Luke 2:41-52
Christmas 2

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

People often wonder why it is that we don't hear much about Jesus' childhood in the Bible. There are the accounts of his birth, but not much else until His ministry begins at the age of 30. Why the silence for all those intervening years? Well the simple answer is that Scripture includes all that we need to know about Christ for our salvation, and if everything about Jesus' life were written down, the whole world would be filled with the books it would take to do so. We may be curious about what it was like for Joseph and Mary to raise a sinless, perfectly obedient child, where there were no terrible twos, no temper tantrums, no back talk, no refusing to go to bed, no fights with His siblings, no teenage rebellion. But all that we are given by the evangelist Luke is that at the age of twelve Jesus was in the temple with the teachers, listening attentively, asking intelligent questions, amazing them with the depth of His insight.

The silence of the Scriptures about Jesus' childhood indicates that He grew up like any other boy in Nazareth–nothing terribly out of the ordinary. He played with kids in the neighborhood, helped out at home, learned his father's carpentry business, all without the stain of sin. And I think we can actually take comfort in this fact. Jesus lived our ordinary life for us. He was one of us completely so that we would be one of His completely.

Luke summarizes the silent years of Jesus' life this way, "He increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man." Never got into trouble, except for that one time in Jerusalem. But then, that wasn't His fault. For even here at the age of 12, Jesus was being obedient to His heavenly Father, even as He always showed proper obedience and respect for His earthly parents. Christ was obedient so that we who are disobedient might share in His perfect Sonship.

Jesus grew up in the home of pious and faithful parents. Joseph fulfilled his duties as the head of the family and faithfully kept the requirement that every male was to appear at the temple in Jerusalem for the Passover. Mary went with her husband, even though she was not required to go. In Mary and Joseph we have a couple of fine examples of true fatherhood and motherhood–husband and wife helping each other remain faithful, and raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. When Jesus was twelve years old they brought him along to Jerusalem, though ordinarily it was at the age of 13 when a boy took his place with the men of Israel.

Mary and Joseph traveled the ninety miles to Jerusalem in a caravan of friends and relatives from Nazareth. There was greater safety in larger numbers. So it isn't surprising that no one noticed Jesus' absence on the return trip, especially since He was always where He was supposed to be and doing what He was supposed to be doing. Joseph and Mary got a little lax in their supervision. They weren't perfect parents. They took Jesus for granted. It wasn't until they had traveled a full day that they realized Jesus was not with them.

Have you ever done that–taken Jesus for granted and not paid attention to Him like you should? "Yeah, I know all about Jesus and how He died for me and all that." It becomes old news to you and you get lax about it and turn your attention elsewhere as you travel with the crowd. Next thing you know, you've journeyed a long way from your Lord. You've left Him behind in your life. Perhaps the fear has even struck you, "What if there's no way back and we're separated forever?"

The worried parents turned around and hurried back to Jerusalem. They searched up and down the streets and alleyways of Jerusalem, calling out his name, asking people. Finally, on the third day they found Jesus safe and sound in the temple courtyard, sitting quietly with the teachers in the temple, listening attentively and asking the kinds of questions one didn't expect out of a twelve year old kid. Why didn't Mary and Joseph think of looking in the temple first, we wonder? But then how often do we look in church when we are in a panic? When we're distressed or troubled, very often we're busy running around everywhere but the house of God.

The first thing Mary does after finding Jesus in the temple is to chew him out for being missing. "How could you do this to us? Your father and I have been looking all over for you!" It's a typical panicked mother's reaction. Yet Jesus is gentle and respectful to Mary, "Why did you look all over for Me? Don't you know that I have to be among the things of My Father?"

Jesus was obedient first of all to His Father in heaven. His work was to do the will of Him who sent Him. He had to be about His Father's business. That business involved teaching the people the Word of God, and so we are not surprised to learn that even before He reached the age when He would have been acknowledged by the rabbis, Jesus was with the teachers in the temple. A child was instructing His elders. Did they have any idea that they were being taught by God Himself in the unlikely form of a twelve year old boy?

