Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray.
Oh Lord, send forth your word into our ears that it may bear fruit in our lives in Jesus’ name. Amen. Today’s gospel reading tells us of the child Jesus.
Mary and Joseph had returned to their hometown of Nazareth where the child grew. He became strong and filled with wisdom and the favor of God was upon him. This is the second time Luke has said the favor of God was on someone in his gospel.
The first was when the angel Gabriel visited the virgin Mary. Greetings, oh favored one, he said. The Lord is with you.
And the angel told her, do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. And in both cases, to be favored by God means to be someone that has God’s special attention, someone who has been chosen to fulfill a task from on high. And for Mary, that meant being mother of the word made flesh.
For Jesus, it will mean fulfilling the vocation of Messiah, which is why what happens next should not surprise us. We don’t get many stories about the childhood of Jesus. Matthew tells us the family fled to Egypt to escape Herod.
Luke tells us of the infant Jesus in the temple. And it tells us the story, this story, the only biblical account of Jesus between his birth in Bethlehem, between his revealing as Messiah when he was grown. So, what is it about this story that made Luke consider it worth including in his gospel? Let’s take a closer look.
First, he tells us that Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem every year for the Feast of Passover. Passover was one of the three pilgrim feasts, feasts where Israelite men were expected to go to Jerusalem. Women and children were not expected to attend.
The fact that Mary and Jesus went with Joseph tells us something about their faithfulness, their devotion as a family. Now, when Jesus was 12 years old, Luke says, they went up to Jerusalem according to custom, their family’s custom. It means that Jesus had probably gone up with them before that too, probably every year.
But this would be the last time Jesus attended Passover as a child. See, 13 was the normal age when a Hebrew boy would come become responsible before God on his own. That’s a tradition that continues even to this day with the celebration of the bar mitzvah.
At 12 years old, Jesus was still considered a child according to the law of Moses, but he was a child old enough to be allowed some independence, especially in a setting where he was so familiar with. Now, when the feast was ended, as Mary and Joseph were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind. Families and villages often caravanned to the pilgrim feasts.
So, it’s not strange, it’s not even negligent that Mary and Joseph didn’t know Jesus had stayed behind. They simply assumed he was with family, traveling in a different part of the caravan. And it wasn’t until that evening, probably about dinnertime, when everyone went to his or her own tent to eat, wasn’t until then that they realized he wasn’t there.
They began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances. And when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem as any responsible parents would. We’re not told where they looked.
We’re not told who they asked for help. All we know that is within three days, they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them, and asking them questions. Even as a child, Jesus shows the strong desire to be around the things of the Lord.
And more than that, even as a child, Jesus shows himself to be one who speaks clearly the truth of God’s word. For all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and at his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished.
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. The Greek word translated as distress is the word adonao. It’s the same word that Luke uses to describe the experience of the rich man in torment, while the beggar Lazarus is taken by the angels to Abraham’s side.
Mary and Joseph have been in torment, in anguish, looking for Jesus. But he says to them, why? Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house? Now, the word house isn’t in the Greek text. A more literal translation would be, did you not know that I must be in the things of my father? And since it’s a question that’s asked in such a way that Jesus expects the answer yes, it might be even better understood as, why were you looking for me? You knew I was going to be doing the things of my father, right? That question is the key.
We might wonder if his question reminded Mary of his divine mission, the fact that what was conceived in her was from the Holy Spirit, that Jesus his true father was in heaven. You might wonder if Mary maybe needed the reminder. Maybe 12 years of diaper changes, making dinner, the simple act of parenting in elementary, and a middle school-aged son, along with all the brothers and sisters, maybe she had been distracted from what this boy’s future held.
Whatever was or wasn’t going on in Mary’s head, Luke tells us that she and Joseph did not understand what they saw. They did not understand the things that Jesus said to them, and so Jesus went down with them to Nazareth. He was submissive to them, and his mother treasured up all these things in her heart just like she had the night of his birth.
And there we have it. The only story the entire New Testament gives us about the child Jesus, and I think we see in it one of our great struggles. You see, we’re told Luke set out to write an orderly account of the life of Jesus, and I think he includes this episode because he felt that this story best represents the entire childhood of Jesus.
Mark and John don’t bother with the childhood of Jesus at all, and Matthew skips from the infant Jesus to the man Jesus. But Luke? Luke shows us a boy who fulfills the words spoken by the prophet Isaiah. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him.
He had no beauty that we should desire him. There was nothing about him that screamed Messiah or divinity. Look at me, I’m the son of God.
He seemed like a normal kid to everyone who knew him, and it seems that this normalcy clouded Mary’s memory about who Jesus is. And I think that’s the point, because I think that temptation still exists for us today. The routine matters of day-to-day living cloud our memory and blind us to reality.
The truth of our existence is that we are involved in a cosmic struggle, and we do not battle against flesh and blood, but against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly places. The truth of our existence is that we are not our own. We have been bought with a price.
The truth of our existence is that each of us can say in our baptism, I no longer live, Christ lives in me. But the truth of our existence is also that the laundry has to get done. Dinner has to get made.
It’s about time to start filling out those tax forms again. The monthly bills are due. The backyard needs some attention.
The car needs an oil change. The truth of our existence is that normalcy can blind us to the spiritual realities that surround us. And so, we return to this place.
We return weekly to the house of our Lord, to the things of our Lord, to be reminded who we are. And when we encounter Jesus in this place, we are reminded of what is truly real. We kneel in confession, reminded of our reality, that we are by nature sinful and unclean, that we sin in thought, word, and deed by what we do, by what we leave undone.
And we hear our Lord’s word of forgiveness. We hear his word of restoration. And as the forgiven people of God, we cry to him for mercy.
We sing his praise. We hear his word. We come to him in prayer for the whole people of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs.
We come at his invitation to his table to feast on the body and blood of our Savior that forgives our sins, that makes us whole. And then we depart in peace, leaving this place in our Lord’s name, refreshed by his gifts for a life of faith toward him and fervent love toward one another. The liturgy breaks into the routine of our daily distractions, reminds us who we are.
The temptation is normalcy and simplicity. The solution is normalcy and simplicity. In this place, our Lord breaks into the day-to-day of our lives and brings heaven to his people in simple ways, through simple words, through simple means.
And then he goes with us from this place back into our daily lives, into our vocations, where we live as his hands and his feet, as he provides for others through us. We live each day working for the Lord, not just for men. Empowered and enlivened by the simple gifts he gives us here, we live as his people, still living in the day-to-day, still paying the bills and folding the clothes, but not blinded by it, not distracted by it, not assuming that our Lord is somehow absent from it, but rejoicing that these are the very tasks for which he has made us his own people.
It’s no accident that the only time the New Testament Mary can’t find the child Jesus, he’s in the temple. He’s in his father’s house about his father’s business, because that’s where we find him too. He is here for you today, and he will leave here with you today, just as he left the temple with Mary and Joseph, to sanctify your home with his presence.
And then he calls us back next week, the week after that, and the week after that. He calls us from the things of this world back to his gifts, calls us back to himself. No, Jesus is not lost.
There’s no need to go looking for him. You know he’s doing the things the Father sent him to do, right? He’s forgiving you. He’s restoring you.
He’s loving you. He’s advocating for you. He is your Lord, and he is here for you, so find your comfort in him.
In Jesus’ name, amen.