The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, The Love of God, and The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
The Gospel, Luke 2:40The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. 41Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. 42And when He became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the Feast; 43and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it, 44but supposed Him to be in the caravan, and went a day’s journey; and they began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances. 45When they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for Him. 46Then, after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. 47And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers. 48When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.” 49And He said to them, “Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” 50But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them. 51And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
(NASB)
In last week’s sermon, I pointed out that in the first forty days after Jesus’s birth, Jesus had participated in five Sabbaths, and was carried twice to the temple. The first trip was to be circumcised on the eight day. The second trip on the fortieth day was for three different but connected purposes. Purification, redemption, and presentation. In so doing He was fulfilling the law and doing the will of His Father.
As an infant of course, Jesus was doing this through the agency of His mother-Mary and His legal father–Joseph. This was done in the same kind of way that we bring our infant children to the baptismal font to be baptized. We speak in the stead of our children, but that does not in any way diminish the efficacy of God’s promises toward our children.
This morning’s lesson takes place 12 years later and in the same place–the temple. This time He’s learning, discussing, and debating the Word of God with Israel’s most prestigious rabbis. This time He is in the temple engaged in His Father’s business by His own agency because as He said, He “had to be in My [His] Father’s house.”
The Bible contains only five stories from Jesus’s youth. The first is His nativity. The second is His circumcision. The third is the second trip to the temple for His presentation. The fourth was His flight into Egypt when Jesus was a toddler. The fifth story is the one before us this morning.
All of these accounts have a common theme. They demonstrate that as an infant and as a boy, Jesus was all about His Father’s business, His Father’s house, and the business of fulfilling the Law. Even the flight to and from Egypt was a fulfillment what was written by the prophet Hosea (11:1) “When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son.”
Nazareth is about 70 miles north and a little east of Jerusalem. That’s about a three or four day walk. Verse 41-42 says, “Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when He became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the Feast.” At 70 miles away the trip was quite manageable and made it relatively easy to comply with the required trip to Passover in Jerusalem every year.
It was Jesus’s twelfth Passover, but this Passover was particularly important to Jesus and His family. Up to the age of 12 a Jewish boy was called “little.” He was considered a little boy and under the agency of his parents. After 12 he was called “grown up,” and became a “Son of the Law,” or “Son of the Precepts.” Attaining the age of 12 was a milestone for a Jewish boy. Think of this as a type of confirmation where the 12 year old is recognized as his or her own agent in regard to their own religious faith. This is Jesus’s first trip to the temple after having attained the age of agency.
Joseph, Mary, and Jesus set out from Nazareth with a caravan made up of family and friends. This was the safest way to travel, like the old wagon trains in the American west. There is strength in numbers. They were less likely to be robbed and attacked if people traveled together in sufficient numbers.
Once in Jerusalem we are told that they stayed “the full number of days.” They stayed the entire week, probably visited the temple every day before enjoying the other activities Jerusalem had to offer. Once Passover was over they headed for home with the caravan. After about 20 miles out from Jerusalem and near the end of the first day of travel, Mary and Joseph realized that Jesus wasn’t with the caravan. They assumed He had been hanging out with other family members or friends. They were wrong.
They immediately headed back to Jerusalem in a panic state. For three days they looked all over the city. They went to all the places they thought a 12 year would be. On the third day, the Son they thought they had lost was found. Three days lost so Mary thought. That was not the last time she would think that. 46 “After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.”
Two things to note in particular. First, they found Him in the temple. Never have I received a phone call from a parent telling me that their son or daughter had turned up missing and asking if he or she had made their way over to the church to work on their confirmation or Sunday school material.
Mary and Joseph didn’t think to look at the church either, but eventually they ran out of ideas and tried the last place a 12 year old would be. But when it came to spiritual things, the Law, and the will of His heavenly Father, Jesus was not a normal son. Mary and Joseph were normal parents so when Jesus turned up missing they reacted in normal ways. They feared for Jesus and for themselves.
Second, they found Jesus in the temple they found Him sitting in the midst of the teachers. In the culture of the day teachers sat and disciples stood. The fact that Jesus was sitting among the teachers meant that they had come to look at Him as a thinker and teacher in His own right. Luke wrote that “All who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers.”
