Text: Luke 2:40-52
Date: Christmas II + 1/4/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI
Today (this year, and whenever there is a Second Sunday after Christmas [which is a little more than about half the time]) we get to hear that rare word concerning the Lord Jesus Christ when He was just twelve years old. It is rare because between the account of His conception and birth as an infant and the beginning of His active, earthly ministry when He was about thirty years old, we know nothing more about Jesus’ life as a child or a teenager or a young man than this little account. Surely St. Luke got this and probably other information directly from the Lord’s mother, Blessed Mary, an opinion inferred by many from the inclusion of the comment how Mary “treasured up all these things in her heart” (2:51). As with the practice of the Jews to this day of celebrating the Bat and Bar Mitzvah, the coming to the age of majority of a child around the age of 12 or 13, and of western Christians with the rite of confirmation at about the same age, there was probably a similar significance with Jesus’ attendance at the temple in that particular year. At least it wasn’t until that particular year that the memorable, treasured, unusual thing happened when Jesus “stayed behind in Jerusalem,” at the Temple, thus making for the three-day “Amber alert” for the missing youngster. The greatest significance of this incident for us has to do with Jesus’ identity as the Son of God the Father and as the very presence of God in His temple. Amid the amazement and astonishment and the ensuing questions and the lack of understanding, Jesus says he must be in His Father’s house and about His Father’s business. It is that divine necessity that emphasizes the Lord’s destiny, His purpose and the goal of His ministry that encourages us in the blessed destiny that is ours by faith in Him. Continue reading “My Father's House”
