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.
TEMPLE HAPPENINGS ABOUT
SALVATION
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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