Now you might be tempted to say something like, “Of course Jesus was good at theology, dividing Law and Gospel, and the Old Testament scrolls. He’s God. He was the Word of God through whom all things were made. He is the Word that was revealed to the prophets. He was the inspiration for what was written and handed down. His divine nature knows all things.
But that is not how it was. Remember verse 40? “The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.” From His conception in the womb until His friends laid Him in the tomb Jesus was in a state of humility. This means that during His earthly ministry Jesus did not use His divine powers for His own advantage. He used His divine power for the sake of others . . . healing, control over demons, and raising the dead. But in regard to Himself, He didn’t take any short cuts. This includes His education. Jesus had to learn and grow in the same fashion as the rest of us. He had to learn through study, experience, observation, and practice. He learned Scriptures and theology the same way everyone else did, but with a heart, mind, soul, and strength untouched by sin.
Jesus took “The Great Shema” Deuteronomy 6:4-8 to heart. “Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! 5 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 And you shall repeat them diligently to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.” Jesus was in the temple engraving the words of Holy Scripture on his heart and embedding them in His minds.
We are like Mary and Joseph. We look for Jesus in all the wrong places. Instead of looking where He said He had to be, in His Father’s house, the church, we look to earthly security, wealth, power, popularity, feelings, circumstances, and so forth. We don’t look to Bible verses right translated, interpreted, and applied.
When Mary and Joseph found Jesus they were concerned about what Jesus’s devotion to God’s Word had caused them. “Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.” The Greek word Mary used to describe their state of mind. It means “to cause or suffer pain:– agony, and grieving.” Mary and Joseph were beside themselves at the loss of the their Son. They feared for him and they feared for themselves.
Pretty normal response of parents when a child turns up missing. What wasn’t normal was Jesus’s response. “Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?’ But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them.”
Jesus basically said, “If you really knew and understood me, the temple would have been the first place you looked.” Also included in the statement is the truth that His heavenly Father would protect and keep Him safe, His theological education was essential to the work, and His hour had not yet come.
This is the first time we see that Jesus not only fulfills the letter of the law but the spirit as well by His own agency. Here we see Jesus fulfilling the Third Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it holy.” What does this mean, “We are to fear and love God so that we do not despise the preaching and teaching of His Word, but hold it sacred, gladly hear it and learn it.”
Jesus studied and learned the Word of God because He loved His heavenly Father. He loved the Word. He loved to worship, which He did in Spirit and Truth. To worship in Spirit and truth means to worship in truth faith and love. To worship in truth means to worship without error.
For us paying attention to what is written in the Bible is tedious. For Jesus it was enlightenment and a great joy. For us obedience especially to God, is a hard thing and brings displeasure and guilt. For Jesus obedience to His heavenly Father was His deepest desire, even when that obedience took Him to the cross.
Jesus was all about fulfilling the Law in our stead, especially about the first table of the Law. Jesus never had any other God than God His heavenly Father. The devil in the wilderness temptations tried to get Jesus to trust in something else other than God the Father, but Jesus was about His Father’s house.
Jesus rightly invoked and spoke in God’s name calling upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks. That’s the 2nd Commandment. Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy. Every Sabbath, every major festival, and every Passover. In fact every day was kept holy by Christ Jesus because He held the preaching and teaching of God’s Word sacred and gladly heard and learned it.
“Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” These are the first recorded words of Jesus in the Bible. “I had to be in My Father’s house.”
We all too often are not in our Father’s house and about our Father’s business. The first order of business is learning the Word. We are easily misled, misled by our feelings and various ideas that have nothing to do with the will and teaching of God in the Bible. Christians in the 20th and 21st centuries have grown very lax in regard to their Father’s house, the church, as is evident every Sunday.
But regardless of the number of congregants, Jesus is always found in His Father’s house doing His and His Father’s business. He is here in His Word and in the sacraments. He is here going about the business of forgiving sins. By virtue of the Holy Spirit, He dwells in the hearts and minds of His brothers and sisters making sure that the will of our heavenly Father is accomplished in you so that you will dwell in the house of our Father forever.
AMEN.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.