How Will the Next Generation Believe?

Here is the video of yesterday's live-streamed blended worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Beneath it, you'll find the text of the message. Living Water resumes its regular worship schedule next Sunday, January 9, with the traditional service at 8:45 AM and the modern service at 11:00 AM. Sunday School for people of all ages happens between the services at 10:00 AM.



Luke 2:40-52

When I was growing up, my family and I attended a huge annual summer picnic put on by a lodge to which my grandfather belonged. There were games and give-aways, tons of food, golf for the interested, a large playground for kids, and, at the end of the evening, a dance with music and styles for all ages. 

One year when I was ten, I stayed in the playground area long after my cousins and sister had joined the crowd at the dance. About an hour after the dance started, my parents, having assumed I’d been with my cousins, became aware that I wasn’t in the pavilion. My father and grandfather searched the place and couldn’t find me. They had the bandmaster page me. But I didn’t hear the page and kept playing outside with a number of other kids.

I’d just run with three or four other kids to shove and land on one of those push-merry-go-rounds, laughing, when an arm pulled me off. It was my dad and he was angry. “Your grandfather and I have been looking everywhere for you! Your mother is beside herself!” These words were accompanied by a few swats on the backside.

The anger my dad felt at that moment was the kind of anger that Luke in today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 2:40-52, says Joseph and Mary felt when they finally found the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem after searching for Him for three days. 

Our translation of Luke 2:47 says of their reaction: “When his parents saw him, they were astonished…” But the root word of the verb Luke uses here is ἐκπλήσσω (ekpléssó). It’s a word used of someone reacting with anger to a situation that brings them shock, panic, or fear. Mary and Joseph had endured a fearful experience. For three days, they had no idea where the twelve-year-old Jesus was. That would fill any parent with panic and anxiety! 

But on top of that, they must have felt dread over losing the One they knew to be not just a Judean child, but the Messiah, God the King. No wonder then that Luke tells us that Mary struck out at Jesus with anger when she and Joseph finally found Jesus in the temple, respectfully asking questions of the Bible scholars and respectfully answering their questions of Him. “Son,” Mary asks, “why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” (Luke 2:48)

Now, I don’t want to turn this into a Greek lesson (I’m not a Greek scholar anyway), but our translation (and it's not the only one that does this) sort of botches Jesus’ response. Our translation renders Jesus’ response in Luke 2:49 as: “‘​Why were you searching for me?...Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” In fact, Luke doesn’t tell us that Jesus used the word “house,” which could refer to the temple. Instead, Jesus more literally says, “Why is it that you were seeking Me? Didn’t you know that it’s necessary for me to be in the things of My Father?”

Jesus’ entire time on this earth was about Him being "in the things" of God the Father, Who sent Jesus to us. It was the necessity of His Incarnation among us. 

In Luke 12:50, for example, the adult Jesus compares His crucifixion to baptism and says, “I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” 

And, once more, considering His cross, the adult Jesus says, “I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.” (John 8:28) 

Mary and Joseph, in their panic and anger, forgot what Simeon told them when Jesus was dedicated at this same temple: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” (Luke 2:34-35) 

Jesus, God the Son, had come into the world to take our punishment for sin on a cross and to rise to give eternity to all who repent and believe in Him. This was the business of the Father for Jesus! And it’s clear that Jesus loved being about the business of His Father.

The Lutheran pastor and theologian of the last century, Bo Giertz, author of the novel, The Hammer of God, said in one sermon that this text raises a question. It's basically this: How will parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and adults with influence help the children in their lives love the things of God?

Giertz says there are two answers to that question.

First, Giertz says, children must see that we adults love the things of God. 

None of us completely understands the mystery of Jesus being both fully human, subject to the same need for physical and intellectual development that exists in any child, and fully God, as Jesus claims when He says, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30) But it is clear that God the Father placed God the Son Jesus in the home of parents who loved God and the Word of God. In Jesus’ reply to Mary’s panicked words, we can see that it’s beginning to dawn on the boy Jesus that He is God’s Son: He speaks, as few ever had, of His Father’s business rather than of the business of God. 

But Jesus also acknowledges the firm faith footing given Him by Joseph and Mary. How, He asks, could they be surprised by how much He loves God when they had exemplified faith in and love for God every day in their home?

People wonder how the next generations will come to love the God revealed in Jesus Christ or have the freedom from sin and death that belongs to those who repent and believe in Him? Number one, they must see that we who claim to follow Jesus as Lord love and worship Him in response to His great love for us.

But, Giertz says, there’s a second way adults can help the children in their lives to love God and the things of God. It’s to love those children. 

Loving our children doesn’t mean being indulgent. It does mean providing for their physical and emotional needs, to be understanding, to discipline out of love and not punish out of anger, to not expect them to be mirror images of ourselves, and to major in the majors. 

