21 At the end of eight days, when He was circumcised, He was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.
22 And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 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. 27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the Law, 28 he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said, 29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation 31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”
33 And His father and His mother marvelled at what was said about Him. 34 And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
During the past few weeks we have looked at the first 3 of the songs of praise in Luke’s Gospel which help tell the story of the birth of Jesus. We have seen the progression of these hymns known as Mary’s Magnificat, Zechariah’s Benedictus, and the angels’ Gloria in Excelsis Deo.
Today we are looking at Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis, but before we meet Simeon, we need to see how Joseph and Mary’s obedience to God brought Simeon to the point where he had the privilege of meeting the promised Messiah face to face.
The most important things that parents can do for their children are spiritual. Godly parents pray for their children, they teach them about the things of God, as they build the foundation of faith their children are going to need as they grow up in a world which is hostile to God and the Gospel message.
2000 years ago, Joseph and Mary understood their responsibilities as devout Jewish parents, so they did all that the law required of them in the very early days of Jesus’ life. Verse 39 says, “When they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.”
Verse 21 tells us that the first thing they did was have their son circumcised when He was 8 days old. As we saw with John the Baptist a couple of weeks ago, Jewish boys were formally named when they were circumcised, and in obedience to God’s command, Joseph and Mary named their son Jesus, which means, “the Lord saves.” His name spoke of His role as the Saviour of all who would come to Him in faith.
Circumcision was the sign of the covenant given to Abraham more than 2000 years earlier. It was the physical sign which signified belonging to the covenant people of God. Jesus was a Jew, and in accordance with the Law, His parents presented Him for circumcision. This ritual showed that as a true son of Abraham, He was one with His covenant people. Of course, there was something unique about this particular baby boy. At just 8 days old, His blood was shed for the first time, but it would not be the last. Even Jesus’ circumcision pointed to the cross.
Five weeks later Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the temple: “When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord’) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.’” (Luke 2:22–24)
They went to the temple that day for two reasons. One was for purification. Leviticus 12 teaches that a woman who gave birth to a son was ceremonially unclean for forty days after his birth, after which she was required to bring to the priest a lamb for a burnt offering and a pigeon for a sin offering. Joseph and Mary though, didn’t bring a lamb because they couldn’t afford one. All they had to offer were two young pigeons, but the law did allow for this as Moses wrote in Leviticus 12:8. “If she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.”
Here is yet another sign of the poverty into which Jesus was born and the humility of His incarnation. The eternal Son of God lowered and humbled Himself as He took on human flesh.
The reason for the act of purification a mother had to undergo was directly linked to the Biblical doctrine of original sin. As David wrote in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
Every human being, with the one exception of Jesus, was conceived and born in sin, which required the sin offering when the child was presented at the temple. The sacrifices for sin offered in Old Testament times were all substitutionary sacrifices. The point was that these sacrifices were a reminder that the one offering the sacrifice deserved death, but the animal which died as a substitute bore the penalty of the sinner instead. This was why Jesus came into the world - to be the perfect and final substitutionary sacrifice.
The question is, why did Mary need to go through the process of purification? Jesus was the sinless Son of God. He was completely without sin. Having been conceived by the Holy Spirit, the curse of original sin was not passed down to Him, so why did Mary have to be purified?
Simply because God commanded it, and also because her son had come to take our sin upon Himself. Even while still a baby, we are reminded that one day Jesus would be the bearer of our sin, as God made Him “to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God,” as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21.
So the first reason Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the temple was for purification, and verse 22 gives us the second reason: “To present Him to the Lord.” This was in obedience to the Law given to Moses in Exodus 13:2. “Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.”
What God was doing here was teaching His people that He had the claim and authority over the life of every firstborn son in Israel, and by presenting their sons to God at the temple, the parents acknowledged this to be true. Their children were then set apart for God, as they gave thanks for the gift of their child.
The application for us today as Christian parents is easy to see. Our children are precious gifts given to us by the Lord Himself, and our responsibility as parents, in partnership with the church, is to commit to raising and teaching our children to know and love the Lord. In so doing, we do much the same that Old Testament Jewish parents did - we are presenting our children to the Lord.
Even though Jesus was and is the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, His earthly parents obeyed the Law concerning their son, so they presented Him to the Lord.
In order for Jesus to save us from the curse of sin, He had to perfectly live under and fulfill the law Himself. This is what Paul meant when he wrote in Galatians 4:4-5, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
From the very beginning of His life, Jesus fulfilled all righteousness by keeping God’s law.
