Salvation Begins Now

Luke 2:25-33
 
Salvation is a complicated and loaded concept in theology and in the Bible. This is quite natural, of course, since salvation stands at the center of God’s activity in Jesus Christ. A central pillar ought to be big and weighty, holding up many other things. Despite this, Christians often simplify salvation to mean “erasing my sins so that I get into heaven one day.” Certainly this is part of salvation, but there is so much more to it than that. The salvation of God is much richer because the problems which salvation corrects are much more far-reaching than an individual’s sins. Sin may have started it all, but the damage which it left in its wake requires correction too. Enter God’s salvation.
In this short passage here, I believe we get a glimpse of the “more” of salvation in two ways. Jesus has been born, and his parents take him to the Temple for the time of purification. As they are there, a man with the Holy Spirit, Simeon, takes the child in his arms and praises God that his eyes “have seen your salvation” (2:30). It is a curious phrase because we tend to think of salvation happening when Jesus died on the cross. We could understand this as prolepsis (referring to a future reality as if it already has happened), but I think Simeon rightly sees that God’s salvation was beginning to take root merely because Jesus was born into this world. The “more” of salvation here is that Jesus’ birth was the beginning of God’s salvation; and that salvation would continue to grow, reaching a climax in Jesus’ death even as we still wait for the fullness of God’s salvation someday.
The second thing which we learn about the “more” of salvation comes in Simeon’s words immediately before: “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace” (2:29). There is a sense in which Simeon claims that he now has peace because God’s salvation has come to him in this seminal form. By “peace,” Simeon likely means that his soul is at rest because that for which he has waited—God’s salvation—is coming to pass. The promise is being fulfilled, and though Simeon won’t see the fullness of it in his lifetime, at least he knows that God was faithful to his word. Of course, this peace which comes from salvation is much more than that as well since we know that salvation brings peace between God and man in our conflict initiated by sin. Salvation also brings peace between human beings who were separated by sin in the Garden. Though strife has infiltrated relationships from the personal level to the ethnic level all the way up to the level of national governments, God’s salvation brings peace to those relationships. It may not always seem like this is true, but the fact that people of all sorts of backgrounds can worship the same God together is a testament to this peace at work in the world now.
As you think about God’s salvation in Jesus Christ, I challenge you to think about how it is at work in your life today. Are there ways in which it has brought peace into your life, peace between you and God, peace between you and a fellow human being, or just peace in your soul? How else has salvation been at work in you, preparing you for that time when the fullness of salvation will be wrought? After you answer these questions, I encourage you to take a moment like Simeon did to praise God for this wondrous gift which he has given to you and to all of us. -TL

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