St. John's Lutheran Church - Sermon: A person who truly believes is eager to learn and to grow.

Have you ever been to some spot that is also an international tourist attraction and then found yourself surrounded by a bus load of Japanese tourists on a sightseeing trip? It can be quite annoying, really. They can be very loud as the speak to each other and as they giggle and then stop right in front of you to take pictures of each other posing in front of this thing or that. It can leave you feeling like you are nothing more than a prop in some scene.

On the other hand, the experience of Japanese visitors can be quite different when they are on an exchange trip, especially if you are hosting them. In that situation, you are more than just part of the setting. There is a real exchange of information and ideas and you even can be left feeling that you have made a friend.

The difference between those experiences is the difference between a tourist and a traveller. Tourists are there to see things, but not necessarily to really take in what they are seeing. A traveller is there to be more than just a tourist. A traveller is there to marvel at things, to consider the things that they have experienced. A traveller is open to being influenced and even to being changed in some way by what they encounter. Travellers are open to the idea of making the things that they have discovered while visiting another country or another part of the country a part of who they are.

Mary and Joseph were in Jerusalem for the rituals of purification and consecration that were part of religious life in their day. This would have been about 40 days after Jesus was born. They had come there from Nazareth, which was a four day trip, but they were far more than tourists. They were travellers. They were people who were committed to participating fully in what they had to do. They were committed to making their experiences in Jerusalem a part of who they were.

This was about more than just Jewish customs, though. Mary and Joseph where committed to hearing the Word of God. Luke tells us that, when Simeon prophesied about Jesus, , “The child’s father and mother marvelled at what was said about Him.” Mary and Joseph were not spiritual tourists, but true believers whom God had sent on a journey of discovery. God has set you on a journey of discovery, too! May He move you in faith so that you are more than just some spiritual tourist, but a true traveller in the journey of faith that has come to you for the sake of Jesus Christ!

There really is a difference between someone who just enjoys seeing things and someone who is a genuine traveller. Both of those kinds of people can experience exactly the same thing, but one of those people simply will have the new experience bounce right off of him or her while the other sees that experience as a picture to describe life itself.

Christmas time is an example of spiritual tourism. There are many people around us, and I am sure that you can easily come up with a few names of such people, who say they are Christians, but who also say that they are not religious or devout. They will not disagree with you when you say that “Jesus is the reason for the season”. The love the idea of the stable scene in Bethlehem, with its simplicity and its message of peace on earth and good will toward men. They see the Baby Jesus as a picture of what any normal, loving parent feels when they hold their new baby in their arms and see a future filled with hope and promise. The idea of Christmas truly touches them and makes them happy to say that they have personal ownership in Christmas.

This are the spiritual tourists. They taste from the menu of God’s grace. They go up and down the buffet table of the ideals of love and patience and kindness and forgiveness and humility and overlooking differences so that families can be families. Like tourists, they are observers who keep a window between them and Jesus so that Jesus doesn’t actually get too close, although they are more than happy to use the exercise of looking at Jesus through that window as an excuse to become closer to each other. They can go home at the end of the day with a greater feeling of thankfulness that they know love and appreciate the blessings of life. They can feel better about themselves, and it doesn’t even matter to them that they have avoided making some great discovery in the process. Like many tourists, they prefer to see the world in stereotypes. They want the Disney World version of other nations. They want the tune of “It’s a small world” to play in an unbroken chain in their heads.

A genuine traveller is different. A genuine traveller makes every effort to meet the locals and live among them. A genuine traveller keeps an open mind and looks for not just the good points, but the challenging things about being in the land such a traveller is visiting. A traveller who is more than a tourist tries to see more than just what supports the picture that most people have of a particular country, but wants to know the other things about that country, too. Such a traveller will eat the food even if that food seems very basic or even disgusting from the perspective of home. Such a traveller will sleep on the ground if that is what the locals do. Such a traveller will set aside the expectations of home in order to experience what home means to the person who lives in the country that this traveller is visiting.

In a spiritual sense, a genuine traveller appreciates the Christmas story that everyone seems to have heard, but asks, “What is behind all of this? Is this truly what it appears to be to me when I respond to it within my own mind and heart?” A genuine visitor to Christmas will step out of the bus and wander through God’s Word to hear what God Himself describes Christmas to be.

In a way you could say that our Gospel lesson is one of the side streets or back alleys or back country villages of Christmas. It describes the place where true believers live, and not just the shopping district that so many spiritual tourists visit. Luke tells us, “Simeon blessed Mary and Joseph and said, “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.” (Luke 2:34-35)

Christmas, you see, is actually a challenge. It is a challenge that causes the bus to go off course and break down on some bumpy back road outside of cell phone range where the people on tour have no choice but to meet the locals. There will be some people on that bus who will be afraid to smell the real smells and encounter the honest challenges of being a citizen of a country where life can be extremely difficult. There will be others that will be excited about tossing off the trappings of home and diving into the local culture only to find themselves overwhelmed by what they are encountering. There is much criticizing and great complaining when a person is forced to see what he or she does not want to see. There is a great deal revealed about the character of a person who is too stressed to control the things that we normally try to keep under control.

Jesus was born into a time when many, many people were nothing more than spiritual tourists. They were sitting in a bus of spiritual pride and arrogance and complacency. They found themselves in what seemed to be comfortable seats from which they looked down upon the people who did not know God, like the Romans and the Greeks. They looked down on the people who were only half-believers in their own minds, like the Samaritans, who believed in God but did not worship at the Jerusalem temple and who had compromised the faith with pagan teachings and practises. They felt secure in their climate controlled religion in which you get could away with simply following the rules and participating in the traditions of the elders without any real commitment to acknowledging their sins. As a rule, they only judged the people who had no saving faith, and they did not take the time to examine their own hearts.

These were the people that Simeon spoke about who would fall when Jesus confronted them. These were the people who would be escorted out of the tour bus, and be pulled out from behind the window, only to respond to Jesus with great anger and hate and rejection. They would rather stay in their broken down bus without spiritual food or water of spiritual fresh air. They would rather suffer and die there than admit that genuine faith can really help them, and yes, even save them.

Are you such a person? It’s hard to imagine that there is anyone who actually likes to have their faults pointed out to them, but most of us are humble enough most of the time to recognize if the person pointing out those faults has a point. When we are not so humble, though, we turn things around and blame the person pointing out the fault for being the problem. If that doesn’t work, we aim our attack at the moral principle and insist that the morality has to change, or we attack the interpretation of what is right and wrong in that situation.

A spiritual tourist reacts to God’s Law by being angry at the person who speaks it. “Why do you have to be such a grump?” they may say. A spiritual tourist responds to a sin that has become obvious by saying, “God’s Word on that is out of date. If everyone else is doing it, then what I am doing is no longer wrong.” A spiritual tourist things that God’s Law does not apply because it comes from another time and another place, and we live in a superior time and place. They say, “I don’t need God’s Word. I don’t need God’s Church. I don’t need Baptism. I don’t need the Lord’s Supper. I don’t need anybody preaching at me.” For them Jesus becomes a sign to be spoken against. Their hearts are certainly revealed.

Simeon said something to Mary that has raised an interesting point. When he finished telling her that Jesus would disturb the peace of many people and cause divisions simply by revealing the cracks that were already there, he said something else. He said, “A sword will pierce your own soul too.” (Luke 2:35) Just exactly what was meant by that?

Part of that is in the fact that Mary was just as much a real person as the rest of us. Jesus came to confront sin and to experience the consequences of sin, not just in unbelievers, but in believers, too. In Revelations 1:16, Jesus is portrayed with a sword coming out of His mouth. In Matthew 10:34, Jesus said, “I have come not to bring peace, but a sword.” In Hebrews 4:12, we read, “The word of God is sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” In all of those passages, you see the same word for sword, which was the picture of the swords used by the Thracians, a large, heavy, two edged sword designed to do as much damage as possible. It is a sword that is designed to penetrate not just the hearts of unbelievers, but of believers, too, judging the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart.

