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Dec 26, 1999
The following message was given by the Rev. Gene Preston at Community Church Hong Kong on December 26, l999, the first Sunday of Christmas and the last Sunday of the old millennium.
Luke 2:22-40
Yesterday was Christmas. The temple happenings reported by Luke in his second chapter took place, according to Jewish practice, about 40 days after the first Christmas. Jesus is about six weeks old when brought to the temple in Jerusalem and presented there by his parents, Joseph and Mary, in order to fulfil two Jewish rituals: the purification of the mother and the dedication of the baby.
Both these rituals arise from ancient Jewish teachings. In the book of Leviticus at chapter l2 the routine is prescribed that forty days after the birth of child the parents should present themselves at the temple with an offering of a lamb. This offering is given to the priest as an offering of purification for the woman after childbirth. In the case of a poor family, two birds, like those which Joseph and Mary bring, may be substituted for the more costly lamb offering.
Old Jewish tradition also assumed, in a kind of let's pretend sense, that the first born male in the family belonged to God and thus the male child needed to be brought to the temple and dedicated there to God's service. Of course, if that custom had been literally observed, the temple would have had tens of thousands of priests and the farms and shops of Israel would have been voided of workers. So in Numbers l8:l5-l6 there is the provision that the firstborn male child, after dedication, could be redeemed from temple service, by the further offering to the priests of five shekels.
The temple dedication sounds rather like Christian child dedication in which some Christian parents present their young children for dedication to God but not for baptism, delaying baptism until the child can make that decision in his or her own right. We baptized yesterday Joanna and Melanie Young, both of whom were dedicated by Anna and Andrew when the girls were quite young.
In reporting these two ceremonies at the temple, the purification ritual and the dedication of the child, the writer Luke is stressing the continuity of Jesus with Jewish custom and expectation regarding the Messiah. For the Jews the Messiah had to conform to Jewish custom. And yet there is this strange exception. Luke says nothing about Joseph and Mary paying the redemption offering. Jesus is not left at the temple as centuries before the baby Samuel had been left at the temple to be raised by the priests for permanent service to God. Jesus is carried away but the redemption fee is not paid. Could Luke be signalling that while Jesus' life would conform to Jewish custom there was something unique about him….that Jesus would forever remain the dedicated child of God.
Two old-timers, Simeon and Anna, are introduced by Luke at the temple to make clear these routine temple transactions are not routine at all but pregnant with salvation signs. Elderly Simeon, who was a saintly Jew, came to the temple, looked into the eyes of the baby Jesus, and with a conviction coming upon him by the Holy Spirit, announced that his life of waiting for the Messiah had now been rewarded.
Simeon gave thanks to God in one of those sections of the Gospel of Luke which have become classic Christian liturgy: the "Nunc Dimitis" or "Now let me depart in peace for I have seen the Lord's salvation, which God has prepared in the presence of all peoples: A light to reveal divine will to the gentiles and bring glory to the people Israel."
Samuel probably didn't express himself precisely in those words. He had help from Luke who wants the reader to be aware that Jesus is fulfilling Jewish expectation of the Messiah and at the same time that Jesus is equally salvation for non-Jews.
Shortly after Simeon has witnessed to the promise of the baby, he and the family are joined by Anna, another elderly person who from her widowhood at age 84 had hung out at the temple fasting and praying every day. She comes up to the baby and seconds Simeon's judgement that this baby is the long awaited messiah. She begins to share this good news to anyone willing to listen to an ancient woman.
These temple happenings must have astounded Mary and Joseph who had come to do their duty with no great expecttion. To have this required ritual changed into the first public declaration that their baby was very special must have given them pause for thought. In fact, we are told they were amazed. Wouldn't we all be if something like that happened in our church!
