Jan 3, 2021  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our heavenly Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

The text for our meditation today is the Gospel Lesson for this 2nd Sunday after Christmas, Luke 2:40-52. There we read these words:

And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the group they went a day's journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?” And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

We begin in Jesus’ name, AMEN

When the Virgin Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and… laid Him in a manger” (Luke 2:7), the Lord God was doing something more than merely entering into His creation. In Mary’s infant Son, God nestled Himself into the most intimate recesses of our lives. God entered a family. It did not need to be that way. The angel Gabriel had earlier preached to Mary, “Nothing shall be impossible for God” (Luke 1:37).

Those Words indicate that God could have come to us as a fully grown man at the head of an unconquerable army. God could have come in a dark and frightening cloud, as He did at Sinai. God could have arrived in a monastery, as part of a traveling circus, or in any other way He pleased. There is but ONE way that pleased God to come: God was born into a family.

Is there any better place to be, than near to family? It is why you travel at the holidays. It is why you Facebook and Skype. Family is why you abandon at least a portion of your dreams in life. Family is also why you seek substitutes.

Life in this sinful, lonely world has forced radical reconfigurations of family. There is no such thing as a “normal family,” but all the other descriptions are too painful to bear. Who wants to admit such phrases as “dysfunctional family” or “blended family” or “nontraditional family” or “broken home”?

When I was young, I thought my parents had achieved something exceptional. It took twenty years for the illusion to die. When it finally did, I was stunned to see that the Lavrenz family was just like everyone else.

Family is something more than the most basic building block of all human society. Family is where we each stand, the most vulnerable, the most unmasked, the most tempted. Is there anyone else whose repetitions or insubordinations make you angrier? Who has more deeply hurt or saddened or disappointed you? Who has stirred more fear in your soul? Who has presented themselves as a more worthy idol? You were more chagrined to lose? Who has done more to leave you wanting more? For whom you would more quickly open your veins? Who knows you better and tolerates you more than your family?

No one is as strange as your parents: Are those people really the same people who raised you? Family is something more than the building block of all human society. Family is where you each stand, in all of your weakness and in all of your glory. And family is exactly where Christ Jesus the Lord chose to be.

Today’s Gospel is for your comfort and for your forgiveness and for your strength: Jesus “went down with His parents to Nazareth and was submissive to them.”

Christ Jesus experienced the full spectrum of family life. The Scriptures declare that He was “tempted in every respect, as we are, except without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Only Jesus was without sin; Joseph and Mary had plenty of sin. That means Christ Jesus your Lord had to exert the same sort of endurance in His family life that you must exert in yours.

Jesus “was submissive to them.” That means Jesus placed Himself under the authority and guidance and decision-making of other people. He abandoned His divine right; He tolerated parental injustices; He allowed the needs of His family to shape and direct His everyday life

In so doing, Jesus allows you to think that your family obligations and responsibilities do not end up robbing you of who you are. Whether your families are large or small, distant or near, they help make you who you are. Perhaps you can even dare to believe that your family pressures play a role in “conforming you to the image of God’s Son,” to borrow some wording from Romans chapter 8 (v. 29).

Today’s Gospel shows that there is but one thing Christ Jesus your Lord could not do for His family. Jesus could not trade His faith in God for their sake. “Why were you looking for Me?” He asked. “Did you not know I must be in My Father’s house?” Translated another way, “Did you not know I must be about My Father’s business?” (see the KJV)

With these Words, Christ Jesus shows you that: Absolutely the best and most loving thing you can each do for your families is to hold the Christian faith undefiled. The Christian faith should form your opinions of the family, rather than allowing the family to form your opinions of the Christian faith.

your Savior remained undeterred by family idolatry. That is why you get to live. Your Lord’s family would gladly have prevented Him from suffering the cross. What family would not prevent such suffering for one of their own? Jesus responded to family temptations by throwing open His arms and welcoming you through Baptism into His family. Thus it is written, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it” (Luke 8:21).

Again, When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (Galatians 4:4-5). Again, “He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers” (Hebrews 2:11).

Still again: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are” (1 John 3:1). Finally, “I am ascending to My Father and your Father, My God and your God” (John 20:17).

In today’s Gospel, your Lord’s death for your forgiveness still waited in the distance. The big things would happen soon enough. For now, the little things required His attention: Jesus “went down with His parents to Nazareth and was submissive to them.” In so doing, Jesus has added honor and glory and respectability to the many ways you must each submit to—and endure—your families.

Christ is risen.