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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Inquiring minds want to know! Inquiring minds want to know more about Jesus when He was a child. And, sometimes the sources such inquiring minds use for their inquiry are no better than The National Enquirer whose catchphrase apparently gave us the expression “Inquiring minds want to know”. The Holy Gospel accounts’ simple depictions of the child Jesus, such as that in today’s Gospel Reading, soon were not enough. Other writings soon surfaced, some influenced by Greek mythology and others by Hindu philosophy. At the time of the Reformation, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther criticized a then recent book about Jesus’s childhood, saying that it should have been burned! Fanciful interest in Jesus’s childhood can miss that the Gospel accounts are not mere biography. Today’s Gospel Reading is not primarily about a glimpse of Jesus’s childhood but about how and where to seek and to find Jesus. This morning we consider that Gospel Reading under the theme “Wisely seeking Jesus in His Father’s things”.
The Gospel Reading for today, the Second Sunday after Christmas, primarily tells us of the 12-year-old child Jesus in the Temple. Different series of Readings appoint this particular Reading for different days, such as for the First Sunday after Epiphany. But, in some ways this particular Reading does seem to fit best on the Second Sunday after Christmas, an observance, regrettably, whose occurrence in any given year depends on what day of the week Christmas falls. This year, we have the Reading of the 12-year-old child Jesus in the Temple after last week’s account of the little child Jesus’s call out of Egypt and before next week’s account of the man Jesus’s baptism.
This account of the 12-year-old child Jesus in the Temple is about how and where to seek and to find Jesus. As we heard the account, it was bookended, as it were, by two summaries of Jesus’s growth, both seemingly modeled after similar summaries of other figures in the Old Testament (for example, those of Samson [Judges 13:24] and Samuel [1 Samuel 2:26]). Both growth summaries in today’s Gospel Reading emphasize Jesus’s wisdom. Jesus’s wisdom and understanding are especially contrasted in the Reading with that of the Virgin Mary, Jesus’s mother, and that of Joseph, Jesus’s adoptive father and guardian. His “parents”, as the Reading calls them, rightly observed the liturgical year and included the child Jesus in their worship of God. Yet, they somehow managed to be ignorant of the boy Jesus’s staying behind in Jerusalem, and they wrongly supposed Him to be in the group of relatives and acquaintances travelling together. Even when they returned to Jerusalem, they apparently did not at first look for Him in the Temple. Once they found Him there, His mother’s questions to Him elicited Jesus’s first words recorded in St. Luke’s account, which words remind them Who He is as the Son of God and where He is to be found. His parents should have been “Wisely seeking Jesus in His Father’s things”.
Some religious traditions and individuals too much exalt the Virgin Mary, and today’s Gospel Reading can be a good corrective for that and for our own pride. The Virgin Mary and Joseph foolishly did not keep track of Jesus as they should have, made wrong assumptions about where He was, did not know where to look for Him, complained about their distress in searching for Him, and did not understand that which He spoke to them. They were not “Wisely seeking Jesus in His Father’s things”. Are we “Wisely seeking Jesus in His Father’s things”? Yes, those of us here this morning are at least here this morning, but are we here genuinely seeking Jesus? Are we willing to find Jesus even in things in which we do not expect to find Him, such as in the distresses we experience in our lives? Do we confess our lack of understanding and all our sin?
By nature, we do not understand those things that pertain to the salvation that we so desperately need from the temporal and eternal death we deserve on account of our sin. But, God calls and enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. When we “Wisely seek Jesus in His Father’s things”, then God saves us for the sake of His and Mary’s Son.
