18 March

His parents take him to Jerusalem ‘to present him to the Lord’ and ‘to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord’ (vv.22–24). Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of all the offerings and sacrifices we read about in the Old Testament.

• Look to Jesus to receive peace
  Simeon takes Jesus in his arms and says to the Lord, ‘My eyes have seen your salvation’ (v.30). To see Jesus is to see salvation. Seeing Jesus gives Simeon ‘peace’ (v.29b).

• Look to Jesus to see what God is like
  Jesus is a light that reveals God. He is ‘a light for revelation to the Gentiles’ (v.32a). It is impossible to know God unless he reveals himself to us. Yet God has done just that in Jesus. Jesus shows us what God is like. Jesus said, ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the father’ (John 14:9). Jesus fully reveals God for everyone.

• Look to Jesus for grace and truth
  Jesus is a light who brings glory: ‘the glory of your people Israel’ (Luke 2:32b). The word ‘glory’ speaks of God’s excellence, beauty, greatness and perfection. God is glorious. Israel had glory because God had lived among them, first in the tabernacle in the desert (as written about in today’s Old Testament passage), and then in the temple in Jerusalem
• Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

• 29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
      you may now dismiss[c] your servant in peace.
  30 For my eyes have seen your salvation,
  31     which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
  32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
      and the glory of your people Israel.”

  
  With Jesus, Israel came to see God’s glory in its truest and fullest sense. As John writes of Jesus, ‘We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14b). Jesus brings glory to Israel and to us, because Jesus is God coming to live among us.