events that begin to transpire in Jesus’ life. The same things that happened to every other Jewish boy happened to Jesus. He had to be circumcised on the eighth day.
That was the law. Jesus was Jewish. His parents were Jewish.
Jesus had given the law, and now he was going to fulfill the law in his own life. His parents took him to the temple. He was circumcised on the eighth day.
Mary, his mother, Jesus being the firstborn son, there were a couple of other things that would happen. As I mentioned Sunday, boys, when they were born, the mother had to wait an extended period of time to be declared clean, and she had to offer sacrifices at the temple. There was 33 more days that Mary waited until the time of her being declared clean could be made by the priests, and she would come to offer her sacrifices.
So they did that. And so Jesus is about 41 days old at this time. And we see that as they bring him to the temple, they bring him after Mary has been offered her sacrifices and has been declared clean, they come back to the temple, and they offer sacrifice on behalf of Jesus and dedicate him to the Lord, as they are called to do because he’s the firstborn son.
And that was part of the law too, is you had to dedicate the firstborn son to the Lord. But we knew that this is a special firstborn son because he was the Messiah. Now what I want us to look at and concentrate on tonight is the two people they meet in the temple.
These two people have been longing and waiting. The term used in describing what Simeon had been waiting for was the consolation of Israel. That is the Messiah of Israel, the one who would come in fulfillment of all the promises given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the promises that have been given to Judah and David, the promises that have been foretold by the prophets of old of one who would come to take away the sin of the world.
And they had been waiting for that person to come. Simeon, it says, was a devout and just man who had been waiting and praying to the Lord that he could live until the day that he would see the Messiah with his own eyes. As Mary and Joseph walk into the temple carrying Jesus, we see that Simeon sees him and is moved by the Holy Ghost in verse 25.
And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Ghost was upon him, and it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he should see the Lord’s Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the restoration, or after the custom, rather, of the law, then took him up in his arms and blessed God and said the following.
And then he gives, really, a prayer to the Lord about what this child means, and the significance of Jesus’ birth. Let’s just take a look at the things that he says. First of all, he says, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.
The first thing he acknowledges is God had revealed to him that he was to long to see the Lord as he came into flesh in Jesus, in fulfillment of the promises and prophecies. And he says, I’ve seen them. And he’s confident and assured, and by faith he acknowledges this is the Messiah.
And so he says, now I can die. Now I can come home to be with you. The second thing he says is, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.
I want you to understand, remembering Christ’s birth isn’t just so we can celebrate and give gifts, but it’s to remember this is God’s salvation. There would be no salvation apart from Jesus coming. Had Jesus not come and come to earth and took on the form of a man, and as the scriptures in Paul’s letter to the Romans states, he became the second Adam.
The first Adam sinned, casting all mankind into sin. Every one of us inherited a sinful nature from Adam. You do not have to teach a baby how to rebel.
Against God or rebel against his parents. It comes by nature. You have to instruct them in righteousness and godliness, and introduce them to the Lord.
And the only way they can come to the Lord is through the author of salvation, Jesus Christ, who was given to us by God. And so he acknowledges that this child is the means of man’s salvation. One of the sad things is most of the nation of Israel didn’t understand that.
They were looking for salvation and deliverance from the Roman Empire. They were looking for salvation and deliverance from a corrupt priestly system that ran the temple for profit instead of for the glory of God. They were looking for salvation and deliverance from this wicked world.
But they didn’t realize that Jesus had come to first deal with our own sin. If you don’t deal with the sin in your life, you’ll never come to know God and you’ll never experience the salvation that God intended for every man to experience. And that is coming to him through Jesus Christ.
So Simeon acknowledges this is the one that God had sent to be the means of salvation. Jesus himself later on when he’s speaking to those that are around him says, Behold, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.
In other words, I am the only means of salvation and deliverance that you can find. I am the way to God. I reflect and am the truth of God.
And no man can come to God unless they come by me. We have a whole bunch of people in the world today that want to develop their own religion and want to develop their own way to God that want to be God themselves. But the Bible tells us that there’s only one that came to be the author of salvation and that was Jesus and Simeon acknowledges that.
The third thing you see is he says, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel. Jesus just didn’t come for Israel. Jesus didn’t just come for the Jewish people.
Jesus came for every tribe, person on the face of the earth. And he desires that all men would be saved. The problem is the hardness of men’s hearts where they love rebellion and the things of Satan more than the desire to know their creator God.
And so consequently many people rebel and continue to reject the gospel message and the truth of Jesus’ coming. But Simeon said an amazing thing. He was a devout Jewish man.