In the Gospel Reading, when the Virgin Mary speaks to Jesus, she addresses Him not as “Son”, as we heard from the English Standard Version, but with a word for “child” that emphasizes the physical and other outward aspects of His parentage, and she refers to Joseph as Jesus’s father. While she was, in fact, Jesus’s mother, Joseph was not Jesus’s father, and Jesus makes that clear in His answer to her questions. If Jesus were not the Son of God by the Virgin Mary, His answer to her would not be able to be understood! So much did some copyists of St. Luke’s Gospel account want to protect the teaching of the virgin birth, that instead of copying the word “parents” they wrote their names, Mary and Joseph. This Son of God by the Virgin Mary was Wisdom in the flesh, yet He is said to have increased in wisdom. According to His human nature, He manifested more and more of the wisdom He possessed according to His divine nature. On the basis of that union of the two natures in the person of Jesus Christ, He showed forth His divine majesty when and how He wanted to, even when as man He did not always or fully use His divine powers. The twelve‑year‑old Jesus knew Who He was. And, in going up to Jerusalem, in completing the Passover, in being found after three days, and in speaking of divine necessity, He anticipates the only other trip to Jerusalem for the Passover that St. Luke reports, when He as the true Passover Lamb would suffer and die on the cross and rise on the third day, in order to save you and me. And, that death and resurrection could only benefit us because Jesus was both God and man. As we heard St. Paul by divine‑inspiration write in today’s Epistle Reading (Ephesians 1:3-14), through Jesus’s blood we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sin, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us.
As we heard the Gospel Reading this morning from the English Standard Version, Jesus asked the Virgin Mary and Joseph, “Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” The word “house” does not appear in St. Luke’s divinely‑inspired Greek text, and there is some debate about the translation. The King James Version, for example, translates “about my Father’s business”, while the New American Standard Bible offers the alternative “in the things of My Father”. (The LCMS’s William Beck’s American Translation has it both ways: “concerned about My Father’s affairs here in His house”.) What Jesus says seems to be richer and deeper than simply the place where they found Him. Jesus is to be found in His Father’s things. So, we wisely seek Jesus in—and the forgiveness we so desperately need from—His Father’s things.
The author of today’s Opening Hymn (LSB #589), Anna Sophia, was a 17th‑century countess of Hesse-Darmstadt, who at the age of 18 became the prioress and later was the abbess of a Lutheran convent. There, as she suffered frequent asthma attacks and struggled to remain in Christ, she composed hymns reflecting both her innermost struggles and her thorough grounding in Holy Scripture and the church fathers. The preciousness of God’s Word for all of our lives as Christians is beautifully exhibited in her hymn. For example, the end of the second stanza, as we have it translated: “to all who feel sin’s burden / You give words of peace and pardon.” The preaching of the Gospel and individual Absolution truly are such “words of peace and pardon”, things of the Father in which we wisely seek Jesus. Likewise, Anna Sophia’s hymn refers to “waters living” and “bread life‑giving”. Holy Baptism and Holy Communion also truly are things of the Father in which we wisely seek Jesus.In Holy Baptism we are, as the Epistle Reading described, “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit … the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it”. And, Jesus’s body and blood in Holy Communion’s bread and wine are perhaps the holy things of the Father above all others. Because these means of grace appear to be so ordinary, we can easily underestimate their power, but, whether or not we understand them, they are how God has given for us to receive the forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation.
This morning here at Pilgrim we both install our congregational officers and members of boards and committees and bid farewell and Godspeed to Ross Land, who is departing for service in the U-S Army. Such are the vocations to which God calls, and such are the vocations for which God blesses us. In today’s Old Testament Reading (1 Kings 3:4-15), we heard King Solomon ask for an understanding mind in order to govern God’s people, and we heard God promise to give Him such a wise and discerning mind. As we ask for, God likewise blesses us, as today’s Epistle Reading said, with “all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to His purpose”. And, God, Who predestined us according to His purpose, works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we might be to the praise of His glory. To that end, like Mary and Joseph, we rightly observe the liturgical year and include children in our worship of God, “Wisely seeking Jesus in His Father’s things”. We see Jesus even in the distresses He permits us to face in keeping with His purpose of having us be to the praise of His glory. We live in His forgiveness of our sins, and we forgive one another. We let His wisdom take precedence over ours, and we pray that the true Light of His incarnate Word shines forth in our lives.
Inquiring minds may want to know more about Jesus when He was a child, but to some extent we struggle to rightly understand what God has seen fit for us to know. By the Holy Spirit’s enabling, this day we have realized how and where to seek and to find Jesus for the forgiveness of sins that we so desperately need. Whether the infant Jesus, the crucified Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, or any other Jesus—we wisely seek Him in His Father’s things: the preached Gospel, individual Absolution, Holy Baptism, and Holy Communion. May God ever enable us so to seek and to find Him, until we finally acquire the full possession of our inheritance, to the praise of His glory.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +