Sermon text: Luke 2:41–52
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
In 2015, the Geico company debuted a series of commercials with the tagline, “This is what Geico does.” The setting of this particular commercial was a class reunion, and one of the attendees was Peter Pan, who was still portrayed as a 12-year-old boy who had never grown up. His classmates, though, have aged naturally. They’re all now in their upper 60s. And as the 12-year-old boy, Peter is still young, immature, disrespectful, and kind of a smart aleck fellow. He tricks one man into going for a high five and then pokes him in the belly. He says to a woman who appears to be about 67 years old that she doesn’t look a day over 70. Though decades have passed, Peter remains a 12-year-old boy: young, immature, disrespectful, and smart aleck. Why? Because that’s what Peter does.
In this morning’s Gospel lesson, a 12-year-old boy named Jesus returns to the temple again, year after year. But this time, His interaction may come off as rather disrespectful and a bit smart aleck toward His own parents. In verses 41 and 42, they tell us that the parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when He, Jesus, was 12 years old — it was the custom at the age of 12 to take the son to the temple, to Jerusalem, to Passover, to celebrate and to become a part of the adult community — and so they went up according to the custom.
The text tells us, while at the festival, it appears that everything went for the week as normal. The Passover festival lasted anywhere from 7 to about 10 days, depending on what other festival was tagged on behind it. So while they were there, there was no report of any problem, any conflict of any kind. While in Jerusalem, everything was going pretty much as normal as usual — at least up until the time that they decided to head home in a caravan. Verse 43: “And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it.”
As the caravan headed back to Nazareth, with Mary and Joseph in it, Joseph and Mary soon learned that Jesus was not in the caravan. They had assumed for a full day He was there, hanging out with other kinfolk and with other acquaintances and friends. But at the end of the day, it was obvious that the young boy, 12 years old, was not in the caravan. He hadn’t bothered to tell His parents He was staying behind to talk theology to the teachers and rabbis and priests of the temple in Jerusalem.
So when His parents discovered that Jesus was missing from the caravan, they quickly returned to Jerusalem and frantically searched for Him all over the place. They probably went to all the other places that 12-year-old boys would have gone to: all of the amusement and fun and the like. But they looked, and they found Him nowhere. Then it finally occurred to them, after a couple of days, to go look at the temple for Him. There they found Jesus in the first place they should have looked at. After all, there they found Him standing among the rabbis and the teachers: a 12-year-old boy hanging out in the church, discussing Old Testament history and Old Testament theology with the pastors and the teachers. It’s obvious. Why wouldn’t they think of looking for a 12-year-old boy in the church? He’s got to be there. It’s what He does. Right?
Verse 47: “And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” That’s a little deceptive, by the way, in the English translation. Literally, those hearing Jesus were being amazed at His intelligence and His answers. That’s really what the text says. This doesn’t mean that He was responding to questions as if He was in error and had to be corrected. It means that a 12-year-old boy was coming to solid, concrete conclusions about biblical passages and Old Testament events, and doing so through a lens of the law and the gospel of the Messiah. In fact, they found it difficult — the Greek implies — for the rabbis in the temple to contend with His reasoning. They were amazed at His arguments.
Over the years, Jesus and His family had come often to the temple, where Jesus regularly heard the word of God and learned from it. The nouns “understanding” and “answers” are products of gladly hearing and learning the word of God. That is, they are products of Him obeying and heeding the Third Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” — that we are not to despise the word of God, but rather we are to gladly hear it and in fact learn it, not hear it and forget it. They were a part of keeping the Third Commandment. And from His birth, He kept all the commandments. Even Jesus underwent catechesis — only in the form of the Old Testament way of doing the things. Paul wrote to the Colossians that the fullness, the full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, is Christ. That is, He’s reading about Himself: His own person and the work that He has come to do in the world. Paul wrote to Timothy, “The Lord will give you understanding in everything.” And thus this 12-year-old boy was well on His way to having an understanding of everything.
