What Simeon Knew –
Why You Need the Whole Bible to Tell the Christmas Story
a sermon on Luke 2.25-35
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama
Here is a fun exercise to try with your kids sometime—those of you who have
children. Write the names of well-known Bible figures on note cards. Mix the
cards up. Ask your child to tell you what they know about each one. You can do
this with children as young as first or second grade. As they get older and
their knowledge increases, you can add more cards. At first you might just have
a few: Adam and Eve, Abraham & Sarah, Moses, David, Mary, Jesus, and Paul. After
they tell you about the people on the cards, ask them to put the cards in
chronological order.
You might be surprised. I have done this with children and young people of
various ages, all the way up to 8th and 9th grade. What I have typically found
is this: The young people know the basic stories from the Bible about the people
on the cards, but they don’t know the order. I’ve seen middle school students
say Jesus came before Moses—not at this church, by the way. We actually have a
set of learning goals for children at every age level, so hopefully that doesn’t
happen. But often I have seen it—kids raised in church, who know a lot about the
people in the Bible, but they don’t know how it all goes together.
Why does this matter? It doesn’t if the Bible is what some people take it to be,
a book of moral rules and examples. Some people think Christianity is a bunch of
rules and the stories in the Bible are examples for us to follow or avoid. Be
brave like Daniel. Don’t be disloyal like Judas. We often teach our children the
Bible this way. We try to draw some practical lesson out of each story. And that
is fine. The Bible does have examples of people we want to be like, as well as
people we don’t want to be like.
But, the Bible is so much more than this! The Bible has 66 different books in
it, but working together they all tell one great story—the story of God’s love
affair with his world. That’s why it matters that children can put Bible people
and events in proper order, because they need to understand how they fit
together. They need to know the one great story. It is more than a story, more
than history. It is God’s word to us. It tells us who we are and why we are
here. It is not everything we might want to know, but it is everything we really
need to know about God.
I suspect that all of our children know something about the Christmas story. An
angel appears to the Virgin Mary and says she will have a son. God tells Joseph
what to do in a dream. Together they go to Bethlehem, and there Jesus is born in
a stable and laid in a manger. Angels sing to shepherds, and wise men bring
gifts. Very young children can learn the story. Tell it to them. Read it to
them. Let them act it out with a nativity set at home.
But, no one (child or adult) understands what happened at Christmas until he or
she understands how Christmas fits in with the one story of the Bible. It is
especially important that as we teach our children the Bible and teach them the
Christian faith that we explain how Christmas fits into the larger story. Why?
Because Jesus is the climax of the story. Everything before him leads up to him,
and everything after him—right down to the church today—grows out of what he
did. The Bible tells one story, and it is all about Jesus.
I chose the passage about Simeon for our scripture reading because Simeon
understood this. Luke informs us that Simeon was “waiting for the consolation of
Israel.” This means Jesus did not just show up out of nowhere with no context.
Jesus came as the fulfillment to the promises God had made to his people. Simeon
was a devout Jew, and as such he knew the character of God. He knew God could
never let things just go on forever the way they were. God would do something to
set things right. God would send a Savior. How did Simeon know all this? He knew
the scriptures, the Old Testament. When God told him, “This little baby is the
One,” he knew what it meant. He connected all those promises and hopes with the
infant Jesus, and he praised God.
Let’s be like Simeon this morning. Let’s go through a few of the more important
stories from the Old Testament that our kids need to know in order to really
understand the significance of Christmas.
When you tell your children the Christmas story, make sure they know about …
creation. That’s right, creation—right at the beginning of the Bible. “What does
creation have to do with Christmas?” you want to know. Plenty! You don’t really
know who the tiny infant in the manger is until you know that he is the eternal
Son of God. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, yet he existed before the world began.
John 1.1 calls Jesus “the Word” and says, “In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Colossians 1.16 says, “All things
have been created through him and for him.” Jesus is none other than God himself
in-the-flesh. This is important for so many reasons.
How can we know God? God has made himself known to us in Jesus. When we look at
Jesus, we see God. Also, look how God comes to us. Does he come with force to
overwhelm us? No, he comes gently, humbly as a tiny baby. This should bring us
to our knees, like the shepherds, to worship the baby. The power that created
all the galaxies in the universe took human flesh and was wrapped in cloth and
laid in a manger.
Also, creation is important because the Bible says God created us with love. He
made a good world, and he made us in his image, so that we might enjoy him,
other people, and the beautiful world he made. We have lost that. Jesus came to
give it back to us.
This leads to the next part of the one great story of the Bible. When you tell
your children the Christmas story, make sure they know about … Adam and Eve.
Some people roll their eyes and groan if you mention Adam and Eve. This is the
story of the first sin. Eve and Adam ate the fruit God said not to eat, sin and
death entered the world, and God kicked them out of the garden. Christianity
claims that we human beings are fallen. We are broken. We are prone to choose
our way instead of God’s way. We are, to use an old fashioned word, sinners. And
as such, we need a Savior. When we celebrate Christmas we rejoice that God sent
the Savior we needed.
Some people like the cute little baby in the manger, but they have no use for
talk about sin. I think they haven’t thought all this through carefully enough,
because I think this business about Adam and Eve and the Fall is one of the most
hopeful teachings in any religion. Why? Think about it: We all know the world
can be a nasty place. We have all encountered human cruelty. We have all
struggled to get our relationships right. If God is there, as Christianity
claims, it can be awfully hard to be sure sometimes, can’t it? So we find
ourselves in a world with real evil. We find that often we ourselves are part of
the problem. And we find brokenness in our relationships—that is, loving God and
other people the way we are supposed to is hard. If you doubt this, invite all
your relatives to spend the week between Christmas and New Year at your house.
