The Nunc Dimittis

This morning, we're coming to the end of a four part series entitled four songs of Christmas, where we've looked at the first two chapters of Luke, and very distinct songs that Luke records from Mary, Zechariah, the angels, and today, Simeon, the old man Simeon of Jerusalem, surrounding the arrival of Christ. Maybe not everyone was here across both services last week, but last week, we had two sermons on this. In the morning, we looked at Zechariah's song called the Benedictus, the blessing to God, the blessing of God for what he had seen, both in the arrival of his son, John, who would become John the Baptist, and also then in Mary's child still in her womb, the arrival of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. And then in the evening, as we sung our carols, we looked at Gloria in Excelsius Deo, Glory to God in the highest. This morning, we come to what the early church, well, maybe let's call it the medieval church called the Nunc Dimitis, which simply means, now I depart.

Now, I'm sorry, now dismiss me. Simeon's song, now dismiss me. Let's read of that song this morning from Luke chapter 2, and we're going to begin from verse 22 all the way to verse 35. Luke 2:22. And when the time came for their purification, according to the law of Moses, they brought him, who is Jesus, 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. 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.

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, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and 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 Jesus' father and mother marvelled 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 the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.

So far, our reading, this is the word of the Lord. His eyes had grown dim, his body frail, but a restless spirit resided within the old body of Simeon of Jerusalem. Day after day, he kept watch in the temple courts for his reward. Night after night, he wondered, who would it be? Where would he come from?

The wait had been so long. Had the Lord perhaps forgotten his promise? Could God forget his pledge to Simeon? More than anyone, he had felt the longing for the Messiah to come. Then one morning, without a single trumpet call, no royal announcers, nor fanfare of any kind, a huddled commoner family in humble attire walked into the temple courts. Something in Simeon was stirred.

Could it be? A baby, not a man, had the mark of the Messiah on him. A baby, not a man, would be Israel's saviour. With the energy of a teenager, Simeon ran towards the family, clasping his hands in delight, forgetting all politeness and societal decorum. The old man took that infant boy in his arms. And to the surprise of a watchful mother and father, he burst into a song of praise and blessing to God.

His song? It was a song of salvation. Salvation had come. In the presence of all the world, salvation had arrived. A light of revelation, he said, for the Gentiles and glory for Israel.

But what was this salvation that he was so excited about? Who was it that needed saving? And from what did they need saving? Well, let's begin at the beginning. In verses 22 to 24, we are told that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus travelled, presumably from the Bethlehem region, which is not a long way away from Jerusalem.

They travelled, we're told, up to Jerusalem. Verse 22 says, for this reason, to receive purification. What does that mean? Well, this is an Old Testament law for the Jews, that a mother was to undergo a ceremonial cleansing after having given birth, according to Leviticus chapter 12. A woman, after forty days for a boy and eighty days for a girl, had to go to the temple in Jerusalem ideally to sacrifice, we're told, a lamb and then a dove or a pigeon as a burnt offering and a sin offering respectively.

If you were poor, like Joseph and Mary, Luke alludes to, and you couldn't afford a lamb, there was a provision for that. As we're told in verse 24, you could bring a pair of doves or a pair of pigeons to be offered instead. At this purification ritual, the mother who gave birth was then reinstated to public worship. We do a bit of a sidebar, especially given the context today. Is this fair for a woman needing to be purified after giving birth? Why would a woman be considered unclean and needing restitution to join public worship again?

Well, we know that from the Old Testament, there were many laws regarding parameters about blood, both for ceremonial reasons and hygienic reasons. I also hazard a guess that this birth process was a harkening back to the curse, remember, of Eve, that childbirth would become now much more dangerous and painful. And so after giving birth, there is this throwback to the curse that for a time, this woman would need to wait before being restored back into public worship. While they're at the temple, we're also told that Jesus is presented to the priests, that Jesus is dedicated at the temple. Again, Luke makes a very detailed point of saying that this was according to the law, that this was according to God's law that every male who first opens the womb, he says, shall be called holy to the Lord.

