Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Luke, the second chapter:
And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him. Now his 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. 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 all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 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.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
I’ve just spent the last week with four children, ages 6 months to 4 years old. It’s amazing to me how busy these kids can be, even at 6 months. I guess we’ll find out ourselves in a bit. But what was really amazing to me is how much these kids had changed since we last saw them in July and how much they can learn in, seemingly, a moment.
That’s because their brains are growing at incredible rates. Neurons, which are like super-highways of your brain, are forming at this age like frost on grass. They form so quickly, really, during this period, that there’s nothing like it the rest of your life. Learning as a child is so important, because there, everything is big.
My four niblings, that’s the word for the plural of nieces and nephews, my four niblings are growing and changing right before my eyes. And soon, my son will do the same. And it is incredible. And that must have been what Mary felt, looking at her son, Jesus.
Remember, it is Mary giving to the good doctor, Luke, these stories of Jesus. And this is the only story of Christ between the day of His circumcision, which was celebrated this last week on the eighth day of Christmas, and when He appears again to start His public ministry. And it’s a strange story. It’s a story that you would think Mary wouldn’t want to tell because she comes off looking the fool in the story.
After all, you have this now-30-year-old, running around Jerusalem with her husband of 12 years, looking for a boy, a boy that an angel told her was the Son of God, and she lost Him. She lost Jesus. It’s her fault; she should’ve kept a better eye on Him. It’s bad enough as it is when we lose track of our kids. Can you imagine that feeling and then add to it that you just lost the Savior of the entire human race in the biggest city of your country?
Mary doesn’t look good here. And then, to add insult to injury, Jesus even rebukes her, even rightly, in the Temple. Because, let’s not get caught up here, Jesus is sinless, and even though if we said these words to our mothers they would be sinful, Jesus had a sinless purpose and would remain sinless in saying them. So, assuming that, knowing all of that, Mary doesn’t look good.
So, let’s look at what’s happening here. Mary, first, recounts to Luke that her Son, the Son of God, grew and became strong. This shows us our Lord is like us. For our children grow and become strong. They learn, they change, they have growth pains, strange hairs, changing voices. And Mary remembers this for Jesus very clearly. Every day would have brought new changes to this boy; after all, Jesus did not come out of Mary’s womb as a full-grown man. He grew, He changed, and the Scriptures tell us that He was filled with wisdom. Now, what in the world does this mean?
Wisdom is that which Solomon asked for, the ability to judge between right and wrong, good and evil. And wisdom is also this: the fear of the Lord. And there is only one, ONLY one, place this truly begins. Right here in the Scriptures. It means that, like you, Jesus learned the Scriptures. He wasn’t born with a direct download into His brain. He sat upon His mother’s lap and learned, as all Jewish children did, the Scriptures, the Law, the promises of the Messiah. He learned Isaiah. He learned Moses. He learned Solomon. And He learned from His mother who He was; He learned that He was the Messiah, the Son of God, who would save His people from their sins. He grew in this knowledge. He became very well-instructed in this.
Now, don’t let this bother you, that Jesus had to learn that He was the Messiah. This is not a big issue. This is like learning your name. Just because I couldn’t pronounce my full name for the first couple years of my life doesn’t mean that my parents didn’t name me Lewis Robert Polzin. They did, and I was that, I just had to learn it. Jesus was born the Son of God, the Son of Mary, and He had to learn that He was the Messiah. But, just because He had to learn that didn’t mean He was that, didn’t mean He wasn’t the Son of God. He grew in wisdom, and knowledge, and stature as a man, without His divine nature, begotten from eternity shining forth.
And because Jesus learned, and because He submitted to His Father through the Scriptures, through obedience to the Law, for our sake, He pleased His Father. And the favor of God, the grace of God, was upon Him. What does this mean but that a Father loved His Son, and now through that same Son, He loves you? Through Christ’s growth, through His obedience, even obedience unto death on a cross, the Father loves you and gives you all that you have. He is a wonderful Father to you, through Christ, His true, only, beloved, and begotten Son, and still yet born of a woman.
