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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Although for many people Christmas was over already on December 26th, we celebrate the Nativity of Our Lord not only on Christmas Day but also for the Christmas Season’s twelve days. And so, on this Twelfth Day of Christmas, the Second Sunday after Christmas, we continue to meditate on the Incarnation, the Second Person of the Triune God’s becoming flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, her and God’s Son, Jesus, the Christ. The Gospel Reading about the Boy Jesus in the Temple does more than provide desired details of His childhood, for the Gospel Reading gives us Jesus’s first recorded words, which demonstrate His awareness, even at a young age, both of His identity as God’s Son and of His purpose as our Redeemer. Jesus’s first words are the basis for the phrasing of our theme for this morning’s sermon, namely “God’s Son is of necessity in the things of His Father”.
On the First Sunday after Christmas last week, we heard from St. Matthew’s Gospel account how, at the Lord’s direction, Joseph took Jesus and Mary from Bethlehem first to Egypt and then later back to Israel, in particular to the district of Galilee to a city called Nazareth (Matthew 2:13-23). On this Second Sunday after Christmas today, we heard uniquely from St. Luke’s Gospel account how, at the Feast of the Passover, Joseph and Mary took Jesus from Nazareth to Jerusalem and how in the Temple Courts there, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, Jesus amazed all who heard Him with His understanding and His answers and thereby showed forth His Divine nature, which is personally united with His human nature and in “communion” with it (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration VIII:25).
Joseph and Mary, who had inadvertently started back to Nazareth without Jesus and had been searching for Him for three days, were astonished when they saw Him. Jesus’s response to His mother rhetorically asked both why they were searching for Him and whether they knew that He must be in His Father’s things. The Divinely‑inspired original Greek there does not specify what those “things” were, and, over the years, English versions have suggested such things as “business” (KJV, NKJV) or “affairs” (NASB margin), “house” (ASV, NEB, NIV, NASB, ESV), or some combination of the two (AAT). Jesus explicitly refers to His Father’s “house” elsewhere (John 2:16; confer/compare Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; and Luke 19:46), and here Jesus most likely has more than His location in the Temple Courts in mind, although, to be sure, that location in the Temple Courts is linked with the business or affairs and other things of His and our Heavenly Father.
The Greek of Jesus’s response to His mother suggests that she and His guardian Joseph did know or at least should have known that Jesus of necessity had to be in the things of His Father, but St. Luke tells us that they did not understand the saying that Jesus spoke to them. The Divine revelations that Mary and Joseph had received before Jesus was conceived and born and their experiences afterwards should have left them with a clear mental perception both of Who Jesus was and of what He was doing there, but their natural understanding, as their five senses took in the twelve‑year-old boy in front of them, apparently overrode that knowledge (ESL #5825; confer or compare Luke 9:45; 18:34). They had acted in ignorance of Jesus’s remaining in Jerusalem and falsely supposing Him to be in their group, so they were at fault, which certainly is a problem for those who consider Mary at least to be without sin (confer Luther, AE 76:202).
Of course, by nature we are no less sinful than Mary and Joseph. By Divine revelation we know or at least should know Who Jesus is and what He is doing with us, but our natural understanding, as our five senses take things in, too frequently overrides that knowledge. We act in ignorance of the facts of our realities and with false suppositions about others. For those and all of our sins, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, apart from our sorrow over our sin and trust in God to forgive our sin, which God Himself enables as He calls us to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is true God in human flesh for us. Today’s Gospel Reading essentially frames the account of the Boy Jesus in the Temple with summaries of His growth, such as His being filled with and increasing in wisdom (confer 1 Samuel 2:21, 26; Luke 1:80; Acts 6:3, 10). Wisdom was prominent in both today’s Old Testament Reading about Solomon’s wisdom (1 Kings 3:4-15) and today’s Psalm about God’s commandment making one wiser than others (Psalm 119:97-104; antiphon: v.99), and Jesus is wiser than Solomon (confer Luke 11:31). Part of the mystery of the Incarnation is that the Second Person of the Triune God, Who is all-knowing, could be filled with and increase in wisdom according to His human nature in the Boy Jesus. And, this Personal union of the two natures and their “communication” of attributes are not some irrelevant theological abstraction but are necessary for us and for our salvation. For, Jesus on the cross died in our place the death that we deserved, not like any other person would have died, but in such a way that by His death He conquered sin, death, and the power of the devil for us (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration VIII:25). St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (Ephesians 1:3-14) put it this way, that we have redemption through Jesus’s blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of God’s grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ. “God’s Son is of necessity in the things of His Father”!
As God’s children, we also necessarily are in the things of our Heavenly Father! Things such as Holy Baptism, by which God adopts us to Himself as children and seals us with the Holy Spirit, Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. We are in the things of our Heavenly Father: things such as Holy Absolution, in which ministers proclaim peace and pardon in God’s Name but we by faith hear God speaking, as it were, from the sky (Lutheran Service Book 981:6). And we are in the things of our Heavenly Father: things such as Holy Communion, the fulfillment of the Old Testament Passover meal, in which we eat the Body of the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36) and drink the cup of the New Testament in His Blood (Luke 22:20).
Those things by which God makes and keeps us as His children, forgiving our sins and thereby giving us life and salvation, those things are here in His house and lead us to do His “business”, as it were, loving Him and our neighbors according to the various vocations that He gives us. We treasure up His Word in our hearts. On Sundays and on Festivals, we come as families to His House and to the Feast. We are submissive to our parents and other authorities. Inviting our relatives and acquaintances, we “wandering pilgrims” journey together in the group of our brothers and sisters in Christ until we see God face to face (LSB 523:3; confer 410:6). In this life we will never fully understand the mystery of our Lord’s Incarnation, but then we will know fully, even as we are fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12).
The current Christmas Season may end today, but the peace and joy that the birth of God into our human flesh brings never ends! God reveals to us Who Jesus is and what He has done, is doing, and will do for and with us. We trust that revelation over the understanding of our sinful nature and our five senses, and we act accordingly. Water, words, bread and wine may appear to be plain and powerless, but God acts through them in order to save us. We may see our bodies and minds failing and deteriorating, but God will resurrect and glorify them so that they will be better than we can imagine. When we fail to trust God’s revelation and act accordingly, as we will fail, then with daily sorrow over our sin and trust in God to forgive our sin, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins, and we extend our forgiveness to one another. Such is the “business” or are the “affairs” of God our Heavenly Father, and God’s Son is, as all of God’s children are, of necessity “in” those things and in His House now, as by His love, mercy, and grace we will be in His House for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +