Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

As the Church travels forward, she always does so facing backward. Not face-first, but back-first, she marches onward toward the Omega, the final goal of her existence. We don’t do this just because we like it better in the years gone by, longing for the good old days, nor should we be afraid of the future, since with God as our Protector, we need not fear any adversary. No, the Church treasures the past because it is only in looking at the past that she beholds her future. The heavenly Jerusalem toward which she journeys, the slain yet living Lamb, the River and Tree of Life, a new and better Eden – these images of our heavenly future are all painted with the colors of what happened to the Church in the past. Without these images, our future looks uncertain, despairing, and void of the Gospel. If there were no history or past to give us our story of ourselves, where we come from, we would feel like utter orphans and waves tossed about like the sea, rather than anchored to the truths that have kept us firmly grounded.

The Old Testament, it turns out, is never quite as old as we think. Consider, for example, the Presentation of our Lord, from Luke chapter 2, which is also part of the Christmas Eve Gospel. Now, back when Moses and the people of Israel exited Egypt, they left that nation that through 10 devastating plagues had been totally transformed into a morgue. Think about it: Every unbloodied door had become the unlocked portal for the Destroyer, the Angel of Death to pass through unhindered at midnight. The first-born sons of Egypt were killed while the first-born sons of Almighty God lived. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a son for a son. From that time on, the first-born sons of Israel belonged to their God. They were holy to the Lord, purchased with blood.

And just as the Lord had sacrificed every first-born son in Egypt, so every first-born son in Israel had to be sacrificed to the Lord – though not literally but this time sacrificed through a substitute, and that was the original meaning of “redeeming” the first-born, and “purifying” the mother after childbirth. Just as all Israelites had been redeemed by the blood of the Passover lamb, so all future generations of first-born sons would be redeemed by another ceremony, a one-time sacrifice. When their sons, first-born or not, were 40 days old (for daughters the wait was twice as long), then the mothers of Israel would carry them to the temple, where sacrifices would be offered to purify the mother and redeem the son. Leviticus 12 is where this law is written down for Israel: “She shall bring to the priest at the entrance…a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or turtledove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the LORD and make atonement for her. Then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. … And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, (by the way, Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph fall under this category, because in their situation they couldn’t afford a lamb) one (dove or pigeon) for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.” Remember, this law is an example of ceremonial law and that the blood of childbirth, similar to the blood of a monthly period, was not considered morally sinful, but only ceremonially unclean and therefore not yet appropriate for worship. Nothing more than that.

And so it came to pass that an Israelite mother named Mary carried her 40-day-old first-born son to the temple. Here, the Mother of Purity Incarnate, and who because her Son was the Son of God, she really needed no sacrifice for purification, yet she offered the sacrifice for purification anyway. And here, the First-born Son, who needed no redemption, who would be our Substitute on the cross, He offered the Old Testament substitute price for redemption anyway. And in so doing, the lips of Moses the law-giver were forever clamped shut, that his legal tongue may accuse you no more. By faith in Christ, God counts His obedience to these ordinances as though you had kept them perfectly in every detail. For the law has been out lawed, out-done, by the One who was under no compulsion to bow to its demands, but still bowed to them anyway that He might shut up the law forever for you.

But there is more, for the First-born of Mary is presented in the Temple not as one who needs redemption, just as He was baptized not because He committed any sin, but He was presented to faithful Simeon and Anna on behalf of all of us as the one who comes to accomplish redemption. He enters the temple to fill it with His greater glory, as Haggai had prophesied (saying, The Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to His temple), but it is a glory whose shimmer and shine are dulled to earthly eyes by the paint of blood, here the blood of birds, later, with His own blood on the Cross. He is the Glory of God’s people, Israel, as Simeon sings in his song, but He is no longer the Cloud of Glory, nor the Angel of Glory, but rather the Crucified of Glory. He will not dwell between the Cherubim and hear “Holy, holy, holy” chanted into His ears, but will dwell between the thieves on Calvary and hear “Crucify him, crucify him” shouted by the crowds. His holy of holies will be an unholy, cursed tree. Almighty God in the flesh will hang naked before the naked eye of man. Normally, when someone sees God, he would immediately die as punishment for transgressing what is Holy. But here, with Jesus nailed on the cross, no one will die but God Himself as the last Substitute. In His sacrifice, this Son of the Lord becomes a son of Egypt that all of you sons of Egypt might become sons of the Lord in Him.

The First-born Son of the Father is made to be your substitute. The tenth and final plague of Egypt falls on His shoulders. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a son for a son. The Destroyer, the Angel of Death, is destroyed at the cross. And you? You are spared, you are passed over, for His blood is painted not on your door frame, but now, along with His Holy Body in the Sacrament of the Altar, the blood of the Lamb is on your tongue, painted with the brush of the chalice. Paul calls Christ the First-born among many brethren and Hebrews calls His Body the Church of the First-born. For here is the mystery of God, that packed into the flesh and bones of Jesus are all of you. You are woven into the fabric of His humanity. You are also exalted in Christ into heaven, sitting with Him at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

In this First-born Son of the Father, you are thus also considered First-born sons, whether you are Jew or Greek, slave or free, even male or female. You, as the first-born Son, are presented to the Father on this Holy Lord’s day, Candlemas, the fortieth day of Christmas; you are sacrificed on His cross; and you are raised to undying life in Him, because He is the First-born from the dead. He who was made to be like you in all things now makes you, His brethren, to be like Himself in all things, so that it is no longer you who live but the First-born Son who lives in you. His Father is your Father, His Virgin-Mother is your Virgin-Mother, and in His human nature you are made partakers of His divine nature.

All of these events that happened to Jesus in the past are not to be forgotten, lest we jeopardize our future as the Church awaiting the coming of our Savior. All of these events that happened to Jesus, have now been counted as happening to you. What Jesus earned through His hard Work is your free Christmas gift of forgiveness that lasts way beyond the torn-up paper, the boxed up decorations, the broken toys and returned gifts. He who is presented in the temple, as we heard on this day, bids you walk backward toward your future, having a clear conscience, bearing none of the law’s accusations that you may be feeling in your heart, but rather seeing the Maternal Old Testament pregnant with the Gospel future, visibly showing what is about to come any day now. For in many and various ways God spoke to His people of old by the prophets . . . and now in these last days He has spoken to you by His Son. The Pure one has made you pure, your eyes of faith have seen your Savior, and with a forgiven, clean heart this day, you may with Simeon and Anna depart in peace.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

1 Sam. 1:21–28 I have lent him to the LORD
Psalm 84 a day in Your courts is better than a thousand
Heb. 2:14–18 He is able to aid those who are tempted.
Luke 2:22–40 they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord