Assurance

Have you ever held a newborn baby in your arms? You snuggle that cute, tiny, fragile life and you gaze at that sweet face, you can’t help but imagine their future. What will they look like as they grow up? What will their first word be? What will their hobbies be? Will they one day be a doctor, an artist, a teacher? Who will they marry? Will their babies look like the one you’re holding now? When you hold a baby, you hold a bundle of hopes and dreams. That’s how God designed it. God’s first commission to Adam and Eve was to “be fruitful and multiply.” God’s design for the world was for children to continue the story. And so we love them. We provide for them. We raise them. We teach them. We invest in them.

That’s why it feels profoundly wrong when that life and future proves too fragile. When a husband and wife yearn for a child they can’t have, or suffer a miscarriage, or when their child’s diagnosis is terminal, or their family is broken—it’s deeply disturbing whenever a life full of potential is tragically altered or cut short. The world is cursed with fragility; it makes wombs barren, it ravages health, it poisons relationships, it robs our futures. Death always threatens to end stories.

And so, there’s something redemptive about having children. Even nonbelievers believe in caring for the next generation and striving for a better world for them. Being willing to have children is an act of hope that’s a stubborn defiance against the curse. For all life’s threats and dangers and sadness, the willingness to have children says it’s still worth it, and our story will continue regardless. Children are a reminder that life is precious. Children continue our story. Children are the hope of the future. But most of all, having children points us to the Ultimate Child. Jesus is the Child through whom ultimate redemption comes. We yearn for assurance against the curse of fragility. And Jesus is the child who gives us that assurance.

It reminds me of Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel. Hannah was barren and miserable. She ached and yearned to have a baby. And God granted her prayer! But in our Old Testament reading, something remarkable happens. Rather than keeping Baby Samuel to live with her, Hannah presents him to the Temple where he would dwell forever in service to the Lord. It was an act of faith. Hannah believed that her hope was not in finally having her own child, but in the Child to come. Children are blessings and they are wonderful, but she wasn’t fulfilled by having a baby. Her fulfillment came from the Baby of Bethlehem. The Messiah would be her future. He would be her assurance. He would continue her story.

In our Gospel reading, the Holy Spirit revealed to Simeon that He would not die before he saw the Lord’s Christ. And the day finally came. Like Hannah did so many years before, Mary and Joseph came to present Jesus to the Temple and dedicate Him to the Lord’s service. And that’s where Simeon held that cute, tiny, fragile newborn Jesus in his arms, and he looked down and gazed at that sweet face, Simeon got to look into that baby’s future and peer at the end of the story: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel.” Simeon’s words, the Nunc Dimittis, is a song of assurance. Jesus is how the story ends. Even for all of life’s threats and dangers and sadness, it ends with a happily ever after. This baby is the hope of all humanity, the one who secures a future for all, no matter their circumstances. He is the one who will redeem the suffering of children, the brokenness of families, the incompleteness of our earthly hopes. He is the one who will restore those futures that have been cut short, who will wipe away every tear, who will give fulfillment to the barren.

It’s remarkable, isn’t it? Simeon sees something ordinary, and believes something extraordinary; he sees a baby, yet he believes he sees the Lord Himself. He sees fragility, yet he believes in Divine power. He sees an adorable beginning, yet he believes in an eternal future. Simeon won’t get to see the cross or the empty tomb. But he saw the Baby who would go to it—and that’s the Christian faith. You don’t see the cross with your own eyes, but you hold Jesus in your arms when you eat the Body and Blood that flow from the cross. You don’t see the empty tomb, but you hold Jesus in your arms when you see baby after baby baptized into the resurrection of Jesus and you remember your baptism. You don’t see Jesus teaching on the mountain, but you hold Jesus in your arms when you hear His Word. Our faith is not a faith of wishing or wondering or hoping it’ll all work out. Our faith is a faith of assurance. The salvation Jesus offers is not fragile.

Wanting to have kids is a good thing. Children continue our story, and the Christ Child completes our story. It’s through the gift of children that God does in fact bring about the redemption of all things. Our faith in Jesus is stubborn defiance against the curse. We may face uncertainties, disappointments, and unfulfilled longings, but Jesus is your Child and mine—even for the childless. He completes us, He fulfills us, and He gives us a future. He secures for us an eternal inheritance and a future family that transcends earthly limitations.

At the end of the Gospel reading, the elderly widow, Anna, sees Jesus, and can’t help but share the good news about Him. Anna waited so long worshipping in the Temple night and day and finally got to see the world’s salvation in a cute, tiny bundle of joy. Our world is aching and yearning for redemption. They’re heartbroken and hopeless, and Jesus offers an assurance that the world needs to hear. Jesus is the assurance your family needs to hear, your friends need to hear, our community needs to hear. So, like Anna, let’s speak of Him to all who are waiting for redemption, and tell of the child who really is the hope of the future.