But it also means to speak of God and the things of God, in Moses’ words, “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deuteronomy 6:7) 

It means as parents promise when their children are baptized, to “faithfully bring them to the services of God’s house…teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments…place the Holy Scriptures in their hands…and provide for their instruction in the Christian faith…” (Lutheran Book of Worship)

When we have faith in the Gospel of new and everlasting life for all who repent and believe in Jesus that comes to us through Word and Sacrament, we need never be, as Joseph and Mary were in our Gospel lesson, dissolved by anger and fear that we have lost Jesus or His saving Gospel. 

Jesus will always find us in Word and Sacrament, always be with us as He goes about His Father’s business. 

Nor, as we return to Jesus in the gracious gifts of Scripture, Holy Communion, and the fellowship of His Church, do we need fear that God has lost us. 

And, through all the challenges and tragedies, triumphs, and celebrations of this life, the children in our lives can know these things are true, too. 

When they see that we love the God we know in Jesus no matter what and when they know that we love them no matter what, God’s love can help those children hear the Word about Jesus, believe in Jesus, and know they are eternally saved by the grace–the forgiving love of God that always seeks us–in which all believers in Jesus stand. 

Amen

Lost and Found

[This was shared during both worship services at Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio,  today.]

Luke 2:40-52
Today, our Gospel lesson revolves around an incident that happened when Jesus was twelve years old. This is the only incident from Jesus’ childhood beyond Matthew’s and Luke’s birth and infancy accounts that we have. As Luke tells it, the incident is recounted just after his account of what happened in the temple in Jerusalem eight days after Jesus was born.

In fact, looking at that earlier incident can help to explain much of what is going on in today’s Gospel lesson. 

You remember that back then, the holy family was met by two elderly Jewish believers, Simeon and Anna. Each of them had been waiting and praying for the coming of the Messiah promised by God hundreds of years earlier.

Simeon, you’ll recall, rejoiced when he saw Jesus. But there was a grim follow up to His rejoicing. Please open a sanctuary Bible to Luke 2:34-35 (page 716) to see it: “...Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: ‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.’” 

Just in case Mary entertained any illusions that the child conceived in her womb by the Holy Spirit to Whom she had given birth would be a normal son, Simeon was evidently sent by God to remind her that this was not the case. As God-in-the-flesh, Jesus would inevitably arouse the hostility of a world of people--including you and me--intent on being their own gods and lords, their own kings and counselors. 

Simeon thus foreshadows Jesus‘ cross for Mary and Joseph. The freedom of human beings from slavery to sin, death, and futility can only come through the sacrifice of the perfect representative of the human race. It was to offer Himself in this way that Jesus came into our world.

Any parent can imagine how Mary and Joseph must have reacted to Simeon’s prediction. When bad things happen to or are predicted for our kids, when doctors give frightening diagnoses and even more frightening prognoses for them, our first reaction as parents is denial. The second may be anger. In any case, we want to block the unpleasant prospects from our thoughts and shield our kids from them. And, under such circumstances, there’s one thing we crave more than anything else: normalcy, routine, an ordinary life. (Whatever that may be.) That was what Mary and Joseph craved, normalcy, ordinariness. 

So, Mary and Joseph raised Jesus in their hometown. 

The ordinariness of the lives they established there may have lulled the parents into thinking that, as special as Jesus was to them, maybe Simeon was wrong. Maybe the cross could be avoided. Maybe a sword would never pierce Mary’s soul. 

But today’s lesson shows us that neither cross nor sword could be averted. 

Look at our lesson, Luke 2:41-52 (page 716 also). At the outset, we’re told: “Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.” 

Mary and Joseph assumed that their twelve year old was with some of their family members or neighbors from Nazareth. It took them a day to realize that Jesus was missing. Verse 46 says: “After three days they found him in the temple courts...” We’ll come back to “three days” shortly. But, to me, what Luke says here surprises me. It would have taken the two a day to get back to Jerusalem. But they evidently spent a whole day searching in the city before going to the temple. The question is why didn’t they look for Jesus at the temple first? It was the most prominent place in Jerusalem and even before this, Mary and Joseph could see that Jesus, in Luke’s words, “was filled with wisdom...the grace of God was upon Him.”

Maybe the reason they didn't go to the temple immediately was that it served as a harsh reminder to them of Simeon’s prophecy. This may be why they spent a day looking for Jesus in all the wrong places. 

And, I must admit that I too, often look for Jesus in the wrong places. 

I look for Jesus to be where I want Him to be, rather than submitting to the death of my favorite sins or going where He sends me. 

I try to get Him to do my will, rather than surrendering to His. 

Yet the hard fact is that God did not take on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to make us comfortable in our sin, self-will, and life lived on our own terms rather than God’s terms. 

Jesus came to invite us to crucify our old selves in repentance and experience new and everlasting life by believing in and surrendering to Him. 

Even Mary and Joseph, we see from today’s lesson, needed to repent of their sin of wanting Jesus on their own terms and to, instead, believe in Jesus with total surrender. 

Verses 46 and 47 go on to tell us that Jesus was “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.” Then in verse 48, we’re told: “When his parents saw him, they were astonished.” 

We might wonder: How could they have been astonished? 

Had Mary forgotten her conversation with the angel Gabriel who told her that despite never having been with a man, she would give birth to the Savior of the world? 

Had Joseph forgotten the dream in which he was told not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because this child was the Son of God? 

Had they forgotten the shepherds or the wise men or Simeon or Anna? 

Had Mary forgotten that her kinswoman Elizabeth reported that the child within her, John the Baptist, had leapt for joy when he heard the voice of the Savior's mother?

How often have we ourselves had some close encounter with God--an answered prayer, unexpected provision, a word of guidance, comfort, or needed reproach from God’s Word--only to move on as if the encounter never happened, as if God were some distant stranger and not the Lord of our every moment? How often do we take comfort in ordinary certainties rather than remembering our encounters with God and following Him into the unseen and unknown?

Mired in the commonplace realities of this finite world, Mary and Joseph seem to have forgotten their encounters with God.

In her forgetfulness, Mary reproaches Jesus (verse 48): “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” 

Spoken just life the parent of a tween or teen! Can't you just hear her plaintiveness? 

Mary has sunken so deeply into routine, it seems, that she has forgotten Who Jesus‘ real Father is and where Jesus‘ real home is. 

Then Jesus says words that must have seemed like a sword piercing her soul, reminding her that her firstborn Son could never be hers alone: “Why were you searching for me?” [Jesus asks]. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 

Jesus would honor His earthly parents always. But His earthly family would never be His highest priority. As Jesus would later say in Luke 8:21, "My mother and brothers [My family] are those who hear God's word and put it into practice."

Folks: What Jesus says of Himself is no less true for those of we who confess Him to be our Lord and God. 

We may love and cherish our families, we may honor our parents, but when we come to faith in Christ, God becomes our Father. God in Christ is our highest priority. 

And this present world, shrouded in sin and death, is not our home. 

In Jesus Christ, we know that we have a better homeland, with God in eternity. 

And, like Jesus, out of gratitude for His forgiveness and love, no matter what our jobs, we are called to be about our Father’s business: loving God, loving neighbors, making disciples for Christ.  

In verse 50, we’re told that Mary and Joseph didn’t understand what Jesus was telling them. And this is where the “three days” comes in. 

Three days after Jesus’ crucifixion, you’ll remember, two unnamed disciples ran into Him, risen from the dead, on the road to Emmaus. Their minds, it seems, were so fogged by the normal expectations of life--you know, like the normal expectation that dead people stay dead--that they couldn’t believe the reports they’d heard of Jesus’ resurrection. Because of that fog, they didn’t recognize the risen Jesus as He walked beside them on the road! 

But just as the twelve year old Jesus pierced Mary's and Joseph's worldly fog to reveal Himself as the Son of God three days after the two worried parents began a frenzied search for the One they’d come to see as their son, the risen Jesus would reveal Himself as the conqueror of sin and death to those confused followers of Jesus on the first Easter. It wasn't the first time that Jesus had been so revealed to them. I guess that, like us, even Joseph and Mary needed constant refresher courses to keep in mind Who Jesus really was and is.

It’s easy to lose track of Jesus and Who He is. If it happened to Mary and Joseph and to the disciples who had watched Jesus perform miracles and heard His teaching, it can also be true for you and me. 

But it’s not as if Jesus has gone to heaven without leaving us a forwarding address. He wants to be with us now and in eternity.

Like Joseph and Mary, we simply need to know where we can find Him. And so, Jesus gives us reliable means by which we can be in His company twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. 

We can go to His Word, in the Bible, and His Word proclaimed in personal conversations, Sunday School lessons and Bible studies, and from pulpits. 

We can go to the Sacraments--Holy Baptism and Holy Communion--by which He comes to us and fills us with God's forgiveness, new life, and the Holy Spirit. 

We can go to the fellowship of Christian believers who pray with and for one another, encourage one another, hold one another accountable to the truth revealed on the pages of the Bible, and support one another in good and bad times. 

We can go to prayer in Jesus‘ Name.  

We can go to service done for others as though they were Jesus themselves. 

As we begin a new year, it’s good to remember that it is no mystery about where Jesus can be found: in Word and Sacrament and the fellowship of other Christian disciples. 

You don’t have to undertake a frenzied search for Him. Through the eyes of faith, Jesus can be found in these places where He promises to meet us, and, when we do, we realize that it's never Jesus Who is lost, it's us. We simply need to let Him find us. When we do, His grace and love and His power will find us too. Amen