Remember how Simeon said that Jesus would cause the rising of many in Israel as well as the falling of many of them? Unbelievers and believers are no different when it comes to having to hear God’s Law. The difference is that even when a believer feels hurt or offended or angry in having his or her sins pointed out, the believer has been given the gift of God’s grace to not blame God for the problem. The believer is moved by the Holy Spirit to take responsibility for sin. The believer feels the pain, but is moved by God to embrace Jesus as the solution to that pain. Even believers are pierced, but while that piercing destroys an unbeliever, it brings life to those who believe, because it leads to repentance and to forgiveness. It brings us to the Cross.

This would be just as true for Mary as for us. There is a major Christian denomination that believes that Mary was not capable of sin, because only a sinless woman could carry the sinless body of Jesus Christ inside of her. In contrast, the Bible tells us that “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) There is no exception made for Mary’s case. Even Mary needed to be brought to the foot of the Cross. Even she needed to watch as Jesus died for her sins.

For Mary, though, this was an exceptionally great burden. Bible commentators generally agree that Simeon’s words were the prophecy that connected the baby Jesus on that happy day in the temple courts with the sad day that would one day come within sight of the temple grounds. Mary was warned that day that her heart would be filled with grief on account of the things that would happen to her baby as He grew to be the Saviour Simeon assured her He would certainly grow to be.

Something has to happen for a tourist to be converted into a genuine traveller. Something has to grab a person and change a person so that person can discover something that he or she may not have known before. A traveller has the attitude that would make it possible for that person to adapt to being a citizen of the country in which he or she is the guest. You do not change from being a tourist to a traveller until the attitude by which you experience a country is changed in you.

This is what the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus is all about. It is about that great change in attitude. Jesus taught and He confronted and He blessed and He healed. He challenged and He comforted. He did all of those in balance, breaking down proud hearts and raising up humbled ones. He came to where the people were and brought them not just to the realities of sin, but the realities of grace. He showed us that the Holy Spirit would do the work through God’s Word that needs to be done so that we are not just tourists or travellers, but actually citizens of the Kingdom of God!

“The Almighty God prepared His salvation in the sight of all people. He prepared a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to God’s people, Israel.” (Luke 2:30-32) He provided a light so that non-believers could be brought through God’s Word to not simply observe Jesus, but to truly know Him as Lord. He provided a light for the glory of those who already believe, that they would be assured of God’s forgiveness and comfort and grace as they struggle with the hardships and the doubts of life. He provided a light of hope so that believers could be supported in their waiting and encouraged in their eagerness to look upon the very Lord Jesus Himself.

This baby Jesus, then, is more than just someone to observer from a distance. He is more than just someone who is there to experience for a short time before you move on to some other adventure. He is the Lord. He is God. He is your Lord. He is your God. He is the One who has come so that you can be sure of your redemption!

The difference between a tourist and a traveller is that a tourist likes to see things from a safe distance. A tourist likes to get a taste of things without being too committed to them, or too involved in them. A traveller takes a different approach. A traveller is motivated by a love for people or by the challenges of exotic locations. A traveller is willing to adapt and to adjust and to respect the people and the land where he or she is the guest. A traveller asks the question, “Could I be at home here?” and takes the time to experience what it is really like to live there.

Luke makes it very clear that Simeon and Anna were not just spiritual tourists. He makes it clear that they were genuine children of God, genuine citizens of God’s Kingdom. He tells us that they knew the peace of God even in the midst of their struggles of life and their waiting for the Messiah. He also makes it clear that Mary and Joseph were genuine citizens, keeping the law out of faith, not just out of tradition, and fulfilling the duties of faith out of a love for God.

They were all people who marvelled at God’s Word. They were all people who took God’s Word personally. They were all people who could be stung by God’s Word, but also appreciated it and rejoiced in it, because through it, they could recognize their Lord and their Saviour.

If you are more than just a spiritual tourist, you simply cannot look upon Jesus without learning something about yourself. You cannot encounter God’s Word without having it reveal to you what attitude you truly have toward Him. You cannot encounter God’s Word without yourself marvelling at what God’s Word tells you about the forgiveness of your sins in Jesus Christ.

May God move you to be a true participant in the saving faith He has offered you. May God move you, too, to be far more than a spiritual tourist, and far more than a spiritual traveller alone. May God bless you, so that through God’s Word and by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may marvel at the grace of God and that you, too, may be dismissed in peace!