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Sermon for the First Sunday after Epiphany
Isaiah 61:1-3 + Romans 12:1-5 + Luke 2:41-52
We have before us today a straightforward, simple account from our Lord’s childhood. There are only a handful of references to Christ’s childhood in Scripture. He was probably about five years old when He and His parents returned from Egypt to go live permanently in Nazareth. The rest of His youth—until the age of 30! — is summarized for us in St. Luke’s Gospel right before the verses you heard today: the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. And again at the end of today’s Gospel: Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
What does that tell us? It tells us that Jesus was likeable. Friendly. He didn’t keep to Himself; He interacted well with people, as we see from the fact that His parents weren’t at all concerned about Jesus as they left Jerusalem, figuring He was in the company of His relatives and acquaintances, as He must have often been. He was utterly obedient to His parents. Joyful. Intelligent. Wise. Dependable and reliable. Especially gifted in spiritual matters, keenly interested in the doctrine of Scripture, with a true love and devotion to His heavenly Father and an unshakable trust in Him. The fact that Jesus “grew” in all these things simply means that He didn’t come out of the womb as a mature adult trapped in a baby’s body. He didn’t rely on His divine omniscience, but instead, He set it aside and humbled Himself. He had to learn to speak, learn to read and write; He had to learn facts and information, learn to live in this world, like any child does, except that He did it all without sin, with no youthful stubbornness or rebellion, with no selfishness, with no anger, with no complaining. Jesus was, literally, the perfect Son.
So we really have to think about the events recorded in our Gospel. Because suddenly, and apparently for the first time in His life, the perfect Son wasn’t where His parents expected Him to be.
Imagine the panic that must have struck Mary and Joseph at the end of their first travel day away from Jerusalem. They assumed Jesus was with some of their relatives in the caravan. They didn’t watch over their perfect Son perfectly. That speaks to just how normal their family was, in spite of the spectacular events that surrounded Jesus’ birth. The fact that Jesus was the Son of God doesn’t seem to have come up all that often in their home. It’s not unlike having an adopted son or daughter. It’s not that you actually forget that he or she was adopted. Most days it just doesn’t matter. You don’t even think about it. He’s just “your son.” She’s just “your daughter.” You’re a family. That’s the way it should be.
Except that, in the case of Jesus, He had two fathers to consider: Joseph, his adopted father, and God Himself, His eternal, divine Father. Mary and Joseph were raising their Son Jesus for Someone Else. Their Son had a divine origin and a divine purpose—a purpose that He had to stay behind in Jerusalem to accomplish.
Mary and Joseph hurried back to Jerusalem. They had already gone a day’s journey away, so it took another day to get back. And then, on the third day, they retraced their steps back to the Temple, where they found Jesus, not sitting idly, not worrying about His parents, but actively involved in the affairs of His Father, listening to the teachers of the Law, asking them astute questions, providing astonishing answers. Even at the age of twelve, Jesus displayed His divine majesty, not with miraculous deeds, but with the perfect knowledge of God that only the perfect Son of God could have.
Mary and Joseph, too, were amazed when they saw Jesus sitting there in the midst of the teachers, probably because they figured that Jesus had somehow gotten lost and separated from their company on accident, and that He would be frightened and searching for His parents. Instead, they find Him here in the Temple, happy to be where He is, acting as if it were the most normal thing in the world for Him, as a twelve year old boy from Nazareth, to be discussing matters of God with the Jewish teachers in Jerusalem.
Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously. Mary was right, of course, to call Jesus her Son, and she was right to call Joseph His father, because, legally, he was. But she shows here that she still didn’t grasp the full meaning of the angel Gabriel’s words to her some 13 years earlier, that the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. She should have remembered God’s Word to her. She should have understood that she and Joseph were not the only parents of their Son, but that He had come with a divine purpose.
And that was basically Jesus’ answer to her: Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business? “The Father’s business” includes many things, of course, not the least of which was listening to God’s Word and revealing His Father to mankind. “I must be about His business,” Jesus said. It wasn’t optional. It was His purpose for coming into the world, to show us what God is like: righteous, kind, friendly, intelligent, wise. More than that, Jesus’ purpose was to show us what His Father is like in this: that the Father gave His perfect Son into death on a cross, so that sinners could be saved by faith in Him.
At the time, Mary and Joseph still didn’t understand what Jesus meant. Mary wouldn’t understand at times even later when Jesus was risking His life by preaching and teaching and speaking against the errors of the priests and Pharisees. But now, after all has been accomplished, now you understand, don’t you?
First, you understand that Jesus, the perfect Son of God, had to come into our flesh as the perfect human Son, because we are not perfect sons and daughters, either to God or to our human parents. Always obedient to our parents and other authorities, always selfless, always loving and trusting, always fearing God above all things, always thoroughly devoted to hearing and studying His Word—that doesn’t describe any of you, or me. You are not perfect sons and daughters. You are sinful sons and daughters. But now, by faith in Jesus and by Baptism into His name, you inherit His record. You are marked by His character. You are counted as perfect sons by faith in the Perfect Son.
Then, you understand, too, that Jesus did not come into this world to live for Himself, but to serve sinners, to serve you and me. He had to be about His Father’s business at all times, because His Father’s business was saving sinners, and Jesus is the only Savior of sinners. It’s foolish to imagine, as Roman Catholics do, that, somehow, Jesus is closer to His mother Mary than He is to anyone else. We see already from the age of twelve that His heart was devoted, not to His earthly family, but to His heavenly Father, and to all who would hear His voice. You who hear His voice today—you are His Father’s business. Jesus is spending this Sunday morning in your midst, with His Word and with His own body and blood, that you should hear His voice, repent of your sins, trust in Him as your Savior from sin, and know God through Him.
Finally, we learn from Jesus’ twelve-year-old example just how important God’s Word is to those who believe in Jesus. Christians love to hear God’s Word and study it and grow in it. And since we don’t have the perfect knowledge of God that Jesus had, we must be even more diligent in devoting ourselves to learning and studying God’s Word. That’s why we have our Small Catechism, to be a daily exercise in learning God’s truth. That’s why you have Bibles in your homes, and why we have Bible studies here at church, because if you’re a Christian, if you want to walk in Jesus’ footsteps, if you know Him and believe in Him and love Him, then you will not let your sinful flesh keep you or your children away from the opportunities you have to hear and learn God’s Word. Instead, you must struggle against your flesh, so that you remember Jesus’ love and devotion for His Father’s business even as a young boy of twelve. His devotion to God’s Word both earned for us the forgiveness of our sins, and serves as a model and as a goal for us, and for our children, so that we, who are already counted as perfect sons by faith in the perfect Son, may grow each day in the knowledge of God and in service to our neighbor, as is fitting for sons and daughters of our Father in heaven. Amen.
