Monday, January 6, 2020

Second Sunday after Christmas


Second Sunday after Christmas (A)
January 5, 2020
Text: Luke 2:40-52
            The LORD comes into His Temple.  Jesus, our Immanuel, God with us in flesh and blood, comes.  It is still Christmas for the Church, but in our Holy Gospel, Jesus is no longer a Baby.  A Boy of twelve… Twelve, the number of Israel… Twelve, the number of the Apostles… Twelve, the number of the Church… Twelve-year-old Jesus comes with His parents, as is their custom each year, into the Temple for the Feast of the Passover.  And now, not only has the LORD come into His Temple.  The true Passover Lamb has come. 
            And He’s come to do His Father’s will.  Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49; ESV).  “Did you not know that it is divinely necessary for me to be here, accomplishing the purpose for which my Father sent me?”  The verse literally reads in Greek, “Did you not know that in the things of my Father I must be?  I like the translation, “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?  The point is, Jesus has come for a divine appointment.  And the whole episode underscores who Jesus is and what He has come to do.  The Boy’s Father is not Joseph, but God.  And that means this Boy is God.  He is in the Temple, where God dwells with and for His people, for this Boy is the new and greater Temple.  He is with the teachers in the midst of the Word, for He is the Word made flesh, and the Word conveys Him and all His benefits.  You should always know where to find Jesus.  Where the Word is.  Jesus is in the Word.  And He is where the sacrifice is made, the Passover, the blood that marks you to rescue you from the angel of death, the flesh given you to eat in your exodus from slavery, the Egypt of sin, Pharaoh, the devil.  Jesus is the Passover Lamb.  And this whole thing is a foreshadowing of His death for you.  There He is in the place of sacrifice, and His parents think He is lost.  And for all practical purposes, He is.  But let this not be lost on you: “After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (v. 46).  After three days, they found Him, in the place of sacrifice, in the midst of the Word.  After three days  What was lost is found.  What was dead… not literally in this case, but… soon… What was dead, is alive.  After three days, resurrection.
            Don’t be too hard on Mary and Joseph.  First, there is the matter of it taking them a whole day’s travel before they realize Jesus is missing.  No, it’s not that they’re neglectful parents.  For the three big Jewish feasts, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, all the men who had been bar mitvah-ed had to travel to Jerusalem, to the Temple, and as many women and children who were able and willing to go.  And they all travelled in large groups of pilgrims, for protection from robbers and the hazards of the road, for fellowship, singing the Psalms of ascent on their way up to Zion.  Now, Jesus was twelve.  Of age.  Practically a teenager.  Time for more freedom.  The kids ran in packs among the travelers.  Everybody’s parents looked out for everybody’s kids.  There is no problem that Jesus wasn’t with Mary and Joseph.  Until they reached the lodging place.  That’s when Jesus was supposed to catch up with Mom and Dad.  Be home before dark, and all that. 
            Second, Mary and Joseph panic when they don’t find Him.  Okay, sure, they should have known He’d be in His Father’s House, doing His Father’s business.  But then, you should, too, and how often do you forget that Jesus is right here in His Father’s House, doing His Father’s business, distributing the saving benefits of His Passover Sacrifice in His Word and in His Sacraments?  You’re always looking for Him everywhere but where He’s promised to be, too.  And when you don’t find Him in all those other places, you panic!  He’s lost.  He’s dead.  He doesn’t exist.  Or He doesn’t love me.  He doesn’t care about me.  Yes, you’ve done it, too.  Repent.  Besides, you parents especially can sympathize if you’ve ever had a child hide from you at the store, maybe in the next isle or in the middle of the clothing racks.  Mary and Joseph have to be corrected by Jesus for not knowing where to find Him, but in this way, they’re just like you.
            Third, Mary thinks Jesus has sinned.  Why have you done this to us?  Your father and I were so worried!  Oops!  Your father.  God is Jesus’ Father.  Not Joseph.  But then, Joseph loved Jesus as his own dear Son, and Jesus loved Joseph like His father, and for all practical purposes, Joseph was Jesus’ father.  Now Jesus has to remind them.  His real Father is God.  This is not a rejection of Joseph.  Far from it.  But it is to say, the greater allegiance is owed to God.  Just as He was about His adopted father’s business, learning carpentry from Joseph, He is ultimately to be about His heavenly Father’s business of saving the world, of saving you.  He has not sinned.  He is right where He should be, doing just what He should do.  And though Mary will always be His mother, and Joseph will always be His dad, there is another and more important relationship.  He is their Lord.  And He is their Savior.  He has come to be here, in His Father’s House, doing this, His Father’s business; the business of salvation. 
            We must recognize in all this that Mary and Joseph are models for us, models of faithful Christians, models of Christian parents.  Sinners, yes.  But forgiven sinners, who live by faith.  When Jesus is lost, they panic and look in all the wrong places, but they also do what parents are called to do.  They seek their Son.  And even though in Jesus’ case they get it backwards (He really does this for them), they try to protect Him, save Him, even discipline Him.  Mary has a misunderstanding with her adolescent Child.  Who of us parents can’t relate to that?  And isn’t it a comfort that even the Holy Family is not immune from that experience in the fallen world?  For what Jesus experiences, He redeems.  And then there is the most important part: When Jesus does correct His mother, when Mary does hear the Word of her dear Son, she does what every Christian should do with that Word.  She treasures it up in her heart.  She ponders it.  She memorizes it, thinks about it, meditates upon it, believes it.  For all her faults in this episode, in that she is a model for us.  Be like her.  Treasure the Word. 
            Now even as this Scripture is a foreshadowing of our Lord’s saving death and resurrection for us, it also proclaims to us the Savior’s active fulfillment of God’s Law for us.  In particular, the Third and Fourth Commandments.  We should say a word about each one.  The Third Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  What does this mean?  We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”[1]  The Boy, Jesus, loves to hear and learn God’s Word.  Solomon asks God for wisdom.  Jesus is the Wisdom of God incarnate.  But as a true human being, as the Son of Mary, He has to learn and grow.  So there He is in the Temple, sitting among the rabbis, listening to them and asking them questions.  I’m sure His questions were so insightful that He was teaching them, too.  But there He is, learning, humbly sitting at their feet, immersed in the Sacred Scriptures.  As we should be.  As we so often are not.  So often we neglect the Word.  So often we despise the Word.  So often we fail to recognize that Jesus is in the Word with all His gifts, the forgiveness of sins, life, salvation.  Repent, beloved.  And rejoice.  Jesus fulfills this Commandment for you. 
            And the Fourth Commandment: “Honor your father and your mother.  What does this mean?  We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.”  Mary is angry, even if greatly relieved, when they find Jesus.  But He has not dishonored them.  He is serving them and loving and cherishing them.  He is doing all of this for them, for Mary and Joseph, for you, and for the world, this being about His Father’s business.  And He is honoring His true Father in heaven.  His first allegiance is to God.  We should obey God rather than men.  But then we have this very important sentence: “And he went down with them,” that is, Mary and Joseph, “and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them” (v. 51).  Jesus honored Mary and Joseph.  He honored the spiritual fathers among whom He sat in the Temple.  He honored the government, whose laws He obeyed and to which He paid taxes and even submitted to death.  So often we do not.  We despise and anger our parents and other earthly authorities.  We speak against them and ridicule them.  We do not obey.  We do not love and serve.  We fail to provide for them when they’re older.  We speak against the government and dishonor those in office.  We speak against our bosses or our teachers and neglect the things they’ve given us to do, or do them poorly.  We reject the care of our spiritual fathers and despise the authority of the Word.  Repent, beloved.  And rejoice.  Jesus fulfilled this Commandment for you.
            He fulfilled all the Commandments for you.  Jesus saves us by His death for our sins and His resurrection from the dead, but don’t forget, He also saves us by His life!  By His active fulfillment of God’s Law, His active obedience as we call it in theology.  All of this is credited to our account.  His righteousness is given to us as a gift.  Justification!  And then!  Then we are freed to hold God’s Word as sacred and gladly hear and learn it.  Then we are given to honor our parents and all earthly authorities, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.  We are freed to be parents without fear, to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.  We are freed to do all the Commandments, with joy, because our sins are forgiven and we are saved apart from our doing of the Commandments, on account of Jesus, by faith alone. 
            What a Christmas gift!  Perfect righteousness given to us in Christ Jesus.  The LORD comes to His Temple, the Passover Lamb to be sacrificed, to free us form our sins, from death, and the devil.  And this morning, we know right where to find Jesus.  Here, in His Father’s House.  Here, doing His Father’s business, the business of saving us.  Here, in the Word.  Here, in the flesh of the Passover Lamb, in the blood that marks us as God’s own.  Did you not know this?  Oh, you knew it.  You know it for certain.  Here is Christ for you.  Merry Christmas!  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 


[1] Catechism quotes from Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986).

No comments:

Post a Comment