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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. (Amen.)
Recently I heard a report that more young people in the United States are questioning the need for and value of a college degree, and so that some so‑called “liberal arts” colleges are trying to change their course offerings to better‑prepare graduates for the workforce (NPR). You may or may not know that originally the “liberal arts” were the subjects or skills thought to be essential for a free person to have in order to actively‑participate in society, but that over the centuries the original “liberal arts” arguably became less vocational, so that now the pendulum may be swinging back, as it were (Wikipedia). At least in academic circles, an accumulation of college or university degrees—bachelor’s, master’s, and doctor’s degrees—is commonly thought to indicate growth in wisdom and understanding, with, for example, the person successfully‑defending a properly‑focused doctoral‑dissertation thought to be world’s singular‑expert on the dissertation’s topic.
Today’s Gospel Reading begins by stating that the forty‑day‑old Jesus was being filled with wisdom; then the Reading gives an extended example of the twelve‑year‑old Jesus’s wisdom at the threshold of adult life; and the Reading concludes by bridging the gap to the thirty‑year‑old Jesus (Luke 3:23) by stating that Jesus was increasing in wisdom. Later passages of Holy Scripture report both Jesus’s neighbors’ wondering from where Jesus got His wisdom (Matthew 13:54) and the Jewish leaders’ saying that Jesus had never studied (John 7:15). And, Bible commentators have long debated what if any “schooling” Jesus might have needed or received, even at home, perhaps not giving due regard to how God works through means. To be sure, the Gospel Reading’s assignment to the Second Sunday after Christmas can prompt us to ponder further the mystery of the omniscient, that is, all‑knowing, Word made flesh (John 1:14) that was filled with and increased in wisdom—all ultimately for you!
Important is for us to recognize is that today’s Gospel Reading is not in and of itself an example of the pre‑teen Jesus’s learning, regardless of where His parents found Him in the Temple complex, whether in “the house of instruction” or in “one of the pillared halls in the outer court”, such as “Solomon’s porch” (Schrenk, TDNT 3:236). The Divinely‑inspired St. Luke’s uniquely telling us of Jesus’s “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” does not necessarily by itself indicate whether Jesus was learning or teaching, nor does the following mention of His “understanding and answers”. More indicative is the “amazement” of those who heard Jesus, as Jesus is taken to have shown forth His Divine nature that is personally united and shares attributes, such as its omniscience, with His human nature (Formula of Concord Solid Declaration VIII:25). Today’s Gospel Reading even seems to contrast Jesus’s wisdom with His “parents”: who did not know that He had stayed behind in Jerusalem, who wrongly supposed Him to be in the group traveling together, who did not know—as Jesus thought that they should know—that it was necessary for Jesus to be in His Heavenly Father’s house—or, about His Heavenly Father’s business—and who did not understand the saying that Jesus spoke to them. (So much for the Roman Catholics’ unscriptural exaltation of the Virgin Mary as if she did not need a Savior [confer Luke 1:47].)
We all may know college-educated people who seem to lack what might be called common sense, so we can distinguish between different kinds of “wisdom”. While Jesus might have been able to expound complex scientific formulas, what might be thought of as well‑ahead of His time, Jesus presumably “amazed” those hearing Him not with might be called “fleshly” or “worldly” wisdom but with “Divine” or “spiritual” wisdom (confer 1 Corinthians 2:6-7). We may hardly want to acquire “spiritual” wisdom. For example, Pilgrim has more children and adults in the congregation than Pilgrim has in Sunday School and Adult Bible Class. People often wrongly think that, once they have been confirmed, they are done learning, instead of recognizing that catechesis should be a lifelong process, essentially from womb to tomb. Or, people may choose to learn from bad sources, such as unfaithful teachers, so that they are, as St. Paul described for Timothy and for us, “always learning” yet “never able to arrive at knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). At a minimum we know that on our own we are ignorant of and not able to understand spiritual truths (confer 1 Corinthians 2:12-14). For, we are spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1, 5).
But, God the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of knowledge and the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:2)—calls and so enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sins, and to want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all our actual sin, our failure to seek spiritual wisdom, or whatever our sin might be. God forgives us for the sake of His and the Virgin Mary’s Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God in human flesh (1 Corinthians 1:24). We heard about Solomon’s wisdom in today’s Old Testament Reading (1 Kings 3:4-15), but Jesus is greater than Solomon (Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31). Unlike Solomon, Jesus did not sin, either in today’s Gospel Reading or ever. Jesus perfectly obeyed His Heavenly Father and both His mother, Mary, and His guardian, Joseph. Out of God’s great love and mercy, Jesus perfectly kept all the Commandments that we fail to keep, and He died on the cross for our failure to keep them, in our place, as our substitute, and then He rose from the dead. If not already at His conception, certainly in today’s Gospel Reading, as His first recorded words in St. Luke’s Gospel account make clear, Jesus knew both Who He is as the Son of God and the Divine necessity of why He had come, namely in order to save all people from their sins. The fear of the Lord—we might say “faith”—is the beginning of spiritual wisdom (confer Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10), and we who believe come to the knowledge of the truth and are saved (1 Timothy 1:4), and so we have peace and joy.
We receive that peace and joy from Jesus as we find Him in His Word and Sacraments. God’s Word and Sacraments can be said to be Jesus’s Father’s holy “things” about which Jesus must be: His Word with water in Holy Baptism, with touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread that is the Body of Christ and with wine that is the Blood of Christ in the Holy Supper. To be sure, Jesus is present in His Word and Sacraments in a different way for us to find Him than He was present in the Temple for His “parents” to find Him. Yet, the powerful wisdom of His Words and deeds here is no less astonishing (confer Mark 6:2). By them we are forgiven and so are saved and receive eternal life.
By God’s Word and Sacraments, He, in the words of today’s Epistle Reading (Ephesians 1:3-14), makes known to us, in all wisdom and insight, the mystery of His will to save us (confer Winger, ad loc Ephesians 1:8, pp.197-198). We go from being spiritually dead to being spiritually alive, from being ignorant of God to trusting Him to save us. So, we want to be filled with and increase in wisdom, so we participate in Pilgrim’s Sunday School and Sunday Adult Bible Class and Midweek Bible Study and personal Daily Bible Reading. We use the wisdom that God gives us in order to serve those whom He places in our families, congregation, and community, at school and work and elsewhere. In that way, we are like Solomon in today’s Old Testament Reading, who, as a young man—some think he was only twelve-year-old, like Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading—and as an inexperienced king, wanted a “listening heart”, an attitude or posture before the Lord, so he could “listen to God’s Word and [to] his people’s issues and then act in a way that both love[d] God and faithfully serve[d] his neighbor[s]” (Filipek, CPR 36:1, p.26). The verses following today’s Old Testament Reading give an example of Solomon’s wisdom that left the people “in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice” (1 Kings 3:16-28).
Even at The University of Texas at Austin, the College of Liberal Arts is “restructuring”, causing concern among students and faculty (KUT), perhaps even in my old home department of Germanic Studies, which arguably teaches useful vocational skills. Nevertheless, far more important than such worldly wisdom is spiritual wisdom. This morning we have realized that “Jesus was filled with and increased in wisdom for you”. God turns your and my spiritual ignorance into wisdom, through faith forgiving us, by grace for Jesus’s sake—forgiving our not seeking His wisdom as we should and forgiving all of our other sins, as well as our sinful nature. Thanks be to God, now and forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +