"Born Under the Law, Redeemed from the Law" First Sunday After Christmas Commemoration of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs December 28, 2014 Luke 2:33–40
In the Christmas season we celebrate Christ’s birth. That much almost goes without saying. But the Christmas season is so much more than Jesus being born. In the First Sunday after Christmas we see the baby Jesus in another setting as well. In the Gospel reading today He is in the Temple. The Temple was where it was at, theologically speaking. The Temple was where the sacrifices were made. The Temple was where God said He would make His presence known. The Temple was where the Law of God was fulfilled. The priests of God would carry out the sacrifices and God’s gracious presence would be manifest. One of the requirements of the Law of God was that the firstborn son would be called holy to the Lord. Mary and Joseph brought up their firstborn son, Jesus, to the Temple so that the proper sacrifices could be made. This is the first clue we get as to the significance of what Paul means in the Epistle reading that Jesus was born of a woman and born under the Law. Here the mother and the step-father of Jesus, who is God, are presenting Jesus to God according to God’s own Law. While Jesus is still an infant He is already fulfilling the Law’s demand and God in His grace is shining down on His people because of it. Like Jesus, we are born of woman. Like Jesus, we are born under the Law. Unlike Jesus, we are unable to fulfill the Law’s demand. Jesus, who is God and who became man, fulfilled the Law of God. So what is the Law of God? Why does it place its demands on us? Why are we born under the Law? From the first person who was born, Cain, every person born of woman has been born into sin. Every person born of woman is the product of the union of a man and a woman, two sinful beings who pass on the sinful nature to their children. Jesus was also born of a woman. The difference between Him and us is that He was born of the Virgin. Mary conceived Him by the Holy Spirit, not by union with her husband-to-be Joseph. So even though Jesus was born of a woman, He was not born into sin. Jesus was born as we are but without sin. He was, however, born under the Law. The very Law of God that makes its demands on us is that very Law Jesus was born under. Those same demands were placed on Him. They were placed on Him because they are what damns us. God has demanded of us holiness and purity in living, but instead all of our righteousness is as filthy rags. We are unholy and impure. The pure Child of Mary lived in perfect consonance with God’s holy Law, which means in perfect consonance with His holy will. Every demand of the Law was fulfilled by Christ. Jesus redeems us from this very Law. Whereas the Ten Commandments, God’s holy Law, show us our sin, in Jesus we are shown our Savior. Paul shows how Jesus fulfilled this salvation. It was when the time had fully come. God knew when it was the right time He sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the Law. In the Gospel reading Luke says that Mary and Joseph performed everything according to the Law of the Lord concerning their Son. Jesus, very God of very God, was submitting Himself to His eternal Father’s will by becoming a human being. He was born of a woman, born under the Law, and submitted Himself to His earthly parents and their faithful carrying out of bringing Him to the Temple in fulfillment of the Law. It was not just in Jesus’ dying on the cross that our sins were paid for. It was also in everything Jesus did. Living the life we have never lived, one in perfect obedience to the will of God. It was also in submitting Himself to the Law, the Law of God which we so often rebel against in our sin. It was also in joyfully and humbly living under the will of God rather than what we so often do in desiring our own path, which leads us to disparage God’s Law. The very Law of God which condemns us is the very Law of God which is good, holy, and perfect. That we don’t see it that way shows how deep our sinful flesh rebels against God’s good Law. If we were to see God’s Law, as revealed in the Ten Commandments, for what it fully is, we would see that living according to it is what is very best for us and for our lives together with one another on the earth. So how do we see the Law of God in its fullness? It is only in Christ that we can see the Law of God for what it truly and greatly is. Since Jesus has redeemed us from the condemnation of the Law, we are freed up to keep the Law joyfully and humbly. We are set free from its condemnation and given the call to love and serve God through His commandments which are not burdensome. What is burdensome is actually going against the commandments, because it causes sin and guilt. When we see that we ought to have no other gods we see that the true God is all we need. If God has given us His Son to be born under the Law, as we are, to redeem us from the Law, how could we see that putting our trust in anyone or anything else would be good for us? When we see that the commandments concerning how we live toward others helps them out, we become aware of how we are blessed in the process. When we are serving and loving others without regard for our selfish desires, we are not turned in on our sinful nature. This is how we serve God. God does not need our good works, but our neighbor does. Our neighbor is in need of God’s love and God calls us to show forth that love to our neighbor. This was the life Jesus lived on earth and it’s the life He continues to live through you and me. This is where we see that Law and Gospel meet. It’s not that they come together. They remain distinct. But they work together in our lives so that we may be fully who God has called us to be. When Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple in fulfillment of God’s Law it wasn’t under compulsion of the Law. They did it because they were being obedient to God. What they didn’t fully realize is that they were doing it also in fulfillment of God’s eternal will. From eternity Jesus knew He would be a baby being brought to the Temple to be circumcised and dedicated. He knew also that this was one seamless action which would bring Him to the cross thirty years later. Jesus was saving us from the condemnation of the Law by fulfilling it even as He would be condemned in our place to redeem us from the Law. Jesus’ fulfilling of the Law is Gospel. The Law can never save us. Our keeping of God’s Law can never save us. However, having been saved by the Gospel, we are guided by the Law of God. We see that living according to God’s Law isn’t something He compels us to do but rather gives us to do because it is how we can live our lives in their fullness, which we could never do of ourselves, apart from the Law. This is why the Christmas season is so much more than just celebrating the birth of Christ. We don’t celebrate Jesus’ birth because He was going to be the Savior. We celebrate His birth because He was born as Savior. He was saving us in being born and in fulfilling the Law of God as an infant. Jesus is our Savior not just as a baby born and then just in a holding pattern until He went to the cross. He is our Savior in who He is, what He has done, and of course also in His suffering, death, and resurrection. Because of what He has accomplished for us there is no demand of us to fulfill His Law in order to receive His grace. Rather, He gives us Sacraments for us to partake of where we are not doing something in fulfillment of His Law or doing something out of His demand of us. It is instead partaking of the Means of Grace, the ways in which Jesus accomplishes even more than His fulfilling of the Law. He accomplishes salvation in you and forgiveness of your sins in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Jesus entered the Temple and fulfilled the Law of God in its entirety. No longer does God demand sacrifices of His people in fulfillment of the Law. Jesus Himself offered up Himself as the pure and holy sacrifice. It is now in the Means of Grace where we see that Jesus’ fulfillment of the demands of the Law and His gracious giving to us of the Gospel meet. We are given the Sacraments, not compelled to partake of them. We see that the baby who was humbly brought to the Temple is the very Lord who now humbly comes to us in the Gospel that attaches itself to water, bread, wine, and the proclamation of that Gospel. We were born under the Law and have been redeemed from the Law, having been born anew in Baptism and given Gospel forgiveness and salvation not in Law but in the Lord’s Supper. Instead of a temple, we are invited into the House of God such as this one where Jesus continues to offer Himself not in sacrifice but in Sacrament and where we partake of a foretaste of the glory to be revealed in heaven. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
