Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

A birth is always to be celebrated.

When I was in the hospital with my dad a couple weeks ago, I found myself smiling whenever I heard the lullaby being played over the hospital speakers because I knew a baby had just been born.

God has brought a new life into the world.

As Christians, we recognize that a birth is something to celebrate because we know that God has done this marvelous thing.

Yet, because every person is an image-bearer, even unbelievers know that a birth is to be celebrated.

Every culture in the world celebrates birth.

In fact, celebrating births has become big business in our cultures.

There are birth announcements and photo shoots and showers, along with endless material things which are there for the purchasing, all to help celebrate a new birth.

Involvement:

This morning we are going to thing about how we should be celebrating the most significant birth of all—the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Context:

Last Sunday, as well as Tuesday night, we looked at Luke’s record of Jesus’ birth…the Christmas event which forms the foundation for our annual Christmas holiday of this past week.

The birth of Jesus was a significant event…one of the most significant events in human history.

This morning we will look at events which occurred shortly after Jesus’ birth and are, as you can see above me, recorded in Luke 2:21–38.

Most of these things happened 40 days after his birth.

We will round out our special Christmas series focusing on the birth of Jesus this year with these events.

While they do not directly deal with Jesus’ birth, they are a profound testimony as to the significance of that event as we see this infant child celebrated in various ways.

Now I almost left verse 21 out of the message.

Verse 21 deals with the Jewish practice under the Law of circumcising a male child on the 8th day.

Notice the verse says…<read Luke 2:21>.

The official naming of a baby was part of the circumcision ceremony and the emphasis here is that Jesus was named precisely as the angel had instructed.

I almost jumped over this verse as it really doesn’t pertain to the rest of the sermon, but I hate to skip parts of the inspired text.

The naming of Jesus was important.

Anyway, the main event that we will be looking at comes in the remaining verses for this morning, an event that occurs 40 days after Jesus’ birth.

We read this background in Luke 2:22–24…<read>.

Joseph and Mary brought the baby to the temple after his birth in Bethlehem.

They were following the Law which stated that an offering was to be given to God to purify a woman after giving birth and that a firstborn son was to be presented to God.

Preview:

Now when Joseph and Mary walk into the temple area, carrying the baby Jesus, they were not expecting any kind of a reception.

Illustration

Yesterday, when the church held a baby shower for Katie there was reason to expect that she would receive a good reception.

Katie has grown up in the church, so she has been known by most of you for many years.

Furthermore, the shower had been advertised in the bulletin and many of you ladies had signed up to attend.

So, when there was a good group yesterday for the shower, it was not at all a surprise.

Such was not the case for Joseph and Mary when they brought Jesus into the temple.

As a very poor, very young couple, they had no reason to expect any kind of reception when they arrived at the temple.

It is unlikely that anyone that they knew from remote Nazareth would be there.

They had no reason to expect that there would be any special attention paid to them.

Yet, we will see that God had a very special celebration planned.

Yet, as we see Jesus celebrated in our verses today, we too need to recognize that we are to do the same today and every day because of who He is.

This is the main lesson that we can take away from these verses; We each are to celebrate Jesus as our Savior.

Application

Are you celebrating Jesus as your Savior?

That is the question that you will need to face today as we look at these verses.

Are you personally celebrating Him?

We each are to celebrate Jesus as our Savior.

Transition from introduction to body:

As Jesus arrives in the temple, we can see three significant reasons why we are to celebrate the child, Jesus.

The first of those is that,…

BODY:

I. We celebrate the Child’s coming

Let’s read Luke 2:25–32.

As they arrive in the temple to fulfill their religious duties, Joseph and Mary encountered a “righteous and devout” man by the name of Simeon.

Simeon was living a life that clearly demonstrated his love for God, but he is not a priest…or by our way of thinking, he is not a minister or clergy…he is just an ordinary layman like most everyone sitting here this morning.

Of course, there is one special difference Simeon had from the rest of us; Simeon had been given special revelation from God regarding the coming of the Christ.

We often refer to Jesus Christ as a single name, but we should recognize that in this passage Christ is a reference to the title given to the promised Messiah of Israel.

It meant the Anointed One or the Messiah.

In Luke 2:25 the Christ is referred to as the “consolation of Israel.”

Later on when we get to Luke 2:38, He is the “redemption of Jerusalem.”All

righteous Israelites lived in the anticipation that God would send the Messiah to deliver Israel.

Righteous Israelites expected God to fulfill all of His promises to send a Redeemer who would free them from bondage and establish an everlasting Kingdom with the Christ on the throne.

Simeon lived in the hope of the coming of the Christ, but he had special insight as to when the Christ would come.

God had told him that the Christ would come before he died and that he would personally see Israel’s Messiah.

Simeon sees the baby Jesus and instantly knows this is the One he has been waiting for.

The Holy Spirit had promised that he would see the Messiah.

Now, providentially, God had arranged that he was in the temple, even in the right section of the temple, to see Joseph and Mary walk in with their Baby and the Holy Spirit indicated to him that this Baby was the One he had been waiting for all along.

He walks over, takes the Baby in his arms and praises God with the words we just read…the words at the top of our bulletins today “For my eyes have seen Your salvation.”

Can you imagine Joseph’s and Mary’s surprise when this man…quite likely a rather elderly man, although we are not told that…this man walks over and takes the baby in his arms and praises God for allowing Him to see this baby.

Illustration

Parents always enjoy people getting excited about their babies.

I have a good time every time we have a new baby make his or her first debut in the service and we have the parents introduce us to the child.

It is clear the pride and joy in the parents as they give us the name of their child... and at least part of that comes from the fact that the parents know that we as a church are excited to see this child come into our church family.

Simeon expresses joy because He has seen the Child but it goes beyond just seeing the child.

He also expresses joy because of who he know this child is…the One who will bring salvation; the Child who was promised to the nation has come and he is celebrating that fact.

In fact, Simeon says in verse 32 that the benefit of Jesus’ coming is going to stretch far beyond the Jewish nation so as to also shine as Light to the Gentiles.

Application

How about you?

Are you celebrating that the Child has come?

We all know that Jesus was born just over 2000 years ago.

We all know the story of His birth: how He was born in a cattle stall in Bethlehem and laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn for His parents to stay.

We know how His birth was announced by a choir of angels to a group of lowly shepherds.

But now it has been over two millennia since Jesus grew up and walked on the face of the earth.

Do we really celebrate the fact that He has come now?

Illustration

It is one thing to wait with eager anticipation for a coming event.

I am sure that there were many children who waited with earnest excitement for the time to open Christmas presents to arrive.

In some of your houses they probably sat watching the clock if a certain time had to come before the gifts could be opened.

In other houses, there were likely children waiting by the window for the arrival of Grandpa and Grandma.

Maybe some of you used the anticipation to your advantage like my parents used to do…the dishes had to be done before we could open Christmas presents.

That was the one time of year in which by brother and I could not wait to help with the dishes!

The was much anticipation for the event to arrive…and undoubtedly great celebration when it did.

But now…4 days later…those very same kids are probably much less excited about that moment in time.

The gifts are now opened and known…no longer a suspenseful surprise waiting.

The toys have been played with and are not quite as new.

The celebration is much less pronounced.

Are we that way with Jesus?

We can somewhat understand that Simeon and the rest of the Jews would have been excited because they had been waiting, but for us the celebration has grown cold?

We need to remind ourselves that the coming of Jesus was an outstanding demonstration of God’s faithfulness to His promises.