One of the most remarkable things about being a parent is watching the children grow and develop, as they learn to walk and talk, as they get taller and stronger, as they add to their knowledge and understanding, and as they increase in wisdom and maturity. Even as you watch it happening over the course of weeks and months and years, it is both delightful and breathtaking; and then, as you look back, you wonder how they “suddenly” went from where they were to where they are now.
We have something of that sense in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ on this Second Sunday of Christmas, as we have gone from His circumcision to His “Bar-Mitzvah” in just a few days. And whereas we are accustomed to the familiar images of the Christ Child in the manger or nestled in the arms of His Mother, we have really only this one Gospel story from His subsequent childhood. But of course, for Mary and Joseph, and for Jesus Himself, those thirty years or so between His Holy Nativity and His Holy Baptism were not incidental, inconsequential, or insignificant.
Indeed, the great Mystery of the Incarnation — that God became Man, the Word became Flesh — that the almighty and eternal Son of the Living God was conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, becoming flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood, in order to be our Savior — that is no less awesome and amazing in His adolescence than it is in His conception, birth, and circumcision.
The incarnate Son of God was not only a little Baby, but He also grew, He got bigger and taller, stronger and faster. His hair and arms and legs got longer, and as a young man His muscles began to fill out, His shoulders widened, His voice changed and deepened. All of that may seem normal enough, because you already know that He went from a Babe in arms to the Man on the Cross, and that didn’t happen over night but over several decades. But along with the growth of His Body from infancy to adulthood, there was also the growth and development of His mind over time. He learned things. He asked questions, and He listened to the answers. He got smarter and wiser, and He interacted with the world around Him with increasing insight and understanding. And while that is remarkable in the case of any child, it is all the more remarkable in the case of this Child.
That God the Son became true Man means that He did not simply pop into existence, but He took human life from its very inception and made it His own; He lived and grew through all its stages from the womb to His tomb. Cell by cell He got bigger within the body of His Mother, and so also from His birth into His teen years and beyond. He laughed and played, He ran and jumped and climbed things. He learned to eat new foods. He went to school. His mind expanded. His abilities increased. His skills were sharpened. “He grew in wisdom and in stature.”
Jesus wasn’t goofing off or playing games with the teachers in the Temple when He engaged them in conversation. He was gladly hearing and learning the Word of God, just as you are given to do. For He has taken your human nature to be His own, and so has He lived your human life, as well, save only without sin. He has lived as the true Man, that you might live the divine Life in Him.
To live and grow, to learn and develop belongs to the goodness of life as a creature of God, and the almighty and eternal Son has made that His own as the Image and Likeness of His God and Father in human Flesh and Blood. But He also took upon Himself the curse and consequences of sin, the circumstances and conditions of fallen man, subject not only to growth and change but to injury, illness, infirmity, and death. He made Himself, not only truly human, but vulnerable and mortal.
He has done so, bearing your sin and death in His Body, in order to sacrifice Himself in your place, for all of your sins; that He should become the Sacrifice of Propitiation, not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. For He is not only the Son of God and the true Man, but the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, who gives Himself as your Meat and Drink indeed.
So it is that your reconciliation with God, your redemption, and your righteousness are in Christ Jesus. In Him you have divine Life and eternal Salvation. Apart from Him, you have only death.
How, then, shall you hang on to the Lord Jesus and not lose sight of Him? By what wisdom shall you grow and abide in Him, that you may have true and lasting Life in and with Him? And if you are a parent, how shall you secure Him for your children? That is the single most important thing you are given to do as a father or mother — to secure Christ Jesus for your sons and daughters, from their infancy through each stage of development. How shall you not lose Jesus to yourself and to your children, so that you and they shall not be lost forever under the curse of sin and death?
You have a good example, to begin with, in St. Mary and St. Joseph, who faithfully went up to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Feast of the Passover in accordance with the Law of the Lord. They were pious and faithful. They went to church, to say it simply, and they took the Boy Jesus with them. They went to hear and learn the Word of God in the fellowship of His people Israel.
Parents, that is how you keep from losing Jesus for yourself and for your children. You go to the House of the Lord. You give attention to His Word and the preaching of it. You see to it that you and your family call upon the Name of the Lord in the fellowship of His Holy Christian Church.
By the same token, note that even such faithful and pious parents as Mary and Joseph managed to leave the Lord Jesus behind and to lose Him, simply by going on their way without Him. Heed the warning of that example, and guard your heart, mind, body, and life against such temptations and dangers. Do not leave the Lord Jesus behind as you return from here to your everyday routines.
The problem is usually not found in your activities per se. After all, you have your responsibilities, your God-given callings and stations in life to serve and carry out — and it is quite right that you should do so. But take Christ Jesus with you by the prayer and confession of His Word. And when your activities distract your heart and mind from Him and His Word, Repent: Turn back around.
That’s what Mary and Joseph finally had to do. After a day of fruitless searching among all those things that were so familiar to them, they had to turn around and go back to Jerusalem. And in that you are given a picture of what your own repentance and return to faith in Christ will look like.
To begin with, when you first realize that He is missing — when you finally notice the big hole in your life where the Lord Jesus ought to be — then what anxiety and what dread settle upon your heart. In many cases, you probably can’t even identify what’s wrong; but even so, when Jesus is missing from your life, then everything is utterly out of sorts. You might even be doing all the right things, and yet they’re still all wrong. If you have not held on to Jesus, then you have lost what is most important, most necessary and essential to both your body and your soul and to all of life.
So you start looking, and you search for what is missing, but just like Mary and Joseph at first, you look in all the wrong places, in all the wrong ways. You suppose that you will find Jesus among your family and friends, in that which is comfortable and familiar to you. Even if it’s not “Jesus” that you think you’re looking for, you attempt to find and make a life for yourself in those things and in those places; whereas you’ll have no true or lasting life apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.
You’ll not find life with God in your family or among your friends apart from Christ Jesus. You’ll not find life with God in your job, in your hobbies and pastimes, or on vacation, if the Lord Jesus is not with you. When Jesus is missing, you’re as good as dead, and He’s as good as dead to you.
But His Resurrection from the dead — on the Third Day — His Resurrection for you and yours — is in His Father’s House, in His Church, in His Word, in the hearing of the Word of God in Christ.
That’s the sort of heart that Solomon prayed for, and that God gave to Him by His grace. English translations generally refer to a “discerning” heart, but the text actually says that he prayed for a “hearing” heart, that is, a heart that listens and gives attention to the Word and wisdom of God, which is the root of all true discernment. It is when your heart hears the Word of the Lord that your heart is faithful, and trusting, and loves God, and obeys His commands, and lives by His grace.
It is in the hearing of the Word of Christ that you find Jesus, because it is by and with His Word that He finds you. And you hear the Word of Christ in His Church, in the preaching and Ministry of His Gospel. That is where you find Him; because, again, that is where and how He finds you.
And you should already know that, because the Lord your God has taught you and trained you to find the Son in the Father’s House. Indeed, that lesson is at the very heart of the Passover Feast.
You know the story of the Exodus from Egypt, how the Angel of Death went throughout the land, but each of the fathers was instructed to take a lamb and sacrifice it, to put the blood of the lamb upon the door, and to feed his family with the flesh of the lamb, because it was the Lord’s Passover, and He would spare the sons of Israel and bring His people out of Egypt. The sons of Israel were safe when each of them was in the home of his father, in the home where the lamb was sacrificed in place of the firstborn son, and eaten by the family in fellowship with the Lord and with each other. That’s where and how the sons of Israel were kept alive, and preserved, and safe from death.
So, the Boy Jesus is exactly right, of course. He is found precisely where He ought to be, that is, in His Father’s House. So should Mary and Joseph have known and expected from the Passover.
Indeed, all of God’s people are to be found within their Father’s House — where the Lamb who has been sacrificed is found — where the Flesh and Blood of that same Lamb are given and poured out for the Household and Family of God in holy fellowship with Him and all His dear children.
What God did in the first Passover for the households and families of Israel in Egypt, what fathers did according to the Word of the Lord for their own households and families on that occasion, God did for the whole household and family of Israel in King Solomon’s building of the Temple in Jerusalem, where year after year the Passover lambs were sacrificed for the keeping of the Feast. It was for this very purpose that Mary and Joseph took the Boy Jesus up to Jerusalem every year.
But now, in this Boy, the Lord has provided for Himself the one Lamb who is given in the place of all the sons of Israel — and for all the children of man, for all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. He is the true Passover Lamb of God, who is sacrificed for the redemption of His people.
Where He is found, therefore, is in His Father’s House. That is where the Flesh and Blood of this true Lamb are given and poured out for you and for all the children of God to eat and to drink in the Holy Communion. That is where you and your children are to be.
This one Lord Jesus Christ is the true Solomon, the true Son of David, the true King of Peace, who has established the true Temple of God in the true Jerusalem, that is to say, His Holy Church, the place where His Word is spoken and His Body and Blood are administered according to His Word.
It is here in that House of God, in His Church on earth, that His Flesh is given to feed you unto Life and Salvation. It is here that His Blood covers you from sin and death, and protects you from the devil and hell. It is here in His House that you find Him. It is here in His House that He finds you.
So this is where you and your children belong. This is your true home, and this is your true family. This is your Father’s House, wherein your anxious heart and troubled mind find Peace and Sabbath Rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, your Brother in the flesh, who has been sacrificed for your sins and raised for your justification. It is here that you are raised up with Him from the fear of death to faith and life with His God and Father, who is now your God and Father.
It is here within His House that the grace of God is upon you, in such a way that you can live — and not just go about your activities, and go about your days and weeks and months and years, and go through the motions of your relentless routines, but you can actually live and learn and grow and thrive. In your callings and stations, in your home and family, even at play, you can live and thrive and grow to and from this House — to and from this Altar, where the true Lamb is given to you as Meat and Drink indeed. It is in Him that the grace of God is upon you. And He shall not abandon you. If you lose Him, He shall not lose or let go of you, but by His grace He seeks you out and calls you always back to His Father’s House, which is your own house and home forever in Him.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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