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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Pastor Galler is on vacation, but, for our reflection this morning on the Third Reading for the Second Sunday after Christmas, Pastor Galler edited a sermon written by The Rev. Victor F. Halboth, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Redford, Michigan. Rev. Halboth’s sermon was published in the 20-15 volume of Concordia Pulpit Resources (25:1, pp.13, 28-29), to which publication Pilgrim subscribes primarily in order to supply sermons on occasions such as this, when our pastor is away and the congregation has not otherwise supplied the pulpit. The edited sermon reads as follows:
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
A little boy was lost in a large shopping mall. He sobbed, “I want my mommy.” The mall security people took him under their wing. They treated him to a hotdog, a chocolate milkshake, and a teddy bear to hug. He watched cartoons on the Disney Channel. Eventually, a female security guard got off the intercom and said to the little boy, “One of the guards has found your mother.” The little boy did not miss a beat: “Don’t tell her where I am. I like it here.” Okay, we appreciate the sentiment. But even more, we appreciate the mall security staff taking care of business. Somebody has to do it. Otherwise we might go merrily on our way thinking everything is just fine, when in reality something is seriously out of order. We may think “business as usual” is quite adequate, when really it would leave us lost forever.
In today’s Third Reading, the Jesus’s parents thought that their twelve-year-old was lost—but Jesus was not really the lost one: He was in the right place, in the temple. He was, as it is often translated, “about His Father’s business.” In fact, He was taking care of business, the Father’s business, for us. We might say that He was doing for us what we intend to do, maybe even what we think we are doing, when, truth be told, we might actually be sitting back sipping a milkshake and watching cartoons, quite content being about our own business. Thank the Lord, therefore, that, as the Third Reading this morning can suggest, all about the Father’s business has been done, done for us, by Christ.
We may really intend to be about our heavenly Father’s business. Certainly that was true of Joseph and Mary in the Reading: “Now [Jesus’] parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom”. Mary and Joseph had some important business that God had given them to attend to. To begin with, of course, they had the business God had given to every Israelite: they were to go to Jerusalem on a regular basis to worship at the chief festivals, especially Passover. What is more, though, this particular faithful Jewish couple had the duty of raising God’s own Son, including seeing to it that He was taught all of God’s Law and His Gospel, which they did. Every year, they went up to the feast. Now this particular year, their Son reached the age that Jewish custom considered to be spiritual young-adulthood. Very admirable, very faithful.
We, God’s people in this place, may well intend to be about our Father’s business, too. This time of year, lots of people resolve, fully intend, to improve this or that—New Year’s resolutions to go on a diet, exercise, stop smoking, limit alcohol intake, and the like. Maybe we have made resolutions about spiritual business, too: to follow the example of Mary and Joseph by being more faithful in worship, to gather here every week around Word and Sacrament. Maybe we have resolved to have regular family devotions, to pray with our spouses and children. Maybe we have made a resolution to put our talents to better use in a program area of our congregation. As believers in Christ, we may well intend to do these things. That can be being faithful, in some sense being about the Father’s business.
So how are we doing? Maybe we think, assume, or suppose that we are staying pretty well on task, being about our Father’s business—at least so far, just three days into the new calendar year. Let us look again at Mary and Joseph:
“And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, 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, and when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for Him. After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. . . . 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.’ ”
Remember, Mary and Joseph had a tough job to do! God had given them the vocation of raising the Savior, and woe to them if they should misplace Him somewhere along the way! So surely they felt they were being about the Father’s business when they looked here and there, as Mary herself said, under “great distress.”
We have all been lost sometime. Being lost is scary. At a busy airport, looking for the right concourse for your gate. Driving on the freeway in a strange city late at night and taking a wrong turn. First day at a new school and you cannot find your homeroom. Worse, did you ever lose a small child? The little one let go of your hand for a few seconds, and he or she was gone as the crowds streamed out of the stadium after a game. You are in a panic. You know your business—jobs 1, 2, and 3, your only business!—is to find your child! Perhaps we suppose we are also being about the Father’s business when we are stressing over things we know are critical. Emotional hurts. Sickness. Cancer and chemotherapy. Divorce. Death. Terrorism and turmoil. Crime and corruption in high places and low places. Our relationship with God: Does He really love us? Will our sins cut us off from Him forever? What if I do not keep all those good resolutions? What if I let the heavenly Father down, fail at His business?
Jesus had a gentle rebuke for Mary’s stressing: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”—or, as other translations, such as the King James Version, put it, “that I must be about my Father’s business?” Jesus’s rebuke to Mary is a loving one, just as is His rebuke to us, because ultimately His meaning is to free us from every stress. “There’s no need for you to be anxious,” He is saying, “because I am about my Father’s business. In fact, I’m taking care of all that business for you.” At Christmas, Jesus came from heaven to rescue us from the hurricanes of trial and trouble. He came to save sin-tossed souls.
Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions that we can only assume were brilliantly insightful. “And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers”. At that moment, that was the Father’s business. God’s Son had been given the vocation of being the Father’s Anointed One, the Christ, the Savior of the world. Already at age 12, Jesus was tending to business. And, of course, that was only the beginning. Over time Jesus would learn and perfectly understand everything that the inspired prophets had written about Him; He would do battle with Satan; He would perfectly keep the Law that His fellow human-beings had failed to keep; He would work miracles of love, healing and freeing those struck down by the effects of sin; He would gather a following and be abandoned by them, be rejected by his own people, be condemned, and have the whole weight of humankind’s damnation pressed on Him; He would be forsaken even by his Father and killed. That would be the Father’s business for Him later. Jesus already knew all that about Himself in those Scriptures that He discussed in the temple. And, Jesus would take care of all that business, every detail. For us.
When we repent of our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, then God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sins through His preached Gospel, through Holy Baptism, individual absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar. We eat the Body and drink the Blood of our Passover Lamb and so receive forgiveness, life, and salvation. Jesus finished our redemption and completes us (Hebrews 10:14). Everything has been done. Our stresses, our sins, the hurts, the sicknesses, the worries of our world, our fears about how God sees us—Jesus has taken care of them all. He has seen to it, by finishing every task the Father gave Him, that God will be with us through all of these—every day as we go about our business and for an eternity free of every stress.
Some seven years ago, endurance swimmer Diana Nyad became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the aid of a shark cage, a feat more than three decades in the making. Nyad battled through jellyfish stings, sunburn, and dehydration, before staggering ashore in Florida, mission accomplished . . . at age 64! The swim had been her dream, the business to which she devoted her life. For us, Jesus devoted his life—from infancy to boyhood to cross to empty tomb—to being about the Father’s business. All done. For us. And, like Jesus, we have a place, a home, a family in our Heavenly Father’s house. Mary and Joseph should have known Jesus would be there, and we should be here, too. The Father’s Son went about His business, His purpose, even to Calvary’s cross to make us the Father’s children. Take heart. The love of Jesus overflows and floods You with His grace and peace.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +