Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Luke 2:42-51
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  December 26, 2021

The four gospels record just one event from the childhood of Jesus. And Luke records this one event, however, containing the first words of Jesus’, in remarkable detail. We might want to know more about Jesus’ childhood, but this is all the Lord gave us. In fact, some people over the years have tried to supply their own stories. There are some legends from the mid-second century, found in what is called the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” which try to fill in the gaps left by the silence of Scripture. Some interesting events include a young Jesus breaking the Sabbath by making birds out of clay but he gets out of trouble by miraculously making them fly away. In another tale, a child jumps on Jesus’ back and is struck dead, but Jesus raises him to life again. In another Joseph cuts a piece of timber too short, but Jesus stretches the piece of wood to the right length. Sounds like a handy kid to have around! However, not only are these stories completely contrived, but they are often out of step with our Jesus’ character and disconnected from his mission as our Savior. By contrast, the Gospel accounts are not written to appease an irresistible appetite, they are not the biography of Jesus of Nazareth, they are called Gospels because they tell of our Savior. And this singular, inspired snapshot from Luke tells us exactly what we need to know about the young Jesus’ purpose and our own.

In this account, Jesus and his parents weren’t just taking a family trip. They were going to Jerusalem for the Passover. This particular year, Jesus wasn’t simply young. He was 12 years old, the coming of age of a young Jewish boy, now held responsible for his own keeping of the Mosaic law. The family would have traveled with the caravan from Nazareth, perhaps also including pilgrims from Nain and Cana. Many of these people were friends and relatives of Mary and Joseph. So they all walked down to Jerusalem together and celebrated the Passover, roughly a week’s journey. But oddly enough, Luke doesn’t tell us anything about this. What would it have been like for Jesus to see the lamb, slaughtered and roasted whole, set upon the table? What did understand at this age of the symbolism of this Passover in light of his own sacrifice which he would purposefully coincide with the Passover some 20 years later? There’s so much I’d like to know, but Luke doesn’t say anything about this. He picks up right at the end of the festival when Mary and Joseph started back to Nazareth. “When the days had ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it. 44 Since they thought he was in their group, they went a day’s journey. Then they began to look for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him.”

This is basically the original “Home Alone” right? They forgot Jesus! Now, in their defense, this is not saying they were neglectful parents. The caravans usually traveled with the women and children in front and the men and older boys at the back. So Jesus, being right on the cusp of manhood and, being Jesus, was certainly very mature for his age, would easily have been assumed by Mary to be in the back with Joseph. And Joseph, not seeing Jesus in the back, probably thought his young son, perfectly loving and helpful, was traveling in front and carrying one of the younger siblings or something with Mary. I don’t want to contemporize the event too much, but this was a large caravan and I can imagine Mary and Joseph gathering their kids from among the relatives and sitting down around the fire at night and saying, “I thought he was with you!” and vise-versa. So when they realized it, they frantically begin to search among their friends and family members. and then they realize the worst, Jesus is still in Jerusalem. And then it took them another whole day to get back there before they could even start searching. 

They must have been worried sick, separated from their son for the better part of three days and now they were trying to find him in a busy city. A city, mind you that was just recently filled to capacity because of Passover celebrations. They say Jerusalem could swell to ten times its size during the festival. The temple courts alone could hold over 100,000 people, not to mention the zoo of animals waiting to be sacrificed. Now, this is after the main days of the festival, I don’t know how many pilgrims were still there, but finding a small boy among the crowds was not an easy task. However, Mary and Joseph ultimately do find him in the temple courts sitting among the Rabbis. You see, after the Passover the visiting Rabbis from around 1st century Palestine would gather to discuss the Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim, the Old Testament as we know it today. This was one of the few times they would all be together and could talk and discuss theology and take fresh insights back to their local synagogues, as well as see and read the greatest collection of scrolls which was of course kept in the temple complex of Jerusalem. It is among these great teachers that Mary and Joseph find Jesus. And not only is he talking with them, but Luke gives us the impression that Jesus was the one with an audience. These teachers are amazed, confounded, at his insight into the Scripture and the shocking depth of his questions. 

Now, the natural question is, how could Jesus know so much? And the obvious, but the too hasty answer is, well he’s God, duh… But we need to be careful about simply saying something like that and make sure we aren’t trampling over Jesus’ human nature, which as we find out at the end of this account, would continue to grow in wisdom as well as stature. How could Christ, who is fully God, grow in wisdom? Well, he is after all truly man, this is what we celebrate at Christmas. He is for us an acceptable substitute because in every way he was really human. And humans have to grow in wisdom. Don’t think of Jesus as this baby who sits in his crib, “Dearest mother, would you please change me?” Jesus had to grow and mature just like we do. But, however the Father revealed things to him and however his divine nature chose to communicate with his human nature in his public ministry, these times seem to be the fascinating few compared to the vast majority of the time that his glory was hidden. So if Jesus is not simply asking these questions as a ruse, to test the teachers because he is really God and knows all the answers anyway, a thought which seems rather forced upon the text, can we not simply take a moment to consider the depth of knowledge that is possible for a sinless 12-year-old? This is hard to fathom, but every single impulse of ours is darkened by our sinful nature. Every thought is mangled and every memory damaged by the weakness of our mental state in sin. Not only this, but we are so easily and deeply distracted by worldly things and by sinful thoughts. We cannot perfectly love God with all our heart, with all our strength, and with all our mind for even a single second, much less 12 years. Being conceived by the Holy Spirit Jesus had no sin. Every thought of his was directed to God. What incredible insights would he have seen in the Scripture after just 12 years? How must his mind have soaked in those synagogue lessons and turned them over in meditation day and night as he worked and played? How much of God’s nature and character would Jesus have seen in a simple flower of the field, or in watching a mother hen tend to her chicks? How many hours of thoughtful prayer and reflection did Jesus engage in by the age of 12? Oh, I wish I could have been there that day in Jerusalem. Oh, I would have been embarrassed, even after ardently applying myself to Scripture at Seminary and every week as a pastor, even after sitting on the shoulders of 2000 years of biblical scholarship and study, I would have been nothing compared to this perfect, sinless 12-year-old. It’s no wonder, that if Jesus was astonishing Rabbis at 12, that when he matured to a 30-year-old and started his public ministry, people said, “There’s no one who speaks like this man! There’s no one who teaches with this kind of authority!” You wonder why crowds of thousands followed him day and night? It wasn’t just for the miracles! It was for the teaching! In light of this, I also have to note how merciful Jesus is in his teaching. Certainly, often the disciples are simply left scratching their heads because Jesus is simply way smarter than them as a perfect human, not so say anything of being God as well. But he stoops, in love, to explain things to them and to us. He allows us to know the basics, which are still incredibly profound…and Luke here and now gives us Jesus’ very first words.

This is the moment that Luke really wants to show us. Remember, in all of Scripture this account is the only glimpse of Jesus’ childhood. The entire narrative is focused on this short conversation between a 12-year-old boy and his mother. Mary finally sees her child and says, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house?” Here Luke gives us the first recorded words that came from Jesus’ lips. The remarkable detail presented in this account supports the common idea that Mary was one of the eyewitnesses that Luke interviewed as part of his careful investigation into the events of Jesus’ life (Luke 1;1-3). Mary treasured and pondered in her heart so much of Jesus’ early life, including this fateful trip.

It’s no wonder this event would have made such an impression on her. Traumatic events usually do. Even though Jesus had spoken countless words to her by the time he was 12, she was able to recall the words Jesus spoke to her here verbatim. Every word must have pierced her soul like a sword, just as Simeon had promised at that previous temple visit (Luke 2:35). Mary’s mind was occupied with the natural concern of any parents (“Your father and I,” v.48) but Jesus reminded her that he had a different Father and thus a different purpose. In Mary’s mind, their business at the temple was complete once they offered the necessary sacrifices at the Passover. For Jesus, the business of his Father, the offering of his life as a sacrifice, was just getting started. In response to her indignant “Why?” Jesus, not obnoxiously or disrespectfully, includes a gentle reproof. “Didn’t you know?” Certainly, Mary should have seen something like this coming after the incredible things that had happened around Jesus’ birth, but again Jesus’ divinity was well concealed outwardly and she had grown so accustomed to him being her son that she may have forgotten at the moment, or wished just for a while that this perfect young boy would not have to fulfill the business of his truest Father. Here Jesus gently reminds her that there was a divine necessity to this work that lay in front of him.

This divine necessity would drive Jesus throughout his time on earth. He knew that he must preach the good news of the kingdom of God (Luke 4:43). He must hand himself over to those who wanted to kill him (Luke 13:33). He must suffer, die, and rise (Luke 9:22;17:25). He must seek and save the lost (Luke 19:5). He must rejoice, celebrate, and be glad when those lost were found (Luke 15:32). He must carry out his divinely appointed mission to its completion (Luke 24:7,25,44).

This is again where I see a huge difference between my sinful self and my sinless Savior. We often think our business is more important than our Heavenly Father’s. We don’t feel like we must do things for him, but often use words of necessity with our own business. We need to get the kids on the traveling team, we need to get this thing done at work, we need to spend time on ourselves. But not so often are we using words of necessity with the business of God. Yes, certainly it is only by the Gospel that we are correctly motivated, that this becomes joy not just duty to serve and worship God. But make no mistake it is a command to serve and honor God with all that we have and all we are. It is his forgiveness that adds desire to this duty. We’ll go to Jerusalem for the Passover like we should, but we aren’t going to sit around and talk about God’s Word in our free time…And notice, it’s so odd to other people when you have a divine directive…When you do something that shows you must be about your Father’s business. The same was true in Jesus’ day. Most people, even most of his followers, didn’t understand why he had to do these things. Jesus understood it even at this early age. He knew he had come to replace the temple he visited, the sacrifices that were offered there, and the priests who were offering them. 

And ultimately it was his Father’s business made him sweat great drops of blood; his Father’s business caused his back ripped into shreds by the whip; his Father’s business pricked his temple with the crown of thorns; his Father’s business made him mocked and spit on; his Father’s business made him bear the cross; his Father’s business made him yield himself to death, though he needed not to die if so he had not wanted to. And it was also his Father’s business that raised him up; and his Father’s business that took him up to heaven, where he sits on the right hand of God, still doing his Father’s business! His Father’s business makes him plead day and night on our behalf; the same business will make him come as the Judge of the living and the dead; the same business which will have him gather your soul and mine with his in glory everlasting. For every time we have not seen the necessity of God’s business in the delusions of our sin-darkened minds, Christ has been our perfect substitute and sacrifice. He has carried out and continues to carry out the Father’s gracious business of saving souls. Praise be to Christ, who even at 12, was living perfectly for you and me, preparing himself in our place. May we follow his example, by the Spirit’s power and see the blessed necessity of being about our Father’s business. A lot of people think you can be a moderate Christian. (Not too crazy, you know!) But if I were to say someone was moderately honest, then they wouldn’t be honest, would they? Stop holding back and worrying about the business of other humans, take care of God’s business. Your friends and your enemies may both seek to hold you back for different reasons, but you know the necessity of God’s business. carry it out, in whatever station God has placed you with passion and boldness. Souls are at stake and your Savior is calling. By God’s grace,  may desire drive you in this duty.

Amen.