But here, at the age of 12, Jesus was surpassing everyone in both knowledge and wisdom of God’s word. He even caught His own parents off guard. Verse 48: “And when his parents saw him, they were astonished.” They were amazed. How did He learn such things? Literally, they were struck out of their minds. It seemed incomprehensible that a 12-year-old boy could have such a deep theological conversation with the teachers and scholars of the nation. But He did.
And as brilliant as her son was, Mary didn’t think it was very smart for Him to go missing, and she wasn’t very happy about it. So she says, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” That’s the translation of the English Standard Version. The “great distress” really means anguish — excuse me, anguish. And it’s the same word that’s used eventually when Jesus tells the story of Lazarus and Abraham’s bosom, and how the evil man was languishing in agony and anguish in hell while the descendants of Abraham were in his bosom.
And watch Jesus’s reply to His parents’ anguish. Does He say, “Mom, Dad, I’m so sorry. I should have told you what I was doing and where I would be”? Does He lie or blame it on them for leaving Him behind? “It’s your fault after all. You left without me. I got lost, and you just left me in Jerusalem all alone, so I came to the only place that I knew.” Instead of doing what children do, which is blame it on somebody else, including the parents, He says instead: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
At first glance, it sounds a little disrespectful, a little smart aleck, doesn’t it? He blames the parents for not knowing where He’s at. It’s all their fault. But we’re talking about Jesus. Jesus was never disrespectful to His parents. Verse 51 of our text tells us He returned home with them and was submissive to them. And far from being disrespectful, Jesus, we’re told, was filled with wisdom and understanding far beyond His years — a wisdom which, in fact, He was using and putting on display in the temple before the scholars of the day.
That’s why Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. He had work to do in the temple. He had work persuading the teachers of the nation the difference between the law and the gospel of the Messiah. He had a higher priority to attend to. He understood something His parents didn’t: He had a higher allegiance that even outranked devotion to His mother and His father. Jesus said He had higher things to be concerned with. And what were those things? He simply summarized them as “the things of my Father.”
Most translations will translate the phrase this way: “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s house?” There are other translations that say “about my Father’s business.” “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” Both of those translations are okay. Both of them are trying to get across what the Greek actually says, which is literally, “Do you not know that I must be in or among the things of my Father?” That is, the things of the temple: the word of God, the rites and rituals that God had established as part of the worship of the people of Israel and part of the fabric of the daily life of the temple. In this context, for Jesus to be about His Father’s business meant being about His Father’s house. That is, actually going to church and engaging in the word of God.
However you translate it, Jesus was busy being about the things of His Father, in His Father’s house. For Jesus, it’s necessary always to be about the things of His Father. And what are the things of His Father? They are the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. And if Jesus is going to fulfill the Old Testament promises, He must first know what the Old Testament promises are. Jesus would suffer for sin and rise as a guarantee of the forgiveness of sins. Those are the things of His Father.
This is the first instance where Jesus speaks of His work as absolutely necessary to salvation. The last instance is in the Gospel of Luke, and it comes after the resurrection, when the crucified and living Jesus says to His disciples that it was necessary for Him to fulfill the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Thus He then opened their minds, the disciples’ minds, to understand the scriptures. He had first come to understand the scripture and worship, in order for Him to fulfill the promises made on His behalf by His heavenly Father.
The first and highest priority — so also, by the way, for every congregation that considers itself to be Christian — was and continues to be the necessary work of the forgiveness of sins and the granting of access to eternal life. That’s what a church fundamentally is about. All the other stuff is secondary. The first priority is the gospel: the law and gospel of the LORD God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus respected His earthly father and mother, and He was submissive to them when and where He could be. But He had a higher loyalty, a higher duty. Jesus is the very Son of God come in the flesh, and come on a mission to do one thing and one thing only: the will of His heavenly Father. Which sometimes meant doing something that outranks the will of Joseph and Mary.
On another occasion later on, Jesus was in a house where people were listening to Him preach and teach the word of God, the Old Testament, correctly. His mother and brothers came to Him and wanted Him out of the house. They were being embarrassed by Him, by His claims and His explanation of the scriptures to the masses. Somebody came in and told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And Jesus said, “Who are my mother and my brothers? Those who do the will of my heavenly Father are my mother and my brothers and my sisters.”
