2. Sunday of Christmas, 01/02/2011

Sermon on Luke 2:40-52, by John E. Priest

Luke 2:40 And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. 43 And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, 44 but supposing him to be in the group they went a day's journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, 45 and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress." 49 And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" 50 And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. 51 And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

Trip to the City

Here's a good thing. You take your family down to the city to see the Christmas decorations. For good measure you take a few of the neighbors' kids too. You get down there. You gawk at the tree in Rockefeller Center. Other things too. You come back home. This is the good thing: you still have all the kids you left with. You didn't lose a single one. That's a very good thing. Because losing a kid in the crowded city - that's a nightmare, no?

So Joseph and Mary went to the city and lost Jesus in the Passover crowd. Except Jesus wasn't exactly a kid - not any more. At the age of twelve, he was considered a man. Which sounds kind of young to us. But that was a different world, a different time and place. And kids didn't have the luxury of staying kids for long.

Jesus and the Passover Lamb

So Jesus was now a man. Which made this Passover celebration a particularly significant one. Joseph and Mary had been taking him up to Jerusalem every year. But this time, when they went to the temple to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus, for the first time, was able to accompany his guardian father Joseph out of the court of the women and children and into the court of Israel, where only the men could go. And maybe Jesus himself, whom John the Baptist would later identify as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world - maybe it was Jesus, the true Lamb of God, who carried in his arms on behalf of his family the lamb for the Passover sacrifice and presented it to the priest, who took it away to the altar to slaughter it and then returned with the meat for the family Passover meal.

If so, it would be a delicious irony. For Jesus, some twenty-one years later, less than a week before he was crucified, would enter the temple precincts again - this time with a whip, which he used to drive the animals for the sacrifices out of there. "No more of this," he was saying. His sacrifice would take the place of all that.

So maybe Jesus would have as little to do with the animal sacrifices at the age of twelve as he did at the age of thirty-three. We simply don't know. What we do know is that Jesus, the twelve year old, took to those who were teaching in the temple and, when it was time to go back home to Nazareth, he decided to stay in Jerusalem instead to spend more time with them. St. Luke tells us he listened to them and asked them questions.

Whose Son Is He?

Jesus was very good at asking questions. Take for instance the time - now we're back to the thirty-three year old Jesus - take for instance the time, this was right before the Passover when he was crucified, when Jesus asked the teachers in the temple a good one. "What do you think of the Messiah, the Christ? Whose son is he?" The teachers gave Jesus the standard answer. "The son of David," they said. "Well then," said Jesus, "how is it that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him Lord?" At which point Jesus quoted Psalm 110, a psalm of David, which says: "The Lord (that would be God) said to my Lord (that would be the Messiah, the Christ): sit at my right hand till I put your enemies under your feet." And then Jesus asked another question to drive the point home: "if David thus calls him Lord, how is he his son?"

That one stumped the temple teachers. But Jesus' point was clear - that he (the Messiah, the Christ) had to be more than the son of David. Indeed that he was the Son of God.

But back to the story at hand - the one about the twelve year old Jesus.

Once Joseph and Mary figured out he wasn't where he was supposed to be (at least not where they thought he was supposed to be), they looked for him frantically for three whole days, at the end of which "they found him in the temple, sitting amongst the teachers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished." Mary in her distress said to him: "Son (she called him son), what are you doing here?" And Jesus said: "didn't you know I must be in my Father's house?"

And there you have it again. Jesus calls the temple, which is God's house, his Father's house. Which would make God his Father and he his Son. Which of course is who he was. And if you've been following the Christmas story from the very start, that will come as no surprise to you, that Jesus is God's Son.

Not Understanding

But still there is a surprise here. The surprise of the story is that Joseph and Mary didn't get it. As Luke puts it, they did not understand what he said to them.

Now here's a question for you. Who could have possibly been in a better position to understand this than Joseph and Mary? For one thing, they knew the extraordinary circumstances of Jesus' birth, not the least of which was that Mary was a virgin when she conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit. They'd heard the messages of angels, shepherds, wise men, and prophets about who Jesus really was, that he was the Son of God.

But you know what? It's easy to lose perspective on things like this after you've changed a couple hundred diapers and watched your baby crawl, then take his first faltering steps. After you've schooled him in his aleph, beth, gimels (the Hebrew equivalents of our a b c's), and chuckled over his first feeble attempts to make something with hammer and saw in the carpenter's shop, and helping him out with the Bible memory verses the rabbi assigned, who else could Jesus be but your son? Your son - not God's. Twelve years had gone by since Jesus was born. And things weren't as crystal clear as once they might have been.

We know how it feels. The eyes of faith can grow dim. The vision of faith gets blurred. As time goes by our faith is tested and tried. Life gets the better of us. And it can be easy - oh, so easy - to lose your grip on God. We look around us and can't help but notice that there's not a whole lot of that peace on earth and good will amongst men the Christmas angels sang about. Families fall apart. People we love get sick. Accidents happen. People die. And things don't seem as crystal clear as once they were.

And what do you do when it happens to you? What do you do?

Finding Jesus

Well - like Joseph and Mary, you can find Jesus when you've lost him. And where? Where is he? In the same place Joseph and Mary found him: his Father's house.

For us, his Father's house is here - this place. Not because this building is special, even though it ought to be for us. Not even because the people who come here are special, even though they are. No - we can find Jesus here because of his promise to be here for us.

We find him here by listening to his Word, by paying attention to what he has to say to us through the Holy Scriptures, through the words of his preachers, through the Holy Sacraments. We should learn this lesson well! When we're losing our grip on Jesus and on our Christian faith, this is the place to come.

When Jesus was twelve years old, he astonished the teachers in the temple. We should be no less astonished today.

Does it not absolutely astonish you that Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem - for you? Is it not even more astonishing that this same Jesus died for you? And is not the most astonishing thing of all that he is risen from the dead and lives - for you? This is true. It's wisdom from above. And by the grace of God and the power of his Holy Spirit, you can believe it, that he is your Savior and your Lord.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Rev. John E. Priest
Delhi, NY

E-Mail: jpriest2@stny.rr.com

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