For a brief moment of motherly panic, Mary forgot who Jesus' Father actually was. She said, "Your father and I have sought you anxiously," meaning Joseph, not the Father in heaven, by whose Spirit Jesus had been conceived within her. Forgetting that fact, she looked for Jesus in all the wrong places. Now if that happens so easily with the mother of our Lord, how much more easily does it happen to us? When we panic, when our life is in disarray, when our children are sick or running amuck, when our marriage is on the rocks, or our financial situation is threatened, we often forget who Jesus is. And so we're tempted to search in all the wrong places, in man-centered philosophies and pop psychology and worldly advice. Such things have the appearance of wisdom. But sitting almost unnoticed among these wise doctors and great teachers of our day is the Boy Jesus. He has no credentials, holds no advanced degrees, has no teaching position at a leading university. But don't be fooled by outward appearances. The words that come from Jesus' mouth utterly amaze and surpass the wisdom of the experts. The twelve year old boy in the temple is the Christ and God Almighty. Jesus is still to be found in the temple of His true humanity. Seek Him in His Word and preaching. Look for His help in confession and absolution. Find Him in the supper of His body and blood, given for your forgiveness and healing. Jesus is still about His Father's business, teaching us and comforting us and giving out His gifts of life and deliverance and hope.

Luke says that when the holy family returned to Nazareth, Jesus was ordered under His parents. He was obedient to His father and mother. This was part of His work of keeping the Law perfectly for us. Though He is the Lord of heaven and earth, He does not consider it too low to be obedient to His parents. When Joseph asked him to sweep up the wood shavings in His carpenter's shop, He did that. When Mary asked Him to take out the garbage or help with dinner, He did those things joyfully, lovingly, perfectly. Once again we are reminded the lengths and the depths to which God has gone to reach down to us and to save us. God the Son, the One through whom all things were created, became an adolescent, for you.

By His perfect obedience, Jesus sanctified all obedience to earthly authority as holy work. When we think that our obedience to parents, our leaders in government, our pastor at church, our supervisor at work has no spiritual meaning, we have God in the form of a twelve year old boy to remind us that He is pleased when we honor parents and other authorities. We also become painfully aware of how far we have fallen short of honoring and obeying His representatives as we should, how we don't really like to have authority over us. We must confess that at heart we are rebellious children.

But it is precisely here that Jesus' perfect obedience provides a comfort for us. He became obedient where we are disobedient. He was the perfect child of His parents, the obedient Son of His Father in heaven and His earthly mother. His gives us His perfect obedience as a free gift. It's like having an older brother who never did anything wrong, who takes all the blame for the bad things we do, and who gives us all the credit for what He did.

Jesus was obedient even to the point of death. The cross is woven throughout this episode. It was, after all, the festival of the Passover, the feast in which a lamb was killed, its blood poured out, and its flesh eaten in remembrance of the exodus in which the people of Israel were freed from slavery and death. Twenty-one years later, Jesus would again be in Jerusalem for the Passover, and this time to take His place in the Passover as the Lamb Himself, whose blood is our freedom from slavery to sin and death. His body broken. His blood poured out. Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

For three days Mary would feel the loss of her Son, when He had to be about His Father's business. She would keep all these things that happened in her heart, even though she didn't understand them. Mary surely recalled this day in the temple as she stood at the foot of her Son's cross, and lost Him again, this time to death and the grave, only to receive Him back again on the third day, risen from the dead. Here Jesus said, "Why did you seek me?" Later angels would announce at the tomb, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" Jesus had to be about His Father's business, dying and rising, to save Mary and you and me and the world from the wrath that our sins deserve.

Jesus had been unfairly scolded by His mother in the temple when He was twelve. He had been innocent. He was only doing what His Father in heaven had given Him to do. So it was also on the cross. He was punished for sins that were not His own. And that too was the Father's will: that His sinless Son should become our sin, so that we might stand sinless before God. His perfect obedience means that we are forgiven and that we can now joyfully and confidently be about our Father's business in this new year. Let us eagerly seek the Lord in His house, hearing and receiving His words, treasuring them up in our hearts. And let us grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord, until we finally come to the stature of the fullness of Christ on the Last Day.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

(Some of the above was adapted from a sermon by the Rev. William Cwirla, Hacienda Heights, CA)