Even in an ordinary house, Jesus was about the things of His heavenly Father, which always outranked His human family and what they wanted. Jesus had a higher calling, and Mary and Joseph needed to be taught that. Jesus’s response was not disrespectful. It was instructive to Mary and Joseph and all of us: that not all callings are of equal value. That the one that is the most important to the Christian is fidelity, faithfulness to the word of God and to proper, God-pleasing worship. We are to honor our fathers and our mothers, but we are to honor more the one true God, and His will and ways are always above all else.
On this particular occasion, staying behind in the temple, Jesus offers an authoritative way of reminding His parents — and us — of this fundamental truth: that for the believer, it is the will of the heavenly Father that is primary. No matter how life may turn for you, the one constant obligation for you is to do the will of your Father. And what is the will of your Father? To believe in Him who came to save you from your sin and deliver you to everlasting life.
Mary would remember the higher calling when she needed it most. Yep, Mary did, by the way, know from the time that the angel Gabriel announced to her that she’d give birth to the Messiah — Mary knew something was going to be different. But from time to time, she had to be reminded of the same. She had to be reminded of her son’s higher calling: not to serve her will, but to serve the one who sent Him into the world. When Jesus was just 40 days old, Simeon told Mary that her child would be spoken against in Israel, and that she would experience a sword that would pierce to the deepness of her soul. Yet Mary treasured all the things she heard — good and bad — about the future of her son in her heart and pondered them in amazement.
Jesus was always about the things of His Father. During His earthly ministry, He told the disciples that He was going to go up to Jerusalem. There He’d be arrested, He’d be tried, and He’d be murdered. And Peter said, “No, no, Lord, that shall never happen to you.” But Jesus rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
For 12 years — at 12 years old — Jesus is about the things of His Father. And that meant staying in Jerusalem to teach in the temple and demonstrate to them the wisdom and right understanding of the Holy Scriptures. Later on, being about the things of His Father meant He’d go to Jerusalem, and He’d go to the cross, and He’d do the will of His Father and accomplish the salvation of all mankind, and be raised up on the third day.
God’s law, which young Jesus was properly explaining in the temple, exposes everyone — even the great rabbis of Jerusalem — to the fact that they were not good men, but that they were sinners in need of a salvation. We have not loved God with our whole heart. We’ve not loved our neighbors as ourselves. As the text says, you can’t justify yourself in the mirror of the law. It only condemns us. We need a different kind of righteousness: the kind of righteousness Jesus came to give you, a righteousness that passes the test of God’s law. And that’s only found in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which He imputes to you.
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and the temple demonstrates all three of those things: the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through Him. Through Christ, you have a heavenly Father who cares for you in all of your, quote, “great distress,” or your anguish and peril. You have a Father who hears your prayers through all difficulties, both in good times and in bad — especially the difficulty called death.
This place — the place you are now sitting in — is where Jesus carries on His business of saving. This is the house of God. In this place, you should find the things of God. This is where the things of God are taking place. Here Christ is absolving you from your guilt, declaring you free and forgiven. Here is where Christ is preaching His word and teaching you the same, helping you grow in your understanding of the gospel truth and of your Savior Jesus Christ. Here is where Jesus gives you His very body and blood, given and shed for you for the remission of your sins, for the strengthening of your faith: faith both toward God and in fervent love toward one another. Yes, this is the house of God, and Jesus is here doing His thing. That is, the things of His heavenly Father. Jesus is here in the house, about His Father’s business. And we’re open for business all year long.
If you’re Peter Pan, you stay childish and smart aleck forever. It’s what you do. If you’re Christ Jesus, you do the will of your Father. It’s what He does. For you, in your stand, He was doing it at 12 years old in the temple. He’s doing it now, for He died and rose for your salvation. And He’s doing it here in 2025, here in the house of God, because that’s what He does. Amen.
May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.