And ultimately, that is the point of today’s text in Luke. Jesus, the Son of God, is about His Father’s business, that is, to save His people, all of humanity, from their sins. And Jesus, having gone to the Temple that Passover year, as His family always did, was already fulfilling this promise.
It was commanded by the ceremonial law of Moses that the right sacrifices would be made at the right time, and the only place to make a sacrifice was in Jerusalem. Therefore, Joseph took Mary, his bride, Jesus, his adopted son, all their children, their family, the uncles, the aunties, the grandmas and papas, and made their way to Jerusalem with a small flock of sheep and animals, and a small flock of children. And there, Jesus went to the Jerusalem Temple every year with His family. And while the sacrifices He offered were for the forgiveness of sins, they were not for His forgiveness, but the fulfillment of the Law. Until one year, when He was 12 years old, His father, Joseph, having offered the sacrifices for all righteousness, Jesus knew that He needed to be about His heavenly Father’s business.
Jesus, the God-man, with two fathers, had to go about the business of God His Father, even at the sake of His earthly father, Joseph. This wasn’t a sin to be about His Father’s business. After all, Jesus, for 12 years had been learning dutifully the Scriptures upon the lap of Mary. He had not yet entered into formal instruction. Now was the time for Him, and so He presented Himself to the elders and the teachers of Israel like a good boy would, and they realized that He was their teacher and they were the students.
A boy, 12 years old, knowing the entirety of the Scriptures, not merely because He was God, but because He studied them, and in them He found wisdom, the wisdom of God, the wisdom that foretold His coming, His salvation, His cross, His death, His resurrection. And the elders began to see, too, that all this would even be fulfilled from the prophet Isaiah, the eleventh chapter: “…and a little child shall lead them.”
In Jesus’ teaching the elders, He begins to show that the messianic prophecies are being fulfilled in Him. For a child, 12 years of age, is not yet a man in Jewish culture. And here He is, with the teachers, sitting down. Only the teacher sat at that time, with his disciples gathering around him. So, Jesus, sitting in the midst of the elders, is being shown to be the teacher of Israel. He is more and better than any teacher they have had, and He is only a boy, a little child, leading the elders in what they do not even know that they know.
You see, this is our Lord. He was born a child, a baby, cooing and nursing at His mother’s breast. And He was circumcised on the eighth day, according to the Law. And He grew. His arms grew longer, His legs grew taller, His head got bigger, He lost that new baby smell, and He became a child. From the child, He became a man. And when He was a man, after having lived for 30-some-odd years, He went to the cross and died for the sins of the whole world. This baby, this boy, this man, was God in our flesh, who died for our sins.
He grew as we grow. He learned as we learn. He loved as we love. He died as we died. But He died so that we would not die eternally. When we die, it’s different, for we will be with Him. But, this is what He learned. This is how He grew. This is how He changed. For this was the Father’s will, to send His Son to save the world. Christ is everything we are, Christ did everything we do, Christ lived every way we live, except that He was without sin. He lived the perfect life, showing perfect obedience, demonstrating perfect learning, all for us.
So, is there a lesson here for us? May we live better? Certainly. We should all obey our Father in heaven and we should all look in love to our earthly parents. Should we study the Scriptures as Christ did? Absolutely, we should. Jesus shows us children should love and learn the Scriptures. And we are all children in this way. We should all do better. I’ll see you in Bible Study and Sunday School. Should we live to obey the Law of God? Yes. We should imitate Christ in His obedience to the authorities over Him. But, none of these things will save you. Christ demonstrates that He has done all of these things because you can’t, you won’t, you are unable to do so. But Christ has and He gives that obedience to you, that obedience of the cross that comes to you even this day in the Lord’s Supper. And all this, being born, growing, learning, dying, rising, He does out of love for you.
All of this is love and through that love, we see the fulfillment of all that Christ has done for us. After all, what we teach in the Church is what Christ taught the elders. We teach Christ crucified for sinners. We teach the Word. We teach the Sacraments. We teach what Christ did because we have learned from the Master of all teachers. And so did Mary.
Mary tells Luke all of this to tell us that she, the mother and teacher of her son, became His disciple so that we would also be His disciples. She tells Luke this that we would learn from Christ, the one who amazed all the teachers of Israel. This is her treasure, and it is ours. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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