Hi everyone, I attended a service and the sermon was about Jesus' conscreation in (Luke 2. 22-40) and the light that he brings to the world. I wanted to share this sermon here with you was taken by one of the ministers at my church. I really liked what they had to say and wanted to share this with you as it uplifting and motivating.This mass, this presentation of Christ at his consecration comes at the dying of that old age, that old age that there has been waiting for Christ to come. It comes at the ending of the long life of Simeon, of Anna as their lives come towards their end. But we also have this juxtaposition of the very old with that brand new so fresh that he almost still has the labels on baby Jesus.
This infant Jesus inspires Simeon to sing that this tiny one will be a light to lighten to what does it say in the reading we had a light for revelation to the Gentiles and to be the glory of God's people. Jesus shines a light on the whole world to those who should know him and recognise him, but also to those who have never been told of him in a way that they can understand. And maybe we think they shouldn't be able to see his light. The light of Jesus, his quality that he possesses is something that draws all people to him whether they recognise him by name or not or recognise him yet by name or not. Those virtues of love, of joy, of peace, of goodness, we see them in all manner of people. God's holy qualities. And perhaps one of our jobs as the church, as God's people, is to interpret that light that people see, to interpret that word as the person, the person of Jesus.
That shining brightness is the glory that God's people inhabit. that they perhaps we have to live within. Living within glory is blazing and brilliant but also quite a daunting challenge because when you live in glory nothing you do can be hidden. Living in glory means that all we do can be seen not only by those around us but as a judgment by them on the truth of what we say about Christ. Living in that blazing light of Christ's glory, I think we can feel ourselves exposed and maybe so we should be to know that we can measure ourselves up against those things of God that we are called out of and who we're called to be.
Simeon and Anna had put in that time of preparation. They had spent years waiting at the temple. They spent years praying. They spent years reflecting on the scriptures. It's not always easy to recognise the light when it comes. It's not always easy to recognise the form that God's light takes in the world around us. Those years of waiting, that time put into waiting and praying and reflecting wasn't wasted because that meant that when Jesus arrived in the temple just and the form of a baby, they were able to recognise him and to praise God for him. And hopefully that will inspire us to spend our time getting ready to notice that tiptoe potential for light when it comes to us. Israelites who did anointed work for God were consecrated in this way using turtle doves. With Jesus going to the cross this ended. There was to be no more blood sacrifice and Jesus was to be represent our sacrificial atonement with his lamb that is clean and has no blemish.