And as a devout Jewish man, most of the devout Jews, they looked down on the Gentiles. They viewed them as dogs, as something that was beneath them. Why? Because the Gentiles lived total depraved and ungodly lives.
They worshiped pagan gods and the pagan gods did this. In the worship of pagan gods, you did despicable things, things that were an abomination to the Lord. And so they looked down on these people and said, they’re unworthy to even have us in their presence.
The only problem is they had a pride problem because they didn’t understand God was sending his son for the whole world. And if they didn’t accept Jesus, they would have no salvation either. And so he says he’s a light unto the Gentiles, but he’s a glory unto Israel.
Now what does he mean he’s a glory unto Israel? Today you have a whole bunch of people in the world that are very anti-Semitic. And there should be no reason for people to be anti-Semitic. You realize just from a human standpoint, the Jews have given us all kinds of wonderful things.
I was just looking at a bunch of things, inventions and things that the Jewish people have given. There’s been more Nobel prizes won by Jewish people than any other nationality. And yet you look at the percentage of people that are Jewish in the world.
It’s minute. But why does the world hate them? Because God loved them and he said he was going to send his son. He gave us his word through them.
He gave us his promises through them. And his son was born as a promise and fulfillment to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the fathers of the Jewish people. And so we see that we should never hate the Jewish people.
But what was Jesus going to be to the Jewish people? It says here he’s going to be the glory to the Jewish people. Why was he going to be the glory to the Jewish people? Because he was the culmination and the fulfillment of everything that had been promised to their fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to all of Jacob’s sons and to all the Jewish people that the Messiah would come and he would one day sit upon the throne of David and rule and reign the whole world. This was the glory of what made the significance of how God used the nation of Israel.
And it should bring a glory to them. And people should say, what a marvelous gift God has given to us through this nation that should never have been a nation. And through this people that should have never been a people.
And yet God chose them and did this for us. And then he goes on and he says, and Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him. And then Simeon blessed them and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be spoken against.
Why? What was that prophecy about? It’s interesting if you look at the history of how God has worked through people who’s accepted and rejected him. The nation of Israel had the truth. We’ve been, as I mentioned before, I mentioned on Sunday morning, normally on Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon, we’ve been looking at the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.
And one of the things you see is that they know the truth. They have prophets proclaim the truth. But then they reject the truth.
And they embrace the pagan gods of those that are around them. And they become an abomination to God. And God brings judgment upon them in various forms.
Ultimately, he takes the northern kingdom into captivity by the Assyrians and the southern kingdom of Judah into captivity by the Babylonians as judgments because of their rejection of him. But when Jesus comes, well then all the Jewish people should accept him, right? Well, do you realize that the religious establishment in Israel, which consisted of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the scribes, they were the ones that directed the people and controlled the people as far as their understanding and worship of God. For the most part, they all despised Jesus.
Why? Because he was a threat to their system. He was a threat to their control. He was a threat to how they wanted to be the center of being able to control the nation of Israel.
And when he came, he challenged them and said that they turned to the Sadducees, he said they turned his father’s house of prayer into a den of thieves. He said to the Pharisees, he said you will scour the earth to find a convert and when you have found him, you will take him closer to hell than heaven. Why? Because they didn’t want to have a relationship with God, they had to want to establish a religious system.
And there’s always been those types of Jewish people and they would fall at the name of Jesus and they would experience his judgment because of their rejection of him. But there would also be those who would rise at his name. The Apostle Paul is an example.
He said he was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. He said he had this list of all these achievements he’d made as a Pharisee and yet he said it was all as dung when he found Jesus Christ.
It meant nothing because only Jesus could save him, his pedigree couldn’t do anything for him. And he was humbled and he who would never have anything to do with the Gentiles became the Apostle to the Gentiles because God had changed his heart. God would do that in the nation of Israel and Simeon says this is going to happen.
And Paul in the book of Romans tells us that God hardened the hearts of the Jewish people for a time that the Gentiles could be saved. And that through the Gentile salvation the Jews could be driven to jealousy and wonder why do these people proclaim to have the answers for our God and that they would come to Christ as well. So Simeon is speaking of this many of the Jewish people would reject Jesus but some many of them would accept Jesus just like Gentiles.
Many Gentiles accept Jesus but many reject it not most. And so we see that he says this to Mary and Joseph about what their son is going to mean to the Jewish nation. Yea assured shall pierce through thine own soul also that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
And he’s talking about what’s going to happen when Jesus is crucified and that Mary is going to be her heart’s going to be pierced at that time as she sees Jesus hanging on the cross. But he’s also going to rise from the dead. But the hearts of many are going to be revealed.
