Second
Sunday after Christmas (A)
January
4, 2026
Text: Luke 2:40-52
When
you are looking for Jesus, where do you expect to find Him?
Mary
and Joseph should have known. Where else
would He be? Did they not remember the
Promises given them concerning Him? The
preaching of the Angel Gabriel? The
shepherds? The wise men? Simeon and Anna? The Hebrew Scriptures of which their Boy is
the fulfillment? But where did they look
when they thought they’d lost Him? For
three long days, everywhere but where they should have known Him to be. “Did you not know that I must be in my
Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49; ESV).
The place of teaching? The place
of prayer? The place of sacrifice for
sins, and communion with God?
They
knew. But they did not know. Like us.
Why do we forget? Why are we so
easily deceived? Well, we know. It is Old Adam in us. Ever susceptible to the devil’s tricks, and
the world’s siren songs. And, of course,
sufficient in and of ourselves, to deceive ourselves by our own fallen, sinful
passions. So that, when we become aware
of our great need for Jesus, for salvation, for a Savior… we look in all the
wrong places. In ourselves. In our own heart, our own mind. To our own scruples, our own
righteousness. To escape. Amusement.
Pleasure. Retail therapy. Food.
Sex. Substance abuse. The list could go on and on. And we know this, but insanely, we keep
trying the same things over and over again, with the same results. Ask yourself once again, whatever your
substitute Jesus may be… does it ever work?
Do you ever find fulfillment and meaning and life and salvation in those
things?
When
you need Jesus, you know just where to find Him. He’s told you. It’s no secret. “Did you not know that I must be in my
Father’s house?” Well, “house,”
yes. That is a good word in this
text. This is, after all, the Temple,
the House of God, where Mary and Joseph find Jesus after three days of
frantic searching. God’s gifts are located. They are not ambiguous or ethereal,
indefinable somethings that come to you mystically by immersion
in some kind of spiritual atmosphere.
God gives His gifts audibly and tangibly in a concrete location. So, “I must be in my Father’s house.” In the Old Testament, we think of the Tabernacle
and, later, the Temple. In the
New Testament, we think of the Church.
When you are looking for Jesus, you come to His House. You come to Church. And you always need Him, so, beloved, always
come to Church.
But
it’s not just a matter of being in the building. And I think we have a clue to that in the
Greek of this verse, which actually doesn’t say the word, “house.” Literally, the verse says, “Did you not
know that I must be in the things of My Father?” And what are the things of Jesus’
Father? There is Jesus, sitting in the
midst of the Teachers… The Teachers of what?
The Torah, the Word… listening to them, and teaching them
by asking and answering questions. Jesus
is embedded in His Word. The things
of His Father are the things of His Word, the things by which God
imparts His Spirit, and salvation, and Christ Himself. In other words, this is a Means of Grace
text. Jesus is talking about His Word
and Sacraments. When you are looking for
Jesus… when you need Jesus… you will always find Him in Baptism, Scripture,
preaching, and Supper. That is where you
should expect to find Him. And you
always will. You will always find Him
speaking your sins forgiven, speaking Himself and His life and His strength and
His Spirit into you, immersing you in Himself and His cleansing blood, feeding
you with His very body, His very blood, given and shed for you for the
forgiveness of sins. Don’t go looking all
over the place for Jesus. Look for Him here,
in His Father’s House, in the things of His Father.
But
then, there is a second question to which we are directed in this text. When you are looking for Jesus, what kind
of Jesus are you expecting to find?
Again,
Mary and Joseph should have known. But
they were looking for the wrong kind of Jesus. In spite of all the Promises. In spite of the angel, and the shepherds, and
the wise men. In spite of Simeon and
Anna, and the Hebrew Scriptures. Mary
and Joseph were looking for a merely human Child. A good Boy. A Gift of God. But your typical twelve-year-old, who gets
distracted, maybe misses some of His parents’ instructions (“be here at this
time with all your things packed so we can get on the road”), and who maybe
even gets ideas of His own, and takes risks that He shouldn’t, thinking He can
handle it. That is why they look all
over the city. Where are some of Jesus’
favorite places? Where are the
curiosities? Where might a
twelve-year-old Boy find Himself after sneaking away from His parents? Three days, it takes them. Finally, to look in the place they should
have known all along. Because they
forgot who they were looking for. In
their mind, they were looking for Joseph’s Son (“your father and I
have been looking for you in great distress” [v. 48]). But see, had they been looking for the Son
of God and Sacrifice for the sins of the world, there would have
been only one place to look for Him. The
Father’s House. Where the Sacrifices are
made. In the things of the Father.
Because
we are fallen people, we often find ourselves looking for the wrong
Jesus, too. Perhaps a merely human
Jesus. A good Man. A teacher of wisdom and morals. And example of how to live your best life
(hard to reconcile that with the cross, though). Or, maybe we want a purely spiritual
Jesus who just comes into our hearts and gives us the warm fuzzies. Perhaps we are looking for a Jesus who will
confirm our own preferences and opinions.
Perhaps a political Jesus, who set the governments of this world
straight. We are all often looking for a
Jesus who just wants us to be happy. Who
just wants us to feel good about ourselves.
And so we say things like, “My Jesus would never…” say or
do whatever the Bible says He says or does that we don’t like. Or, “The Jesus I worship would…”
do or say the things we want Him to do or say. But that Jesus isn’t the right One,
beloved… the true One, the One from God, and who is God. That Jesus is an idol of your own
making.
But
it often happens, thank God (and has happened among us, because we are here
today), that after hours, or days, or even years of searching for the wrong Jesus,
and in all the wrong places, and in great distress… by God’s grace, we
stumble into the place, and before the Jesus, where and whom we
should have known all along. That is, we
meet the incarnate Son of God in the things of His Father, the Word and
Sacraments, preached and distributed here in the Father’s House. That is a gift of the Holy Spirit,
beloved. Do not despise it. Receive it, and rejoice in it.
Know
this about yourself. This side of heaven
and the full and final death of Old Adam, you will always be prone to looking
for the wrong Jesus in all the wrong places. So, watch for that, and repent of it whenever
it happens. That is, stop that false
searching in its tracks. And listen
again to the Promises, and return where you know you will always find
Jesus for you. Here. In the things of the Father.
This
is the Jesus who became flesh to die for your sins. For three days, we disciples thought we’d
lost Him, didn’t we? Crucified, dead,
and buried. But then what? Looking in the wrong place… the tomb… we
heard the preaching of the angel. He is
no longer dead. He is risen. And when He speaks His Word, your heart will
burn within you. And you will recognize
Him in the Breaking of the Bread. That
is to say, in the things of the Father (the Gospel)… there, we find the Son of
God in risen and living human flesh and blood.
He is always in the Word. The
audible, tangible, located Word.
All
of which is to say, beloved: You’ve come to the right place. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment