Sermon for the Sunday after Christmas
Isaiah 11:1-5 + Galatians 4:1-7 + Luke 2:33-40
It’s the third day of Christmas today, which is also the Feast day of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, which is why we prayed an extra Collect this morning. But the Sunday after Christmas, with its Epistle from Galatians 4 and its Gospel from Luke 2 historically take precedence over the feast of John because of the importance of the truth revealed in today’s lessons. In our Gospel, we follow the holy family from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, to the Temple, 40 days after Jesus was born, where we hear the testimony of two now-famous elderly saints: Simeon and Anna. You heard today only part of Simeon’s testimony, the part where he blessed Joseph and Mary, and revealed this truth to Mary, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” Then we hear about the prophetess Anna who was also there in the Temple that day. Her words aren’t recorded for us directly, but St. Luke tells us that, when she saw Jesus, she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
It’s that concept of redemption that the Holy Spirit holds before our eyes today and that we’ll focus on for a few minutes, and it’s especially fitting, with the two baptisms that took place this morning. In preparation for Baptism, we reviewed the Biblical meaning of “redemption,” and we focused on the truth confessed in the Apostles’ Creed, spending most of our time talking about the Second Article of the Creed, the theme of which is redemption. Allow me to remind you how we summarize the Second Article in our Small Catechism. What does it mean that, “I believe in Jesus Christ”?
I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord; who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death; that I should be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from death, lives and reigns for all eternity. This is most certainly true.
“Who has redeemed me.” That’s the primary work of Christ. Notice how different that is from the world’s idea of redemption. The world talks about redemption as something a person has to do for himself after he’s messed something up. It’s like a second chance to make up for your mistakes or to do something right. You fail at something, you have to redeem yourself. You lose at something, you seek “redemption.” You commit some terrible sin, so you spend the rest of your life doing good to try to make up for it, and then you supposedly have “redemption.” That’s not at all what Biblical Redemption is.
Redemption is an Old Testament concept. It means “to buy someone or something back; to rescue someone from slavery.” The prime example of it is when God rescued the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The price that was paid for Israel’s redemption from that slavery was the blood of many spotless lambs, painted on the doorframes of their homes, at God’s command, which the angel of death saw and so “passed over” their homes when he brought destruction on the Egyptians. Hence the name “Passover.” Passover was a celebration of God’s redemption of His people.
Redemption is also found in the Old Testament in a slightly different context. If a person became impoverished and had to sell some of his property, a close blood relative could come and redeem what had been sold, to bring it back into the family. That’s important. The Redeemer had to be a blood relative.
All of that points to Christ. Just as God redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt, so Christ would redeem Israel—which means all believers in Christ—from sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver—nor with the blood of a lamb, but with His own holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. That’s why He’s called the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
That brings us to the words of St. Paul to the Galatians that you heard this morning, where the Apostle talks about a kind of slavery in which all people once lived.
It’s true, God redeemed the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. But He led them straight from Egypt to a different kind of slavery, to the slavery of the Law of Moses. He led them straight to Mt. Sinai and gave them the Ten Commandments and all the laws of the Old Testament and placed Israel under that Law, commanding them, “You shall obey!” The one who obeys the Law is righteous in God’s sight. The one who obeys will live before God by his obedience. The one who disobeys will surely die.
The law was good. It’s good to worship the Lord God and serve Him only. It’s good to you’re your neighbor and honor parents and to not murder and to not commit adultery and to not steal. But what happened? Israel soon learned that they could not keep the law, not perfectly as it must be kept. The good law of God became a burden to them, because they could not keep it. They were sinners, from the very moment they were born, from the very moment they were conceived.
What was true for Israel, who had the law of God, was certainly also true for the Gentiles, for the non-Jews. They were slaves, too, as St. Paul writes, in bondage under the elements of the world. What are the elements of the world? They are the basic principles by which men live by nature: “If you are a good and decent person, if you try hard enough, if you work hard enough, God will accept you. And if you mess up, then you have to work even harder to redeem yourself, and then God will forgive you.” That’s the philosophy, that’s the religion of all people by nature. It’s up to you to earn a place in God’s house. It’s up to you to redeem yourself, or at least to make yourself worthy of redemption.
And that’s slavery. That’s bondage. It’s the devil’s biggest lie. Because you’re already thoroughly corrupt and sinful from birth. You aren’t a good person in God’s eyes, no matter who you are. And you can’t ever do enough to earn God’s favor or to atone for your sins. You simply can’t redeem yourself.
That’s why you needed a Redeemer in the first place. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Our Redeemer had to be God’s Son, because no man can redeem another man from sin, death, and the power of the devil. But He also had to be our Brother, born of a woman, our blood relative, who could take our place under God’s law and keep it, because we have not kept it. He had to be our blood relative in order to shed His blood and die, in order to pay the price for our sins, in order to redeem us.
And now what? Now we receive the adoption as sons. How do we receive it? Through faith in Christ our Redeemer and through baptism into His name. As Paul wrote to the Galatians just a few verses earlier, For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
As my youngest son likes to remind me, he has two fathers. All baptized believers in Christ have two fathers, an earthly one, and a heavenly One who gave His Son into our flesh to be our Redeemer, who is always good and merciful. God the Father gave His Son into our flesh and into death for our sins. How can sin, death, or the devil harm us any longer, if we have been baptized into His name and received redemption through faith in His blood?
This is why the Church celebrates Christmas. This is why Christians gather on Christmas and during this Christmas season, to celebrate the birth of our Redeemer, to hear His Word and to receive His forgiveness and His salvation in Word and Sacrament.
Mark and Jack, look what God the Father has given you! Through Holy Baptism He has adopted you and clothed you with Christ. He has redeemed you. He has made you His sons. Now continue to listen to your Father. Hear His Word, receive His absolution. Live as saints, as sons of God in this world, sons who bear the image of Christ before God. Live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from death, lives and reigns for all eternity.
And may all of us who have been baptized into Christ continue the celebration of Christmas. Christ, our Brother, was born to redeem us, and has given us the best Christmas present of all, redemption, and along with it, a Father in heaven to call our very own. Amen.