The reason it probably wouldn't happen is because modern temple goers are looking for a form of salvation just as routinely ritualized as the offerings of cleansing and dedication of 2,000 years ago. Simeon and Anna and Luke are characters out of the wrong play and place. Simeon's prophecy about the kind of salvation that would come with the baby's maturity alerts us that the expectation being entertained by him at the temple was quite different from what most folks expected to happen at the temple, or nowadays in church: THIS CHILD IS DESTINED FOR THE FALLING AND THE RISING OF MANY IN ISRAEL, AND TO BE A SIGN THAT WILL BE OPPOSED SO THAT THE INNER THOUGHTS OF MANY WILL BE REVEALED…AND A SWORD WILL PIERCE YOUR OWN SOUL TOO.
That last image, a sword piercing the soul, was spoken to Mary and Joseph, the two persons who most loved the baby Jesus. As loving parents what they wanted for their child must have been whatever blessing and success would bring him happiness in his later life and make them proud parents. But a salvation which pierces the very being of those who love their own child is something else again!
I don't think many folks are looking for soul piercing salvation when they come to a church. Most are swept up in the easy enthusiasm of the bumper sticker "Jesus Saves." Churches are supposed to dispense a form of salvation as neat and compact as a sticker you can take away with you and place on your car or bedroom bureau: "Jesus Saves."
Salvation to modern perception suggests something that can be easily marketed; next time you're at the supermarket put a box of salvation into your shopping cart. Take it home and try it. You won't be disappointed. And you certainly won't have your soul pierced! If you do, you can get double your money back and try some other church's salvation product.
Salvation has become a cheap grace readily dispensed to some while not available under any circumstances to others. Salvation is treated by many churches as a product they control, or a membership club whose magnetic cards they can reward to some. If you have salvation, you have the right membership card and you just swipe your card through the Pearly Gates. But not everyone has the card because not everyone has individual righteousness, not everyone has done the necessary to earn salvation. But this salvation which is an exclusive entitlement of some persons who belong to the right spiritual club is not the salvation which Luke had in mind at the temple.
In Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament scriptures, the word salvation translates "to develop without hindrance" or "wide open spaces." It's not a limited notion. The Latin root for salvation, salvare, adds the further notion of an ointment for healing.
Salvation then raises image of "wide open spaces," and "the development without hindrance" and "a salve for healing." These three facets of scriptural salvation are what ancient Simeon and Anna were looking for in the temple. Are they what you are looking for in church this day after Christmas?
When Simeon looked into the eyes of the baby Jesus he saw a future messiah whose work would include, connect, and free people to know and live the grace God so freely gives to all. The baby's name, Jesus, means "deliverer." Jesus was the one who would deliver this life giving vision of salvation to everyone.
The subsequent adult life of Jesus gives us a person who sought to include at his table and in his fellowship people who were excluded from good tables. He was one who touched and healed people declared unclean in their society. His hand reached out to those deemed weak and worthless to steady them and give them dignity. As Jesus shared his love with other people, they responded by wanting to help others see and respond to the wideness of his love.
Jesus launched the first millennium on a historic course which raised up the vision of salvation as wide-open love, salvation as God's desire that everyone develop toward inclusive unity, and that the presence of God is the salve for personal and social sores and scars. We've come 2,000 years nearly and how we still need the application of that salvation which Jesus embodied.
We are not talking about salvation as only a purification rite. There is a very popular and narrow view of salvation as an individual decision to confess sin, be cleansed of sin through baptism, and then pledge to follow Jesus as best one can. At best, this is the first step in the salvation drama. And if the result is that the saved person then stops thinking and acting in relationship to Jesus, it is hardly a step at all. It is then more like the dedication ritual in which one agrees to pay a fee in order to be spared committing to anything truly rigorous and life enveloping like temple service.
A salvation which is personally seized but not shared, it is not the salvation of openness and wide spaces and inclusiveness which Simeon and Anna and Luke were convinced was the salvation offered by the baby who would grow up to be the Christ. You view of salvation influences greatly how you receive and value the gift of the Christmas child.
Pastor Gene Preston
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The Rev. Gene R.Preston14th Floor, Blk 36, Lower Baguio Villa Tel : 25516161 Fax: 25512114E-mail : gpreston@netvigator.com |
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