Whether and it’s interesting you had Pharisees whose hearts were revealed at the cross. He had Joseph of Arimathea who was a Pharisee and he gave his own tomb that he had prepared for himself to have Jesus’s body buried in that tomb. His heart was revealed.
But the hearts of the priests were revealed too about their corruptness and how that they wanted to create a lie in the story when Jesus rose from the dead. How they tried to bribe the Roman guards and have them lie to say that someone had come and stolen the body of Jesus. How they told Peter and the other apostles, don’t tell anybody about Christ’s resurrection or you will be in trouble.
And Peter and the apostles went away and saying, how what God has set for us to do, how can we not do it? So reveal men’s hearts and Jesus would reveal people’s hearts. And he still does today. You know, the Lord said, I will send my spirit and his spirit comes and the spirit convicts the unbeliever of his need of a savior.
And his spirit is there to help the believer, to console him, to comfort him, to direct him, to chastise him when he’s wrong, but also to be there to lead him and give him power to overcome a world system that wants to destroy us as believers. So Simeon says, through his crucifixion, men’s hearts will be revealed. Then all of a sudden, as Simeon is finishing giving his prophecies concerning Jesus, a woman walks in and she’s a widow and her name is Anna.
She’s a prophetess. She’s a member of the tribe of Asher. So if people tell you that there’s 10 tribes and are lost, and Asher would be one of them, it’s not true.
Because she knew she was a tribe of Asher and she lived during the time of Jesus. And the Bible also tells us in the book of Revelation, that there’s going to be 12,000 that will come from every tribe in the last days during the great tribulation. And they will be God’s men to go throughout the whole earth proclaiming the gospel message.
And they’re going to be 12,000 men from every tribe. So God knows the tribes. The tribes are still alive.
There are 10 lost tribes. When you hear a religion that says there’s 10 lost tribes and some of them are English and some of them are… No, there’s not 10 lost tribes. And this is part of the proof that they’re not.
Because she’s of the tribe of Asher. But it’s also, she’s extremely old. If you add up the years, you will see that Anna, a prophetess, a daughter of Daniel, of the tribe of Asher, she was of great age and had lived with her husband for seven years.
Well, even at that time in Israel, about the oldest, youngest you would be, would be probably a teenager if you got married. So even if she would have gotten married when she was 13 or 14, which would have been young, that would have made her 21 when her husband died. And so she’s 21 when her husband died.
And then she lived without a husband as a widow for four score, for about four score and four years, for another 84 years. So she’d be over 100 years old. And she’d been serving God diligently.
You know, people will say, well, you know, I’m old. I remember talking to a man one time and I wanted to, I’d asked him, I said, you know, you should probably consider being an elder in the church. Because he was, I thought, a fairly strong Christian believer.
And he’d been involved in the churches and saved for a number of years. And he says, no, I can’t do that. I just turned 65 and I’m retiring.
As you see from Anna’s life, there is no retiring from God’s service. She kept working for the Lord. It says she went to the temple every day and worked in the temple, honored the Lord through her service in the temple.
As a woman who was so advanced in years, she wouldn’t be able to consider to do anything in our culture. But yet she was still working in the temple for the Lord. And all of a sudden she sees Jesus.
And it’s amazing because these people had walked with the Lord. They were prepared to see the Messiah come. And when she sees them coming in, that is when she gave thanks likewise unto the Lord and spake of him to all of them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
So you’ve got this lady who’s over 100 years old who sees Jesus come in. She thanks God that this is the Messiah I’ve been waiting for. And she goes out and begins to tell anybody that would listen the redemption of Israel has come.
The Messiah is here. You know, some of us go, well, you know, I’m getting kind of old. I don’t really want to take time to share the gospel with anybody.
Why should I? Well, because Jesus has come. Now, we’re celebrating, even though we talked about this isn’t the right date for Jesus’ birth, but we still celebrate it so we have opportunities to share with those who just look at it as a holiday or maybe they like Christmas carols. But the thing is, we have an opportunity to share with them about the birth of Christ.
The Messiah came the first time. The first time Jesus came to take away our sins. But the Bible tells us of a second coming.
Jesus himself in Isaiah chapter 61, he’s teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. And what would happen in the synagogues, they have a system of reading throughout Capernaum in Nazareth. He’s teaching in the synagogue in Nazareth, his home synagogue.
And the Jewish people, they read through all of what we refer to as the Old Testament.