Luke 2:22-35 Sermon for Jan. 11, 2026

And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were finished, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every firstborn male will be dedicated to the Lord) and to offer a sacrifice (according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons). There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to Israel’s consolation, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, he entered the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him up in his arms, praised God, and said, ‘Now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you promised. For my eyes have seen your salvation. You have prepared it in the presence of all peoples- a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel.’ His father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and told his mother Mary, ‘Indeed, this child is destined to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed- and a sword will pierce your own soul- that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.’ Here’s what I want to do this morning. I’m going to give a little bit of teaching for a moment on some of the things that we’ve read about such as the sacrifice, purification, law o the Lord, and Israel’s consolation. Because, if we’re honest, and if we’re fairly new to the Bible, some of these things can get a bit lost on us. So, let’s mention three teachings and then I’m going to have us walk away with five main takeaways form out text as a whole. Let’s go. First, it says in verse 22, “when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were finished.” What does that mean? Well, the purification refers to a specific ritual required by the Law of Moses after childbirth. So, Jesus has been born, and now Jesus will be presented at the temple. According to Leviticus 12, a woman who gave birth would go through a period of ceremonial impurity. Normally, it’s 40 days after a male child or 80 day safter a female child. During this time, she was not morally sinful, but would be considered ritually unclean. What this means was that she couldn’t enter the sanctuary or be involved in certain acts of worship. Now, that period was over and it was time to make a sacrifice. An acceptable sacrifice was a lamb for a burnt offering AND a dove or a pigeon for a sin offering. If she couldn’t afford a lamb, she could present two turtledoves or two pigeons. This would be considered a poor person’s offering. We’ll get more into why that’s important momentarily. The second teaching here is one that concerns the presentation of every firstborn male. Why is that important and/or symbolic? Well, we read about “firsts” literally everywhere through the Bible. The first son. The first child. The first fruits. In Exodus 13:2, we read that the firstborn belongs to God. Why is that? Because God spared Israel’s firstborn, while Egypt’s firstborn died. It’s a reminder of God’s deliverance. Do you see the connection here as Jesus would be presented as the firstborn son of the household and how He will ultimately deliver us from the wrath of God due to sin? You also read in Numbers 3:11-13 about how the firstborn males would serve as priests. However, this would change after the infamous golden calf incident, where now it would be the Levites serving as priests. Do you see the connection to Jesus being presented as the f irst born of the family and would ultimately become our High Priest? You see, there are thousands of connections or foreshadowings in the Old Testament of the Jesus to come. It also says in Colossians 1:15 that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. Meaning, that Jesus is Creator, supreme over all creation, heir and ruler, and eternally preexistent. Don’t get too lost here, since we will be covering all of these rich theological beliefs throughout Luke. For now, just understand the rich connections. The third teaching concerns Israel’s consolation. This refers to a Promised Messiah. For years, hundreds and thousands of years, Israel had interpreted God as saying He would send a redeemer. This redeemer, this Messiah, would bring comfort, restoration, and deliverance to God’s people. Remember what I said last week: it’s been 400 years of silence from God and now Israel is under Roman occupation. They were aching and groaning for this so-called Messiah. They wanted the grief lifted, relief from suffering, and the lifting of sorrow. Israel had endured a lot of exile, oppression, and now centuries of Silence from God. Simeon, who we’re gonna talk about in our passage now recognizes this baby boy as Israel’s consolation. More on that soon. Alright, so those are just 3 basic teachings I want and need you to wrap your head around. In fact, it would do you well to really soak in those teachings and more of them later in order to better understand the, what I would call, the backdrop of our story in the Gospel’s. So, with that comes a challenge: don’t skip over the little, boring details such as descriptors, genealogies, names, and more. Don’t rush through Scripture. Do a little research. It’ll bring more understanding to you of the big stuff, and I think you’ll be amazed at the connections to our Messiah. That’s your challenge as you persist through you Bible reading plan. Now, what in the world is going on in our text today as a whole? Glad you ask. Five takeaways.