Listen to the sermon here.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text that serves as foundation for our sermon for today is our gospel reading, especially these words at the beginning, from Luke chapter 2:22-24. “When the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, Mary and Joseph brought 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.’”
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,
Each week when I am in the preschool, I ask the kids if they have any questions. They’re still working on what questions are and so undoubtedly about half of them raise their hand and say, “Jesus died for our sins”. And that’s wonderful! But it’s not just preschoolers. Ask most adults what the most important thing that Jesus did was, and they will answer, “Jesus died for our sins”. And to be certain, that is the most important thing that Jesus did, but it honestly misses most of the purpose of Jesus’ life. The passion of Christ, His death and resurrection, is undoubtedly the center point of all of Christian theology. After all, Paul says, “We preach Christ crucified.” But then why did he have to come as a baby in the womb of Mary? Why did he have to do everything else that Jesus did? Can we simply hit the fast-forward button to get to Good Friday and Easter? No, because the life of Jesus is equally as important as His death. Today in our readings we learn that Christ lived the perfect life we cannot live, thereby fulfilling the law for us.
Let us pray: Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, on this day we remember how Your Son worked to obey Your will to fulfill Your law on our behalf. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer, that we may always give thanks to God for Your Son’s perfect work of salvation for us in both what He did and then in His death on the cross. It is through your Son’s name we pray. Amen.
God expects perfection from us. “Be perfect as your God is perfect”. Even in the Garden of Eden, “You may eat of any fruit of the tree of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat”. God expects perfection from us. God expects us to do everything that His law commands. Yet are we capable of that? Are we able to perfectly fulfill God’s law? Absolutely not! Adam and Eve couldn’t and they were without sin. Adam and Eve in the garden took the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good. And in so doing, they cast all of creation into sin. God expects us to be perfect, and yet because we are sinners who are incapable of perfection, we will always fall short. St. Paul writes, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. We will undoubtedly fall short of what God commands. Look at any one of the commandments. On the surface level, they seem easy. You shall not murder. Great, I haven’t gone out and killed anyone this week, so I’m at least good for this week. But look at what Jesus says. He says anyone who hates his brother has broken this command. Anyone who says you fool is liable to the flames of hell. Oooh! Not quite as good there then, are we? Because trust me, there have been plenty of people that even if I didn’t vocally say it, at least in my head, thought, “Man, what a fool they are”. When we look at God’s law and the perfection that it requires, we see that there is no way that we can ever measure up to God’s law. We see that there is no way that we can ever do what it requires.
And God knew this. God knew that we would fall short. And so, God sent His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to perfectly fulfill the law on our behalf. He came from the moment that life begins, from conception in the womb of His mother Mary, and from the moment that life begins, He lived the perfect life for us. From the moment that life begins, He was doing what God requires of all of us, but with one distinction. He is the son of God. He is the Lamb without stain or blood. As we heard in our Hebrews reading, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things” (Hebrews 2:14). He was that baby in the womb of his mother. He spent nine months there. He was born. Eight days later, He was circumcised. Forty days later, He was presented in the temple. He grew up. He was raised up. He went to synagogue with His parents. He learned from Holy Scripture. His earthly father, His caretaker Joseph, undoubtedly brought Him up in the trade of carpentry, as Joseph was a carpenter. Jesus lived this life that we cannot live. He perfectly did everything that we are supposed to do.
And then having perfectly fulfilled the law for us, Christ took on our sinfulness and He suffered and He died for it. Christ took upon Himself—the One who knew no sin, the One who had lived the absolutely perfect life— took upon Himself not just one person’s sin (that weight enough could crush Him). No, He took on everyone’s sin. He took on the sins of the entirety of creation. Yes, this happened almost 2,000 years ago, but even still, He took on your sins. He took on my sins. He took on Adam and Eve’s sin, and He took on the very last sin that’ll ever be committed. He took on the sins of the entirety of creation, and He bore the weight and the punishment that those sins deserved. He was stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. He was nailed to the cross, became a curse for us, as Scripture says, cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree. He hung on the cross and God utterly forsook Him. So He cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” For the three hours that he hung there, God refused to show his face, sending deep darkness to cover the earth. Why? He didn’t deserve it. You and I did. He didn’t deserve the punishment. You and I did. Yet that’s how much Christ loves each and every one of you. That’s how great Christ’s love is for each and every person in all of his creation, is that Christ willingly suffered. He died and for all. He willingly suffered and died for the baby in the womb. He willingly suffered and died for the old person on their deathbed who doesn’t remember anything. Christ willingly suffered and died for each and every one of us. No matter how great your sin may seem. Even the thief on the cross who was condemned to death, who repented. Even the thief on the cross who didn’t repent, Christ died for him. It doesn’t mean that all will be in heaven, but to whoever believes, to whoever calls on his name, we have the certainty of the forgiveness of sins for us.
Therefore, as people who have been justified by his death and resurrection, we are now called to walk in the newness of life that we have been given, not in order to be justified by our actions, but as people who are justified by Christ. We are called to follow in Christ’s example. We are called to live as Christ lived. But that doesn’t mean that we’re doing it in order to work our way into heaven. No! Christ won that for us. That is ours by gift. Yet we do good works. We work for the best of our ability to fulfill God’s law in our lives, knowing that when we fall short, and we will fall short, we know that He comes to whoever confesses his sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Me dear brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus, yes, Jesus died for our sins, and that is the most important thing that we all should know. But He was able to do so because first, he lived the perfect life for us, from the moment that life begins in the womb until his death on the cross. In living the perfect life free from sin, He is now able to give us His righteousness, so when we stand before God, God does not see our sinful works, but Christ’s good works on our behalf. Therefore, let us today and every day, as forgiven and redeemed children of God, go forth. Let us live our lives following Christ’s example. And let us always trust in Him, receiving from Him the forgiveness of sins. Amen.
Now may the peace of God who surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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