That's from Exodus 13:2, where God had said that in light of His saving of the many firstborn children in Israel, remember, at the Exodus, that was saved because of the Passover, saved from the tenth and most severe plague in Egypt, God said that forever Israel would dedicate their firstborn children to the Lord. He had protected the firstborn children, and now those firstborn children were sacred to God. What that looked like, what this sacredness, what this dedication looked like in reality is more unclear, but something of that was captured when God also then said, give me one tribe from amongst the twelve, the tribe of Levi, that will become for me this sacred group who would now serve as dedicated people in the temple. In verse 21, we're also told, just before our passage, that Luke was also careful in telling us that Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day. So if you have a look, in four verses, Jesus is circumcised, his mum undergoes purification, and he is dedicated to the Lord as the firstborn.

Why does Luke tell us this? It is to point us to the fact that Jesus, even from birth, was keeping the law. In detailing the circumcision, the purification rites, and the temple presentation, Jesus from infancy was fulfilling the Old Testament laws. And so from the very beginning, Jesus is seen to be perfectly obedient to God's will. This is a crucial understanding of Jesus.

Jesus, in other words, isn't just a very good man. Jesus isn't just a very moral man, a kind man, even an exemplary man. He was morally perfect. He didn't adopt a holy lifestyle later in life. He didn't have a spiritual awakening at thirty and then started to preach.

No. Whether it was ceremonial or civil or moral, his entire life was perfectly obedient to the laws of God. He was, in other words, sinless. And so these details of Luke's are not given to make us think, wow, wow, I need to try and live up to that standard. I hope that my mum makes sure I get baptised when I'm eight days old or that I go to Sunday school from very early on.

No. It's not to make us realise that we need to live like that. It is to realise I have failed before I even reached potty training. Jesus is so morally good that he's altogether different to us. These are small breadcrumbs that Luke is adding here and now as he starts building up the question he will answer later in his gospel account, who exactly is this Jesus?

The answer, of course, will be eventually, he is God himself. So that's the first instance beginning at the beginning. Luke wants us to understand Jesus' perfect obedience to the law in the first instance. Then we're introduced to Simeon in verses 25 to 32, and we see there the peace of seeing the Saviour. We're told by Luke that Simeon was a devout and righteous man with a remarkable indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Remember, this is before Acts 2. This is before Pentecost. He had the Holy Spirit on him. It's quite possible that Simeon was a known figure in the city of Jerusalem, that he was a man of some standing. Twice we're told in verse 28 and in verse 34 that Simeon pronounces a blessing.

He first blesses God in 28, and then in 34, he blesses Mary and Joseph, and so we're sort of given this indication that he has priestly functions. We're not told explicitly he's a priest, but he's in the temple. He's presumably known, and he blesses. But what makes Simeon noteworthy is that he was waiting for what is termed the consolation of Israel. In fact, it had become, we're told, the focus of his life that he would not die, God said, before he had seen the Messiah, the Christ.

What is this consolation? Well, it is to see the one who would save Israel. But on this particular day, just as Mary and Joseph entered the temple to undergo their purification and dedication rituals, we're told again by Luke that the Holy Spirit who had been dwelling on Simeon this time drove him into the temple. And as Jesus was being brought forward to be dedicated to the Lord, the Spirit inside Simeon immediately recognised Jesus as the Messiah. Presumably an old man by now, Simeon had been waiting all his life to see this Jesus.

Try and imagine what that would have been like. Now we have lots of goals in our life. You know, I would love this car or have a boat that I can take out into the deep water or whatever. And we save and we hope for those sorts of things, but this man had one goal in his life. One goal to see the Messiah.

Imagine having waited your whole life for that gift. What would you have felt? Excitement? Toe curling happiness. Do you know what Simeon felt?

Relief. He took Jesus in his arms, Luke says, and then he blesses the Lord. Similar to how we read last week, how Zechariah had blessed the Lord, and he blesses the Lord with a song. Verse 29, 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.

Of course, there was joy in Simeon's heart when he saw the Christ. He surely felt excitement and satisfaction and happiness, but the words of this song are marked with the overall emotion of peace. Peace because his watch had now ended. Peace because the consolation for his people Israel had arrived. And so he says to God, you can now let me depart.

You can let me go home. You can dismiss me from my duty. Like I said, that is where the Latin name for Simeon's song, Nunc Dimitis, comes from. Now dismiss me, Lord. But why is it that peace had marked this occasion?

And why was this little boy going to be the consolation of Israel? Someone who needs consolation, don't we realise, are people who experience sadness. You need to be consoled from feeling anxious or desperate. In the eyes of the state of sadness and desperation comes peace, and this peace comes for Simeon, verse 30, having seen with my own eyes your salvation, the salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples. Many years ago, my granddad was dying from cancer.

My granddad was a faithful believer, a man who knew his Bible. He loved his reformed confessions, and he was a man of standing in his church. And talk to my dad, and he will tell you that my granddad knew that Jesus had died for his sins, and that through faith, was saved. But as the time grew closer to his passing away, believing still with all his heart that he would go to be with God, he had a dream where he saw and heard a magnificent choir. And in this choir, he saw the faces of his departed friends and family members.

And he said, having been a musician for most of his life as well, the desire to go and join this choir was unshakable. He so wanted to join in with the singing. And as he started to take that first step towards the choir, he felt a hand on his shoulder and a voice that said, not yet. My granddad woke up crying. He was ready.

From that day until his passing, my granddad had an unshakable peace, even an excitement for what he would be experiencing beyond the veil of death. He had seen as Simeon saw with his own eyes, what salvation looked like. Simeon saw in Jesus, in time and space that salvation had arrived. This is shown by the word now being placed in the Greek in the emphatic position, as it's called. Our English translation here doesn't show it, but it literally reads, now, dismiss your servant.

Salvation, in other words, had arrived in a time in human history, and Simeon says, it is now. And Simeon thinks back of the Old Testament prophecies, and he realises it all had come true. Surely, he was thinking of Isaiah 52 in his own words because he spoke an almost identical phrase. The Lord from Isaiah 52:10, the Lord has bared His holy arm before the eyes of all nations. He says in, you have prepared before all the peoples, Isaiah, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

Simeon describes this salvation as a light of revelation to the Gentiles and glory for Israel. Why? Because in Jesus, the Gentiles will understand the need of a saviour, having never known the true and living God. And the Jews would be glorified or honoured since God had kept His promise that the saviour would come from them. Revelation for the Gentiles and glory for Israel.

And so at the sight of this, in the person of Jesus, even this baby, Simeon experiences peace and he is ready, he says, to go home. Dismiss me, Lord. My watch has ended. But how exactly could this little infant being held, being cradled in his arms, do anything to bring such a great salvation, to be a consolation for the heartache of Israel? How could this infant bring revelation to the Gentiles and glory to Israel?

And Simeon may not have fully understood what lay ahead for this baby cradled in his arms, but somehow through the Spirit, he knew that a road of violence, a road of opposition lay ahead. It was through suffering that this little baby would bring peace. And that's what we see, don't we, in verses 33 to 35. Simeon, after he is blessed, God now blesses Mary and Joseph. And we're told that Mary and Joseph marvelled at the words.

They marvelled at the shepherds and what the shepherds had told them about the song of the angels, and now they marvel again at the song of Simeon. They don't comprehend what all of this could mean, but Simeon has one final thing to say. Again, a prophecy, this time to Mary. He says, your son will cause many in Israel to rise and fall. He will be a sign from God who will be opposed and in their opposition to him, he will reveal the secrets of their hearts.

And for you, he says ominously, Mary, a sword will pierce your soul. Mary would only understand later, but Simeon was speaking of her son's death. A time was coming when wicked men opposing Jesus, rejecting him as the Messiah would condemn him to death. Mary's heart would be shattered one dark Friday afternoon. But it was this very suffering that made that salvation of Simeon possible.

What could Simeon, Mary and Joseph have understood in that moment? They didn't. They couldn't. But in their presence, the Holy Spirit was outlining the dynamics behind the power of the cross. You see, Mary, Joseph, and Simeon had all been witnesses of what would make Jesus' death on the cross effective for salvation.

On the one hand, Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, whose mother underwent purification after forty days, and who was dedicated to the Lord as the firstborn, all of that marked that he had lived and was living according to the law. Even from birth, Jesus was shown to be the flawless upholder of God's law. That is his first representative act, his substitutionary work on our behalf, that Jesus lived his life perfectly, not for himself, but for us. The Protestant reformers in the sixteen hundreds put it this way, Christ both possessed and accomplished through the course of his entire life, the holiness and righteousness that we were required and bound to accomplish, so that in him we might be conformed to the law of God in everything, and so that he might obtain for us the right to life eternal. On the one hand, Jesus lived perfectly the life that we couldn't live.

But then Jesus, told by Simeon, also had to die the death that we would die, that we would have to die. Because of our sinfulness, we have failed to live according to God's law, and God's law condemned us for the transgression against it. But Jesus, in his suffering and death, paid the penalty that we should have paid. He lived the life that we couldn't live. He paid the penalty that we should have paid.

Again, the reformers explained that this was only possible because of three truths. Firstly, because the Son of God, in keeping the will of the Father, being both God and man, whose power and strength to bear the punishment came from His deity. He experienced, born, and suffered, and put a complete end to sin. Secondly, because it was on our behalf that He accomplished it, since it was as our guarantor, surety, and bondsman that He assumed our person and place. And lastly, because it was to God, since we were obliged to Him as our God, Creator, Lord, lawgiver, and judge, that this satisfaction had to be paid.

In other words, Jesus was able to bear the punishment because He was divine. He was representative because He was a man. And it was satisfactory because He paid the penalty to God to whom the debt was owed. Jesus died the death that we should have died. Theologians speak of these two aspects of Jesus' ministry as His active and His passive obedience.

In His active obedience, Jesus kept every part of God's law. And in His passive obedience, Jesus paid our death penalty for breaking God's law. He dealt with the guilt of sin on the one hand, and He fulfilled the demands of holiness on the other. And He did all this, we're told, for us, for salvation. And so what Luke, around this beautiful song of Simeon, masterfully describes is that because of Jesus' obedience all throughout His life, we can truly be set free from the condemnation of our sin.

That is why Simeon saw salvation in that baby. That salvation was only effective because of what happened at the cross. And what happened at the cross was this cosmic transference that our sin was placed on Him and that His righteousness according to the law was placed on us. This is again what the theologians call the doctrine of imputation, that our sin was imputed onto Christ and His righteousness imputed onto us so that God, as He looks at us, sees us as never having sinned, never having sinned, and having lived a perfect life. I wonder if you've tried this, but has anyone ever picked up a brown bottle, like a ginger beer bottle and looked through it?

And you look through it and everything is tinted brown. Or you pick up a green bottle and you look through it and everything is tinted green. Blue bottle, everything is blue. When we believe in Jesus as our Saviour, it is as though God looks at us through the lens of Jesus Christ and He sees all of us in perfect white holiness. That is the doctrine of imputation.

That is what was made possible through His active and passive obedience. So Mary's soul would be pierced by the opposition that Jesus faced, the opposition which placed him on the cross, but it was ultimately His road to our salvation. She could only watch on in agony as God used the hands of wicked men to bring about a tremendous rising of many believers, even as His action has caused many others to stumble in unbelief. Simeon says, this happened in the presence of all people. It was not a secret action, only to be seen and apprehended and understood by a faithful few, an insightful few with a secret mystical knowledge.

It happened in the sight of all, a public execution. And yet it was a salvation that anyone can receive. And so friends, it is even for you that if you will only look to him, that you will regard him and see him as the perfect keeper of the law, the sacrificial lamb for your sin, and that you will receive him as Lord, as your Saviour, that you will not perish but have eternal life. Simeon said that he could die that day in peace because salvation had come to him in the person of Jesus Christ. That salvation is entered into or it is rejected by our willingness to see him as the Saviour that consoles us in our need.

And the truth is, once you see him as your soul's consolation, the comfort for your desperation, you and I will be able to say with Simeon, now Lord, I may go home in peace. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the power of your word that has woven from beginning to end the shadow of the cross. And Lord, there is always, even in the remarkable joy, the happiness and the excitement of a newborn babe, born in Bethlehem, of new life, of wonder at the incarnation. Lord, there is always the somber note of the cross that a Saviour needed to come to die.

And so we thank you, Lord Jesus, for your active obedience, your perfect living of the law as our representative. And we thank you that as our representative, you were our sacrificial lamb, that you were our substitute, and you died in our place for the penalty we should have paid. Thank you that even as we enter into Christmas day, our eyes will understand the fullness of your mission in coming to us. And so Lord, we say with Simeon this morning, you may dismiss us at any time. We are ready for that new creation because we have seen the salvation that you have sent us in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

In His name, we pray. Amen.