Recognizing the Christ
Today is the last Sunday the Year - the Year of our Lord 2021. My prayer for each of you to come to this reality…to recognize the Christ in Jesus – This is my prayer for each of you.
1. Look to
Him in hope.
Now there was
a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting
for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. Luke 2:25
Simeon had been told that he would not die until he
had seen the Lord’s Christ. That was his hope to wait to see the promised
Messiah and then to depart in peace. Such should be our hope. Simeon was now
ready and content to die. He was willing to depart this life because he had
received his wish to see the Messiah.
This Jesus took your flesh. He became one of us, so
that He might understand you all the better, share in the same experiences that
you had, live out life like you do. For if He had not become human flesh. He
could not redeem human flesh. For that which He cannot touch, He cannot heal.
And if He cannot heal it. He cannot redeem it. [Gregory of Nazianzus] [2]
For Simeon, death had no terror because he, having
seen Christ, was sure of his salvation. As the Scripture reminds us, “Blessed
are the dead who die in the Lord.” Whom among us will be “transported into glory” in this year of our LORD 2022? If we are looking for Christ in hope, like
Simeon we can depart in peace.
2. Live
close to God. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel. Luke 2:25
The Spirit gave Simeon not only insight for the present
in seeing Jesus as the Messiah but also the insight to see the future
concerning the child and His mother. He could see the turbulence and revolution
to come with Jesus’ teachings and he foresaw the pain and sorrow that would
come with to His mother because of her son’s violent death. The cross cannot be
separated from the manger.
There is an animosity, an enmity, a stalemate between
you and God. He is perfect. You have sin. He's always right, which leaves you
in the wrong.
But Jesus, the perfect Son, who does all things well,
has put an end to it.
Jesus' perfection angered all of Jerusalem to the
point they killed Him.
But it wasn't just their anger He suffered. It was
also for the anger of all those other children He grew up with, of His parents.
And yours.
He went to the cross where He died for your despair
too over how He has seemingly dealt with you. He suffered for your
dysfunctional relationship with a perfect God, for your sins.
And when He rose from the grave, He proved that
everything that took Him there is now shattered before God.
Christ came to this world to die for the sins of the
world. He came to suffer on Calvary’s cross for you. Your sins, your questions
and doubts, your anger and accusations, are all no more before His throne.
Instead, you are righteous in God's sight, because this Gospel declares you
forgiven and forever free.[3]
3. Be led by
the Spirit.
Moved by the
Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus
to do for him what the custom of the Law required. Luke 2:27
Simeon was a Spirit possessed man. He did not have to
wait until Pentecost to receive the Spirit. This reminds us that the Spirit is
as old as God, for the Spirit is God. When and how Simeon received the Spirit,
we do not know.
It is enough however that we see that the Spirit
possessed Simeon, gave him the revelation that the baby Jesus was the Christ,
and inspired him to enter the temple at the right time to see Jesus his Savior.
Likewise the same Spirit has directed you to behold
this baby and for you to recognize Him as the Christ.
This is the last worship service in the year of our
Lord 2021. What can we say? Man has been wounded. Christ has come to heal. Man
has been lost. Christ has come to find and return.
Man’s greatest enemy is death. Christ has come to
conquer it. Christ, the Divine, stooped
to be human, and when he stood back up, He raised us up too.
Friends, I don’t know what this New Year will bring. But of this I am confident; if we look to Christ in hope, if we desire to live close to God, if we are led by the Spirit - 2022 will be a very good year! Blessed Christmas! Happy New Year! In Jesus’ Name! Amen
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