December 30, 2007 Sermon

One More Underline
Luke 2:22-37

James Kilroy worked in a shipyard during World War II.  He inspected bulkheads, or watertight walls, on new ships.  When he approved a bulkhead he would write “Kilroy was here” on it in chalk.  Sailors taking those ships to faraway battles read those words and wondered what they meant.  They began writing them in each new place the U.S. armed forces reached.  A huge competition to be the first to write “Kilroy was here” started.  Among the places we have authenticated proof that “Kilroy was here” was written are the underside of the very top of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris (I wonder how it got there?), the surface of the moon, underwater landing obstacles off the beaches of Iwo Jima, and the Nazi parliament building.  When Josef Stalin met Winston Churchill and Harry Truman at the Potsdam Conference near the end of that war, he had to use a temporary privy in a hallway near the meeting room.  Newsreel footage exists of him emerging from the toilet and asking an aide, in Russian, “Who is Kilroy?”

Average Joe soldiers identified with Kilroy.  They adopted him as one of their own.  The idea that a regular guy from Anyplace, U.S.A. might be the first to conquer Iwo Jima or Paris or Potsdam appealed to the men.  They also saw Kilroy as a way to rub their enemies’ noses in defeat.  Their German and Japanese enemies made a big deal out of how superior they were racially.  But Everyman Kilroy kept beating these supposed supermen.  Writing “Kilroy was here” underlined their victories.

The passage we just read from the Gospel of Luke tells of two more underlines God gave to the story of his sending his Son to become an Everyman victor.  As if to rub it in just a little more, God sends people to testify to Joseph and Mary of Jesus’ divinity, his god-ness.  We still worship that child.  Of course, he grew up and conquered death.  He proved himself worthy of our worship.  But so often we remain just as puzzled about his identity as those soldiers on shipboard were of the identity of the real Kilroy.  Worship Jesus as the Son of God.

Our passage opens with the note that “the time for their purification” had come.  With the “their” in that phrase Luke refers to Mary and Jesus.  According to the Levitical, or Old Testament priestly, Law, when a Jewish woman gave birth to a boy she and he remained “unclean” for seven days.  Unclean in this context means unfit to approach God.  Thus the law provided a ritual for a newborn’s family to observe to get cleaned up in God’s eyes.  After the baby boy’s circumcision, which by law happened on the eighth day after his birth, the family was to go to the local priest.  They were to bring an animal offering.  The priest would sacrifice the animal and perform a brief ceremony, making them clean again before the Lord.

On this eighth day after Jesus’ birth Joseph and Mary have not yet left Bethlehem.  Luke informs us they “went up to Jerusalem”, about six miles away, and approach a priest at the high temple there.  Luke next introduces us to Simeon, an aged man.  God’s Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die before seeing the Messiah.  That same Holy Spirit inspires him to intercept Mary, Joseph and Jesus.  He takes the baby in his arms and verbalizes a prayer.  Paraphrased, that prayer goes something like this: “Let me die in peace now, O Lord.  For just as you promised I have seen salvation with my very own eyes.  I have seen the One who will bring light and life to everybody: Jew and Gentile alike.”

If you were Mary or Joseph what would impress you more: the words this strange old man has to say, or the fact that he has scooped your newborn baby into his arms?  I guess the latter; by this point they had received a whole parade of strange messengers with words about Jesus.  It started with an angel, then continued with Mary’s cousin, a bunch of shepherds and (possibly by this time) magi from the East.  Soon Anna, an ancient widow, will underline Jesus’ unique identity one final time.  But first, Simeon has more to say.  Another paraphrase: “Look!  Your baby will cause many to be saved and many to be damned.  People will condemn him and what he stands for.  You will suffer, too.  But the innermost thoughts of all people will be tested by him.” 

Worship Jesus as the Son of God.  To this day our thoughts and actions must stand the test he represents.  Do we think and behave as though we believe in Him as the Son of God?  Simeon and Anna waited their entire lives to meet Jesus.  When they did, they did not fail to see Him for who he truly was: God in a human body.  Do you?

For two thousand years theologians have argued over the identity of Jesus.  The variations on the theme appear endless, but three major options more or less cover the field.  Jesus was and is, (A) A human being and nothing more; or, (B) God who only appeared to inhabit a human body for a short time; or, (C) God and human, fully and distinctly, in one person.  Do you worship Jesus as the Son of God?  This is just another way of asking whether you choose (C) from the list above.  Do you believe that Jesus was and is God, God in human form?

Let’s dig into each of the three options.  If you believe Jesus was, (A) A human being and nothing more, you join all non-Christian human beings who ever have lived.  Many admirable people agree with you.  Devout Muslims see Jesus as a great prophet but not God, because to their way of thinking Allah is the only god.  Many great philosophers have respected the teachings of Jesus but stopped well short of accepting claims for his divinity.  Do you agree?  Come on, fess up.  Many modern (or post-modern, take your pick) people simply cannot see Jesus as God.  Either they do not believe in any god, or they do not believe that the strange arithmetic of the trinity (God is three-in-one and one of those three, the Jesus part, is two-in-one).  Maybe you fall into this category.

Option B (Jesus was God who only appeared to inhabit a human body for a short time) has few adherents.  At first hoards of people saw Him this way.  In the centuries immediately following Jesus’ own, many people were prepared to believe in Him as God yet could not accept the idea that he died.  His human body may have died (though many of these people could not agree even with that), but God could never die, right?  People do occasionally still hold this view.  Do you?  Do you believe in Jesus as God, but does it seem impossible that he could really have died, and therefore was never truly a human being, too?