GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 2:28-29
28 Simeon received him into his arms and praised God. He said, 29 “O Lord¹, now, as you have promised, you dismiss your servant in peace.
——————————
¹ 2:29 Greek despot, a term meaning absolute ruler.
God’s plan was that Simeon would encounter the infant Jesus in the temple on this day. The verb “received” is the middle voice of dechomai (δέχομαι). Most languages have an active and a passive voice, but Greek in New Testament times still had a middle voice as did ancient Sanskrit. The Classical writers (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) used this voice to show a looser connection between the subject and the action of the verb—precisely as Simeon does here. He received the baby, but gently, as Mary undoubtedly placed the baby in the man’s arms. Simeon did dot walk boldly up and take the baby away, he simply held still while Mary set the baby there.
This is an important distinction in other passages, not about the receiving of a baby, but the reception of the word of God. In Acts 11:1, “the Gentiles also had ‘received’ (middle voice of dechomai) the word of God.” We do not accept the word of God as if it is our choice to become Christians. It works in us as we are given the gospel, placed into the receiving blanket of our faith as it, too, is created by the word of God to receive the precious treasure of the gospel. Calls to “make a decision” for Christ are misnamed, since they are not calls to believe in Jesus, but really they are calls to show one’s faith (which already exists) or to show dedication more noticeably in one’s life. They are misunderstood and cause confusion among God’s people. They are a remnant from pietism and they misrepresent the true path of faith, which comes from hearing the message of the Gospel (Romans 10:17). “And,” Paul said, “this [is] not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Where there is faith in Jesus our Savior, there is forgiveness of sins and righteousness before God, because “righteousness is faith in the heart” (Apology IV,263).
Simeon begins to praise God with a song we title the Nunc Dimittis, “Now Dismiss.” In both Latin (dimittis) and Greek (ἀπολύεις), “dismiss” is not an imperative command, but a simple statement of fact. It is an observation, “Lord, you are dismissing…” Simeon uses the unusual term despot (δέσποτα), which means “Lord” and is translated that way, and which indicates an absolute ruler with total power and authority. In ancient Greece, it was a term used to describe the power of an Egyptian Pharaoh or as a title for an emperor. It might be a translation in this case for the Hebrew Adonai. God had made his promise to Simeon, and Simeon knew that now that the baby was here, the promise was fulfilled.
Some might think that this was an anticlimax, since seeing the baby doesn’t seem to be the same as seeing the King on his throne. But Simeon understood what was coming, and who this baby was. This was no anticlimax, but the glorious climax for Israel as a nation and as a people. When Isaac was born, Sarah sang, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age” (Genesis 21:7). Sarah’s joy was in the miraculous fulfillment of the promise of God, and Simeon’s joy matches Sarah’s exactly. Isaac seemed impossible because Sarah was long past childbearing years and Abraham her husband was a hundred years old. Jesus seems impossible because the rational mind is not mature enough to grasp that God could be incarnate in a human body. But both children were promised by God, and both promises were delivered through these two women, Sarah and Mary.
The promise fulfilled through Isaac meant the birth of a nation. The promise fulfilled through Jesus meant the salvation of the whole human race.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota