Remember, this Child is God

Sermon for Epiphany 1

Romans 12:1-5  +  Luke 2:41-52

In this Epiphany season (as also, by the way, in the Christmas season), we spend a few weeks looking at some key “epiphanies,” some momentary revelations of Jesus’ hidden divinity. Can you appreciate the need for those revelations? There was nothing—not a single thing—about Jesus that looked divine. In every way, throughout His life, He appeared to be nothing other than an ordinary human being. When He was a baby, He looked and acted like a normal baby. When He was a child, He looked and acted like a normal child. And when He grew up into a man, He looked and acted like a normal man—an especially good baby, and child, and man, but still, just a man.

Some people have always had a hard time with this, especially people who only know Jesus post-resurrection from the dead and post-ascension into heaven. We barely know Him as a man. To us, Jesus is God! (At least, we know that intellectually.) There were some people already in the second century who made up stories about Jesus’ childhood, stories in which His divinity was shown off regularly. In one such story, from the fictional Gospel of Thomas, Jesus, when He was 5 years old, molded some birds out of clay on the Sabbath day, and, when Joseph rebuked Him, He clapped His hands and brought the clay birds to life. In another story, Jesus was playing with some boys on the roof, and one of them fell down and died. That boy’s parents accused Jesus of pushing the boy off the roof, so Jesus raised the boy from the dead so that he could testify that Jesus wasn’t to blame. These are silly stories that don’t fit at all with the Jesus we have come to know through the Holy Scriptures. He was not regularly showing off His divinity. People everywhere, even His parents, at times, mistook Him for nothing but human. That’s why we turn to these little epiphanies in the Bible, because through them the Holy Spirit was teaching the people back then, and us today, that that baby, that child, that man, who was so obviously human, was not only human. He was, and is, God. In fact, the one and only story from Jesus’ childhood that the Holy Spirit wanted us to know is the story before us in today’s Gospel, which took place when Jesus was twelve years old. It was nothing as spectacular as bringing clay birds to life or raising a boy back to life. But it was still a little revelation of Jesus’ hidden identity as the God who became man to save us from our sins.

Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph made the annual trip from Nazareth down to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, as all the men of Israel were required to do by the Law of Moses. Even that tells us something important about Jesus’ childhood, that He was raised in a home in which the parents sought, above all things, to be faithful to God. As we learn later on, Jesus and His whole family were also well-known in the synagogue of Nazareth, showing that Jesus’ custom of attending synagogue every week on the Sabbath Day didn’t just begin when He began His ministry, but was the continuation of a lifelong practice, established by Joseph and Mary, of godliness and reverence for God’s Word. Christian parents do well to imitate this example of regular worship and devotion to God’s Word and to God’s commandments. You don’t have to be the parents of the Son of God in order to be models to your children of faithfulness to God’s Word. Every Christian parent is called to this.

They spend their week or so in Jerusalem observing the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And then, after the feast is over, the caravan from Galilee gets up early in the morning and departs at the scheduled time. And Mary and Joseph walk a full day’s journey away from Jerusalem, assuming that twelve-year-old Jesus is in the caravan somewhere, with some of their relatives. That tells us a couple of things, too. First, that Jesus obviously spent a decent amount of time with His relatives and neighbors from Nazareth. Second, and more importantly, that even at twelve years old Jesus was perfectly dependable and trustworthy. His parents cared for Him but didn’t worry about Him. They weren’t overprotective of Him. And that’s usually a good thing.

But this time Jesus did something unexpected: He stayed behind in Jerusalem, apparently without telling anyone. By the time Mary and Joseph realized He wasn’t anywhere in the caravan, the day was already over, and they spent a sleepless night worrying about their Son. The next day they spent walking back to Jerusalem, and didn’t find Him when they got there. Finally, on the third day, they found Him in the temple, safe and sound, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them, asking them questions, and answering the teachers’ questions with a level of understanding that amazed everyone who heard. Jesus wasn’t preaching yet. He wasn’t pretending to be a 12-year-old rabbi, nor was He showing any disrespect for His elders, or calling on anyone to repent or believe anything. But this interaction between the teachers and 12-year-old Jesus, witnessed by Jesus’ parents and by the people in the temple who were there, is the first part of the epiphany in today’s Gospel, a clear indication that this ordinary-looking Child was no ordinary Child, but had a God-level understanding of the Holy Scriptures, of God, and of the ways of God.

Mary and Joseph were left astonished, too—astonished that Jesus hadn’t just joined their caravan as they expected, but stayed behind to engage with the teachers in the temple. When they saw him, they were amazed, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” Mary is offended. She feels that Jesus has mistreated her and His father. So she scolds Him.

But He, respectfully and mildly, scolds her back: He said to them, “What do you mean, you were you searching for me? Did you not know that I had to be engaged in the things of my Father?” But they did not understand what he said to them. This is the second part of the epiphany in today’s Gospel. It had become so easy for Mary and Joseph to see their Son as their son. They hadn’t forgotten, intellectually, where He came from, or the things the angels had told them about Him. But they had been settled in Nazareth for nearly a decade by this point, and life had become very normal for them there. “Your father and I” have been looking for you. But she seems to have put it out of her mind that, in a one-of-a-kind way, Jesus had another Father, the Father in heaven, who had not sent His Son into the world to be just an ordinary, human boy, but had sent Him on a one-of-a-kind mission that only the Son of God could accomplish.

Jesus had been sent (1) to reveal God perfectly to mankind; (2) to live a perfectly righteous life under the Law as sinful man’s Substitute; (3) to call sinners to repentance and faith, giving the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to all who believe; (4) to suffer and die for our sins; (5) to rise from the dead, becoming the perpetual Mediator between God and man; and (6) to reign on God’s throne until the end of the world for the good of His brothers. These were “the things of My Father” that Jesus had to be engaged in. Not that He would do everything at the age of 12, but even at the age of 12, Jesus had work to do for His heavenly Father.

That work would continue at home. Yes, He had to spend some extra days in the temple when He was 12, fulfilling Mission #1 and providing that little epiphany of His true identity as the Son of God. But then it was back to Nazareth with His parents to continue fulfilling Mission #2. Luke tells us that He was subject to them…And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Obeying His parents, gladly and willingly, was part of Jesus’ mission to live a perfectly righteous life under the Law as our Substitute. As the 4^th Commandment says, You shall honor your father and your mother. And “growing in favor with God and man” is also part of that, as He devoted His childhood, and His young-manhood, to serving God and His neighbor, as every child and young man should, but as no one does as much and as gladly as they should, except for Jesus.

And so Jesus served as our Substitute under the Law, even as a child, covering the sins of all believers. And His devotion to His Father in heaven, while unique because of His one-of-a-kind relationship with the Father, still serves as a shining example for all of us. And His willing submission to His earthly parents and authorities certainly shines as an example that all Christians must follow.

But, above all, today’s Gospel gives us an important glimpse of who Jesus is, which was easy to forget for the people who lived with Him, but is also easy for us to forget, or to put out of our minds: This Child of twelve years old was God. That man hanging on the cross was God. The One now seated at the right hand of God the Father is your human Brother, but He is also your God, “who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and became man.” And as your God, He commands you still today: Repent and believe the good news, the Gospel of your salvation, brought to you for free by the God-Man Himself! And, as your God, He commands you who believe also to live as those who recognize Jesus, not only as a great man, or a great teacher, but as the Man who is God, and, therefore, who has every right to tell you how to live, as He does through the apostle Paul in today’s Epistle: I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God. Amen.