In His circumcision, Jesus received the sign of the covenant, and in His presentation, He was consecrated to God, just as the law required. Then for the remainder of His earthly life, He lived in perfect obedience to the law of God. This He did for our salvation. We are saved by Christ’s death on the cross, but we are also saved by His life on earth, in which He fulfilled all the righteousness that we owe to God.
And then we meet Simeon.
“Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting 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)
We actually know very little about Simeon. He is mentioned in these verses and nowhere else in Scripture. Some have assumed he was a priest at the temple, but the text does not tell us that. What we do know about him is something of his character. Simeon was a righteous and Godly man who was waiting for the coming of Christ - the Lord’s anointed. He believed the Old Testament prophecies of the promised Messiah, and we also know that God, through the Holy Spirit, had promised Simeon that before he died, he would see the Messiah with his very own eyes. There are some who believe this means that Simeon was an old man, but Luke gives no indication of his age. All we know is that he was devout and faithful, and he believed the promises of God.
And when we meet Simeon, he is patiently waiting for God to fulfill His promise to him. This is what it means to be a believer in God. It means waiting in faith for God to do what He has promised. How long had Simeon waited? A week? A year? Decades? We don’t know, but he was faithfully and patiently waiting.
And then just as he had been supernaturally promised that he would see the Messiah, God again intervened and brought Simeon to the temple just as Joseph and Mary brought their son. In the providence of God, Simeon was in the right place at the right time. “He came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the Law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God.” (Luke 2:27–28)
Just as Mary with her Magnificat and Zechariah with his Benedictus, Simeon sang the song of his heart. “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29–32)
Johannes Geldenhuys was a South African theologian who wrote a commentary on the Gospel of Luke in 1950. He says of Simeon’s song that it was like “The story of a slave who is instructed by his master to keep watch through the long, dark night on a high place to wait for the rising of a special star and then to announce it. After wearisome hours of waiting he at last sees the star rising in all its brightness. He announces it and is then discharged from keeping watch any longer.”
Simeon had been called by God to watch and wait for the star of salvation, and now, he finally saw Jesus, and in Him he saw the salvation of God.
Now, of course, no one is saved simply by the birth of Jesus. He still had to live a perfect life, die an atoning death, and rise to eternal glory. There is no salvation without the cross and the empty tomb, but even in this infant child, Simeon knew that salvation had come in the person of Jesus Christ. The child he held in his arms was not simply part of his salvation, but salvation itself. Jesus is all that anyone needs to be saved.
On a personal note, the birth of Jesus had one very important implication for Simeon. It meant that now he was ready to die, and he begins his song of praise and prophecy with a dismissal - the words that give his song its Latin title Nunc Dimittis, which means “now you are dismissing.” The Nunc Dimittis is Luke’s fourth and final Christmas carol, a hymn of praise for the newborn Christ.
Luke tells us is that once Simeon had seen Jesus, he was ready to die, which was part of the promise the Holy Spirit had made to him, but this principle has a much wider and more important application for us all. Anyone who has seen Jesus with the eyes of faith is ready to die. And anyone who has not seen Him is not ready.
At the end of our lives, as we draw that final breath, the only thing which will matter is whether we have seen Jesus with the eyes of faith and received the salvation He offers us.
When we see Jesus and His salvation we are ready to be dismissed from this life in peace and enter the life to come. Have you seen Jesus by faith? Have you seen Him crucified for your sins? Have you seen Him raised for your salvation? It is then and only then that you will be ready to die.
The wonder of the Gospel message is that it is not just for Simeon or even for just the Jews, but everyone who turns to Christ for salvation. As we saw last week, the angel said the shepherds, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” (Luke 2:10)
Salvation came first for the Jew, then the Gentiles, as Simeon proclaimed. “My eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:30-32)
Jesus is God’s light to the nations. The whole world is covered with darkness through sin, but Jesus has come to destroy that darkness, as He shines the light of salvation into every dark corner of every sin-darkened heart. It is because of Christ that we have a Gospel that we can take to all people. There is a sermon in Simeon’s song of praise. He sings, “Look, here is salvation. Jesus Christ is God’s light for the world. See Him and be saved.”
Joseph and Mary already knew that there was something special and unique about their son, and Luke says in verse 33, “His father and mother marvelled at what was said about Him.” Their child, not even 2 months old, was the Messiah which God had promised for thousands of years. One wonders though, how much of the detail of just how He would save His people they knew?
We can only speculate about what Mary must have said or felt after hearing Simeon’s words in verses 34 and 35. “Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, ‘Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.’”