Why is getting along with family so hard sometimes?
Well, you take all these things together and you can say one of two things about
them. Either our problems are innate to who we are—either because God made us
that way or we evolved up out of the ooze and this is just who we are, or God
made us different and good but we are fallen. If this is who we really are,
that’s bad news. If this is who we really are, then either there is no god, or
the God who made us isn’t good, because he made us to be cruel. If this is who
we are, innately, we are stuck with it. But, if God had something different in
mind, something better, and we are responsible for this mess, then there is hope
that God can rescue us. If we are broken, he can fix us. Christmas is a pivotal
moment in the story of how God does just that. God said, “This is my world, and
I will make it right. You are made in my image, and I love you, and I am going
to rescue you.” So he became one of us, died on the cross, and rose again.
How much and how soon do you teach this to children? A good place to start is
the story of Adam and Eve. Be sure to mention that even as God was putting them
out of the garden, he promised a Savior. Jesus is how God kept that promise.
Beyond this, listen to your children and the questions they ask. When they ask
about why bad things happen or why people are mean, connect their curiosity both
with the Fall and with God’s solution, Jesus.
When you tell your children the Christmas story, make sure they know about …
Abraham and Sarah. God creates in Genesis 1 and 2. Adam and Eve fall into sin in
Genesis 3. The whole rest of the Bible is about how God goes about making things
right again. One of the first things he does is choose a special people, through
whom his love will reach the rest of the world. This special people began with
Abraham and Sarah. God made special promises to them. He promised to make them a
great nation, and he promised that in them all the peoples of the earth would be
blessed. Again, this promise looks ahead to Jesus, for Abraham and Sarah’s
descendants were the children of Israel, and Jesus came from this people.
This is particularly important because of course God still has a people today.
Paul writes in Romans that all who believe in Jesus are children of Abraham by
faith. God has made us part of his people! That’s exciting. Your children need
to learn the Bible as their story. It is not about people long ago and far away.
It is about us.
I’ll give you one example. I am adopted. Those of you who know the details of my
adoption know unusual doesn’t begin to describe it. I was always told the story,
but first my mother told me about baby Moses in the basket. And how Hannah
prayed for Samuel and dedicated him to God. She perhaps laid it on a bit think
by including Jesus and the Virgin Mary. But by the time she got to me, I figured
(a) I’m not unusual; God does this sort of thing all the time. And (b), “Hey,
maybe God has a special purpose for me as he did for those guys.” The Bible is
our story because we are God’s people, if like Abraham we believe God’s
promises.
When you tell you children the Christmas story, make sure they know about …
Moses and the Ten Commandments. You can sum up the whole law in two short
commands: Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and love your
neighbor as yourself. Unfortunately, we don’t always do that. And this is
exactly why God sent Jesus. The Law was good, but the one thing it didn’t do for
us was make us want to keep it. For that we need a new heart.
When you tell you children the Christmas story, make sure they know about … King
David. Speaking of hearts, scripture calls David a man after God’s own heart.
Despite his many faults, David was completely loyal to God. God made a promise
to David: He would always have a descendant to rule. Through the prophet Isaiah,
God promised a descendant of David who would establish endless peace and
justice, and who would rule forever. This too we find fulfilled in Jesus. Both
Luke and Matthew, the gospel writers who describe the events surrounding Jesus’
birth make a big deal about this. This is why Jesus is born in Bethlehem. Both
Joseph and Mary trace their ancestry back to King David.
When you tell your children the Christmas story, make sure they know about … the
prophets. The prophets spoke God’s word to his people in different circumstances
over a long span of time. One thing they have in common is the tendency to
exaggerate. They don’t just promise peace; they promise endless peace. They
don’t just promise good times; they promise things like, “The wolf shall lie
down with the lamb.” If you were wondering what the images on this banner have
to do with Christmas, this is it. The tree represents God’s promise to restore
King David’s line. There came a time when Israel no longer had a king because
pagans were ruling the nation. Had God’s promise failed? No. Through Isaiah, God
promised a “shoot from the stump of Jesse” [11.1]. You can see the little shoot
growing up out of the cut off tree. That represents Jesus. The image of the wolf
and lamb lying down together is a promise of God’s creation put right. No more
death. No more sickness. No more sorrow. Jesus was born for nothing less than to
fulfill all God’s promises and make all things new. It turns out the prophets
were not exaggerating after all. God meant what he said. All those wonderful
promises find their answer in Jesus.
The more you know about the Bible, the more exciting Christmas is. Plus, the
words to the traditional Christmas carols we love begin to make sense. Children
need to know these things. It is not enough for them to know the Christmas
story. They also need to know who Jesus is and why he was born. They need to
know God’s promises, and they need to take them personally. They should think,
“These are God’s promises to me. God loves me, and Jesus is my Savior.”
I guess what I want for all children is that they be like Simeon. They know the
promises, and they rejoice to find them fulfilled in Jesus. And of course, this
is not for children only. It is for all of us. This sermon has not just been for
children and parents. It has been about how all of us should understand the
Bible and relate it to Christmas. If Jesus is who the Bible says he is, then his
birth is worth celebrating. My prayer for you this Christmas is that you will
know the Savior and receive all God’s promises as your own. Amen.