\ First: We see Jesus being presented, according to the law and customs. Now, here is what’s interesting. The ONE being presented in the temple is the ONE who will replace the temple. Can I get an amen!? In the OT, the temple was a place of God’s presence. The place where sacrifice would be made. The place of atonement. The place where they prayed. The place where God would dwell among the people. And now Jesus is here! In John 1:14, it tells us that The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us! We also recognize that Jesus would be the true temple! He says in John 2 that he will destroy this temple, and in three days, he would raise it up. He would die and then resurrect. Jesus is also our ultimate sacrifice. He is the One who would atone for our sins. He is the fulfillment of everything that the temple symbolized. So, here, this is a big deal. The temple we’ve been reading about for 39 books of the OT foreshadowed Jesus. Second: We have this man named Simeon. What we know is that he was a righteous and devout man, whom the Holy Spirit laid heavily upon. No title. Just an ordinary man. And he was waiting for the consolation of Israel, in which we just chatted about. So, we can sort of take away two things from this. One, we can understand that the Lord uses ordinary people for prophetic and powerful things. That’s you. Two, Simeon had waited. And sometimes, we feel that our waiting is wasted, but it’s not. It’s not wasted when the Spirit shapes our waiting. And some of you here tonight are waiting for a prodigal child to return, for your marriage to be restored, for your loved ones to no longer be addicted, for a healing in your body, for you to get your job back. You’re waiting. And whether or not some of these things your waiting for come to fruition in the way you want, your waiting is not wasted when you allow the Holy Spirit to shape the waiting. So, you’re not waiting on your terms. You’re waiting in step with God’s timing, nudges, and whispers. It’s a posture of listening instead of strategizing. Third: We see this phrase that “this child is destined to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel.” What this means is that Jesus demands a response. For years, we’ve had lukewarm churches. We still do. And what I see happening is that lukewarm Christianity will fall. As persecution ramps up, you will be forced to get off the fence. You can’t be one foot in and one foot out. Neutrality to Jesus is impossible. One of the things I think happened with the assassination of Charlie Kirk is that it forced a lot of people to check their priorities. It awakened a lot of people to come back to church. It made people uncomfortable. If forced people to realize whether they’ve been living Christian lives courageously or deceptively as cowards. It made people make a decision. And I think you’ll see many more key moments in these coming years that’ll be used by God to get you to get off the fence. You can either be for Him or against Him. There are no other options. You cannot serve two masters. Fourth: We read that a sword will pierce your own soul. That’s said to Mary, the mother of Jesus. In this moment for Mary, there is a real joy for her. But what’s also real is the coming pain that she will see her son crucified. So, while salvation is free to us, it was costly to Jesus. We can’t ignore that sometimes life sucks. We have moments of joy and then we have moments that are dark. And Jesus understands that. We see that Jesus was beaten, crucified and died an ugly death. We also see that Jesus conquered death. We see that sometimes our lives can get ugly too. But we also know that Jesus will be back and it won’t be ugly anymore. We groan for redemption. We groan for things to be made right. We groan for restoration. We groan for every tear to be wiped away. And it will happen. Jesus has promised that it will happen. We need to remember that we can capture those moments in life that are of joy and see them as glimpse of what will be for eternity for those who recognize Jesus as Lord, Savior, and King. For those who don’t, I would urge you to reconsider your position. And then, last but not least, fifth: And, I’m going to call up the worship team now. Jesus is for the nations. God’s salvation is for ALL people. We read in verse 31 and 32, “You have prepared it (that is, salvation), in the presence of all peoples- a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel. We are to be for the advancement of the gospel everywhere all the time. Across the street. Across the state. Across the country. Across the world. Jesus is for ALL peoples. And so, if we are to say that a people group or someone doesn’t deserve the Gospel, we have seriously misunderstood the gospel. You see, the Gospel says we are ALL in needs of a rescue. We are ALL wretched sinners. We are ALL destined to eternal destruction unless something is done. Unless a rescue outside of us is provided and that rescue is Jesus and what He has done for us. And, if we’ve understood this rescue, wouldn’t we want to do all we can to tell others about how they, too, can be saved. I mean, why aren’t we? Why is it that it’s more of a priority to tell others about our favorite band, makeup brand, gossip, job updates, college news, and all that, but we, who say we are believers, are so quiet about the good news of Jesus for Everyone? We should seriously consider this.