A sign that is opposed and a sword will pierce through your own soul also.
Here Simeon gives the first hint of the great suffering that Jesus would endure to bring salvation. The songs of Mary, Zechariah, and the angels proclaim the glory and majesty of Jesus Christ. They speak about His royalty, His Divine Lordship and the peace He brings to His people.
But now Simeon prophesies that Jesus will also be the object of opposition. He is a sign that is opposed. The people He came to save will despise and reject Him, even to the point where they would put Him to death.
This was the sword that would pierce Mary’s soul. She expressed such joy in her hymn of praise, the Magnificat, but Simeon prophesied that there was a day coming when she would suffer an intense grief that would pierce her heart.
Even now, God began preparing Mary for the crucifixion. It must have been with such mixed feelings and inner turmoil for Mary to watch her son grow up just like countless other little boys, with the words of Simeon replaying over and over in her mind.
And one day, just over 30 years later as she stood at the foot of the cross, Simeon’s prophecy was fulfilled before her own eyes. The piercing sword was the death of her beloved son.
Simeon’s prophecy shows that from the beginning, God had a mission for Jesus that required Him to suffer and die for sinners. Isaiah 53:10 says, “It was the will of the Lord to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; when His soul makes an offering for guilt.”
God’s plan was for the salvation of His people. However, it was not for the salvation of everyone, which is why Simeon spoke about people falling as well as rising. In his song Simeon identified Jesus as the Saviour God had prepared “in the presence of all peoples.”
Salvation is available to all, but is received only by those who repent of their sins and who turn to Jesus Christ. “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” (Luke 2:34–35)
What this means is that Jesus exposes what is really in our hearts. If we are truly humbled by our sin, we will see our need for grace and be drawn to Jesus, who will make us rise to glory. Everyone who believes in Jesus will rise to heaven, to the glory of God.
Yet some people refuse to be humbled by their sin. They are offended by the idea that salvation comes exclusively through Christ and His cross. This is what Simeon meant when he said that Jesus would cause the “falling of many.”
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:23, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.” Some receive Jesus Christ by faith, while others stumble over Him and reject Him.
The Christian author Michael Wilcock wrote of those “Who speak against this sign of God’s love that has been offered to them, for it searches men’s hearts and some will be scandalised by a salvation which can only be achieved by way of the cross.”
But it has always been this way. The cross of Jesus Christ is scandalous and offensive to those who hate Him. This is why Christians are ridiculed for our faith in Jesus. It is why other world religions are all united in their opposition to the Christian faith.
Simeon said this would happen. Jesus reveals the true inner condition of every heart, whether in faith or unbelief. When people are opposed to Christians it is because they are opposed to Christ. Whatever opposition we face is a sign that He is truly present in us. When you are ridiculed and marginalised for your faith, you can say along with Peter and the other apostles, “They left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the Name.” (Acts 6:41)
What is your response to Jesus Christ? Are you for Him or are you against Him? Will you rise or will you fall? This is the great question we each must answer, because what God will do with us for all eternity depends on what we do with Jesus right now.
Jesus Christ is the Great Divide between the saved and the lost, and there is no neutral ground. Either we are with Jesus or we are against Him. You will rise because of Christ, or you will fall - the choice is yours.
Geldenhuys again wrote, “Those who imagine themselves to be strong and high, who rely on their own merit and power, will come to woeful ruin and undoing, because in their pride they do not realise their own need and doom and do not take refuge in Christ. But the humble ones, those who bend low at His feet with confession of sin and faith in Him, will be raised up by His mighty arm to eternal life.”
Have you seen Jesus? Have you received Him as your Saviour from sin? If so, you are able to echo the words of Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis. “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples.” (Luke 2:29-31)
During the past 4 Sundays we have looked briefly at only a few of the people who were privileged to be eye witnesses of the Saviour who has come into our world. Those people like Zechariah, Elizabeth, Joseph, Mary, the shepherds and Simeon only had a limited understanding of what the advent of Christ was really all about, but they were faithful saints who trusted the Word of the Lord.
We can see Jesus more clearly than they did. We see Him not only in His birth, but also in His death and resurrection, certain that in Him we have the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life. We also have the Holy Spirit to help us follow their example by looking in faith and waiting in prayer.
J. C. Ryle wrote: “If they, with so few helps and so many discouragements, lived such a life of faith, how much more ought we with a finished Bible and a full Gospel. Let us strive, like them, to walk by faith and look forward.”