A Sermon on Luke 2:21-35 was delivered on November 30, 2025.
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So please take your Bibles and turn with me today to the Gospel of Luke. While I’m sure there is a preacher out there who could pull it off, I just wasn’t sure I could do Samson for Advent. So we’re going to look in a little bit different place.
We’re going to look at Simeon this week. We’re going to look at Anna next week, the shepherds, and a little bit of Mary’s story the following week. And then we’ll wrap up the Advent season with the great gift of Jesus as Paul presents Him in 2 Corinthians.
Today, as I mentioned, we are going to look at Simeon. We’re going to consider beginning in verse 21 of Luke 2, and we’ll read through verse 35. This is God’s Word.
“And 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. 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. 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 turtle doves or two young pigeons.
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, or the Lord’s Messiah. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought him in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and he blessed God and he said, 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. And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him, 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. And a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
Let’s pray. Father, give us wisdom as we consider these words. Lord, you have told us that all Scripture is breathed out by you, and is profitable for the work of sanctification in the life of the man or woman of God. And so Lord, fulfill that promise as we prepare to read and to study these words. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
INTRODUCTION
Well, by way of introduction, we are told by Luke that at the end of eight days, Jesus was taken to the temple to be circumcised, and to be given the name that the angel had given to Him. In the catechisms, in the Larger Catechism, and in the Shorter Catechism, it talks about Christ’s humiliation and His exaltation. His humiliation was that process of becoming flesh and dwelling among us, taking on flesh and dwelling among us.
And the Larger Catechism, question 48, asks, “How did Christ humble Himself in this life?” And the first phrase of that says, “Christ humbled Himself in His life by subjecting Himself to the law, which He perfectly fulfilled…” Donald Gray Barnhouse says that His first act of suffering for us as a human was subjecting Himself to the law of circumcision. This was the first blood that was shed to foreshadow the blood that would be shed at the cross, the blood that would bring about the forgiveness of sins.
But it’s important for us to remember that Christ kept and subjected Himself to the entirety of the law. The whole law from the beginning to the end. Every I was dotted, every T was crossed, and the law was kept and fulfilled perfectly so that we might have a righteousness that is not our own.
We need to remember that as we think about Christmas. This isn’t just about a baby being born. This isn’t merely about a family that started in poverty, as we see with the turtle doves, the pigeons, being given as the sacrifice of purification for Mary.
This is about the Savior who came into this world to keep a law you and I cannot keep so that we might have a life that we do not deserve, a life eternal in the presence of God. And we see this introduced to us in this passage.
We are also introduced to a man named Simeon. And we’re told several things about Simeon. We’re told that he was a righteous man, that he was a devout man, and he was a man who was waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit had told him that he would not die until he saw that consolation.
Consolation is a word that means comfort or hope. It’s a word that opens up Isaiah 40. Verse 1, “Comfort ye my people, for your sins have been paid for.”
And this consolation is proclaimed by Simeon in his song. And that’s what we are going to spend most of our time looking at today is this joyful hymn that Simeon sings as he takes up the Savior of humanity in his arms. And we’ll see that the consolation of Israel is found in the peace that he proclaims, the salvation that he proclaims, and the light of revelation that he proclaims.
In all this, I hope that we will see that the Gospel is a comfort and a consolation to all of us in this sin-darkened world.
PEACE
First, the consolation of peace. Peace is not merely the absence of conflict, the absence of war.
We have had wars going on and rumors of wars, well, since the time of Christ, and He told us that we would have wars and rumors of wars, but we have been overburdened over the last several years with a war in Ukraine and a war in Israel. And we hope for peace in those conflicts. And when we say we hope for peace, we hope that people will stop killing other people.
But peace in the Bible is so much more than that. That is wrapped up in the meaning of peace. But peace in the Scriptures is a sense of harmony, a sense of fullness, a sense that everything is right as God has designed it. It includes reconciliation. It includes the end of hostility. It includes peace. It includes all of those things that only come to us through that consolation of Israel that Simeon was longing for, that he was waiting for.
Why do we need peace? Well, we need peace because we are at war with God. We are at conflict with God. When God placed Adam and Eve in the garden, He gave them tasks to accomplish. He said, guard the garden, till the garden, expand the garden so that it will encompass the entirety of the earth so that God’s glory may fill all of the earth. And then He told them, don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
We get hung up on this so many times as humans. We like to think that God didn’t want them to know stuff. No, God wanted them to know stuff. He wanted them to invent stuff. He wanted them to progress in a way that brought God’s glory to all of creation.
But what God wanted them to do was to trust Him that He knew what was right for them and what was wrong for them. He had infinite knowledge. He knew what was best for Adam and Eve. He knew what would bring them peace, what would bring them flourishing, what would bring them growth and improvement in this world.
And He said, “Trust Me that I know what’s good for you and what’s bad for you.”
Some of you have children. You’ve had this conversation with your children. “Trust Me, I know what’s good for you.” But just like those children do many, many times, much like we did when we were children, Adam and Eve looked at God and said, “I don’t think so. I think we know better than you what’s right for us and what’s wrong for us.”
And so Adam and Eve fell into sin. They drug all of humanity into sin with them. And we are born with the predisposition to say, “I know better what’s right for me than God does. Yes, He’s got infinite knowledge. Yes, He has laid everything out from beginning to end, but I still know better than Him what’s right for me and what’s wrong for me.”
We don’t say it that way, do we? We say things like, “Live your own truth.” “You be you.” “If it feels good, do it.” And those are the creeds that we live by.
And what those creeds are saying at their most basic root is I hate what God has ordained and called me to do, so I’m going to do my own thing. I’m going to be my own God. And that puts us at war with the Creator of the universe.
And it’s a war, it’s a treason that can’t simply be fixed by God just turning His back and looking the other way. Because God has promised that there is a punishment that comes upon those who are at war with Him.
And Jesus provides the peace necessary to reconcile us to God. He provides the righteousness for us so that God can look at us and see us as righteous. And He takes the death that you and I deserve so that the price could be paid.
And so Jesus is the consolation of the people of God, the consolation of Israel in the sense that He brings peace with God.
But He is also consolation in the sense that He brings peace between humans. One of the fallouts of us living life according to if it feels good, do it, or you do you, or you live out your truth, is that there are what, eight billion plus people on this earth? And if we all live according to our own truth, well, we’re going to run into other people’s truths every now and then, and we’re going to cause conflict. We’re going to cause wars. We’re going to cause dissension and arguments and fights among people.
And as you and I, as Christians, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we can walk into those conflicts seeking peace in those conflicts by confronting them, by repenting of wrongdoing in the midst of that, because if we have been given peace with God, well, then we can live out peace with each other as well.
But the last thing, the last bit of peace that we are given here is peace with death. I know, Ike, it’s Christmas. It’s Advent. Let’s not talk about the sad parts of life.
Well, we can’t ignore the sad parts of life because they sneak into this season anyway. Sometimes they barge headfirst into this season anyway. And so it’s good for us to talk about the hard things of life even in the midst of Christmas.
For the Christian, what does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 15? In 1 Corinthians 15, verses 54-57, Paul says this,
“When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, the perishable has put on the imperishable in the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
And so if you are a Christian, if you are one who has put your trust, your hope, your faith in Christ and in Christ alone, death no longer holds any power over you. So many people fear death because it is the one great unknown. There’s no scientific experiment to test what death is like. There are no witnesses to come back and tell us, “Hey, this is what it was like when I got there. This is how you need to prepare.”
And yet for the Christian, we do know. We know that the glorious presence of God is our future, even after death. And so we need no longer fear death or dying, because the Lord has defeated sin, death, and dying.
So we see the consolation of Israel in the peace that comes through Jesus.
SALVATION
We also see the consolation of Israel in the salvation that comes through Jesus. Verse 30, Simeon says:
“For my eyes have seen your salvation.”
In the Old Testament, that word salvation begins just by meaning deliverance. Think about the book of Judges that we’ve been studying for the last several months. The Israelites get themselves into trouble for their own idolatry, and these other armies, these other nations, come and they oppress them. They defeat them. And what does God do? He saves them.
But as we move into the prophets, as we think of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 12, verses 2 and 3, salvation takes on a much fuller word. It says:
“Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
Jesus offers a true salvation that Paul uses two words to describe. The first is redemption. Outside of Christ, we are slaves to sin, and the only way out of slavery is to be bought out of slavery. And Jesus has paid that price so that we might no longer be slaves to sin, but might be the sons and daughters of God.
And the payment of that price is the process of redemption. The consolation of Israel, that babe in Simeon’s hand, will bring about the redemption of God’s people.
We also see reconciliation within salvation, which we’ve already touched on as we’ve discussed peace, especially peace with God. Jesus has made it possible for you and I to be reconciled to God.
And the way forward in this is looking at God’s plan of salvation and saying it is far better than my plan of salvation. And that’s where I’m going to put my hope and my trust.
Because what’s my plan of salvation? Well, my plan of salvation may be just to ignore the fact that I need salvation in the first place. Sin’s just an evolutionary construct to help control people in a political sense. We can ignore the need for salvation.
Or we can admit that we need salvation but say to ourselves, “Well, I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And by golly, people like me, so God’s got to take me because I’m just a good, decent person.”
And God says “No, the only way to salvation is trusting that I’m right and putting your hope, putting your faith in what Jesus has done for you.”
A LIGHT OF REVELATION FOR THE GENTILES
We see the consolation of peace. We see the consolation of salvation.
And we see the consolation of light. Verse 32, Jesus is a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. Back in Isaiah, and we’ll read this in the next couple weeks, but Isaiah talks about the people who are walking in darkness, have seen a great light.
And for the Israelites, they thought that the light was coming to them because they were the ones walking in darkness. But picking up a theme from Psalm 87, Simeon says that this light is not just for Israel. It’s for all the nations.
In Psalm 87, we read these words beginning in verse 4.
“Among those who know me, I mention Rahab and Babylon.”
Remember, Rahab was an enemy of Israel who converted. Babylon was an enemy of Israel who oppressed and defeated Israel. And he goes on to say,
“Behold, Philistia and Tyre with Cush. And God says this about the enemies of God. He says, this one was born there in Jerusalem, they say. And of Zion it shall be said, this one and that one were born in her. For the Most High Himself will establish her. The Lord records as He registers the people. This one was born there.”
Jesus was not only for Israel. Jesus was for all the nations of the earth. This is why at the end of Matthew, in Matthew 28, 18-20, Jesus can say to the disciples as we read in the Catechism, go into Jerusalem. Go into Capernaum. Go into Bethlehem. Go into all the world. Baptizing people. Making disciples. Teaching them to obey the law that I have given to you. That law that calls us to belief.
You know, one of the benefits of being in a denomination is we support an office within the denomination that does church planting. That does missionary work. That educates ministers of the Gospel. And that’s an advantage to us because if we did not have the denomination to do that, we would be responsible for planting churches.
For sending out missionaries. And this is why we support the denominational ministry fund. That’s why we have that line item in the budget that says “Synod.”
It’s because we are saying God has called us to use our resources to send missionaries and church planters and to educate ministers. And instead of doing that ourselves, we’re going to pool our resources so that God might be most glorified.
This is a message that goes out to the nations. The church is not a private club. The church is God’s instrument of growing the Gospel throughout the world and inviting people into the kingdom and supporting the work of people who do that.
The consolation of Israel was not merely for Israel. It was for all the nations. And thanks be to God that is true. Because I would hazard a guess that almost every single one of us in this room would be in trouble if this was only a message for Israel.
CONCLUSION
So the consolation of Israel is a message of peace. It is a message of salvation. And it is a message of light for all people.
Simeon wraps up his time with Mary and Joseph by giving one last prophecy. After they are marveled, after they are astonished, Simeon blesses them and he says,
“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.”
Part of that opposition, Simeon says as he looks at Mary and Joseph, he says that part of that opposition is going to lead a sword to pierce through their own soul as well. We know from John’s Gospel that Jesus’ mother, Mary, was there at the cross as people opposed Jesus to the point of death.
I want us to focus a little bit on the fall and rising of many in Israel. Within this language here, in the original language, the fall and the rising is talking about a stone. The cornerstone which the builders have rejected has become a stumbling stone to some. Some people are going to stumble or fall over the good news that salvation comes through Christ and Christ alone. And as they reject that message, as they turn their back on that message, their hearts of rebellion against God will be revealed for all to see.
But that stumbling stone is also a foundation stone which will raise up many, not only in Israel, but in all the world as we have seen. And each of us has to ask the question, is Jesus a stumbling stone for me? Or is He the stone that is the foundation of my hopes, my fears, and my eternity?
Let’s pray. Father above, we do thank You for these words. We thank You for Jesus. We thank You for the Gospel. Help each of us to answer that question in a way that brings us life and brings you glory. Is Jesus our stumbling stone? Or is He our foundation? I pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
BENEDICTION
And as we leave this place, we go with this blessing:
“As the Sovereign Lord has promised, we are now dismissed in peace. Our eyes have seen the salvation of the Lord which He has prepared in the sight of all nations. A light of revelation for the Gentiles and to the glory of His people.”
He who testifies to these things says, Yes, I am coming soon.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
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