How ordinary the childhood of Jesus must have been, although in many ways it’s hard to imagine. He was a real Boy, and yet He was also the sinless Son of God, and none of us know any other little boys like that! Even so, He had His friends and relatives and peers. No doubt He played with toys, perhaps little wooden carts and creatures that His father Joseph might have crafted for Him. He would have run and jumped and climbed and thrown things, because that is what boys do. As the one true God in the Flesh, He lived the life of true Man from infancy to boyhood to adulthood.
He got dirty in the course of His days, just like you and your children. He had to bathe His Body and wash His hands before meals. He ate and drank. As a little Guy He would have taken naps, and even as an older Boy He had to sleep at night. He probably had a bedtime. And during the day He did His chores, He studied His lessons. He was taught things, and He learned. He grew.
It’s not unusual to think of Jesus’ “birthday,” even as we celebrate His Holy Nativity every year. But just think, His birthdays then meant that He was getting older, just like you. He grew out of infancy. He was weaned from nursing at His Mother’s breast to eating big boy food at the table. At some point He was potty-trained. So the very Son of God grew up, like any other ordinary boy.
He was a little Child in the midst of His people, experiencing the bump and grind and cut and thrust of daily life with all of its ups and downs and ins and outs.
Now, bear in mind that rearing the sinless Son of God was not easy. Dr. Luther calls it a burden and a cross. There were frustrations and anxieties, restless nights, and at least one frantic search. And dear fellow parents, consider that, at least in the case of the little Lord Jesus, those worries, frustrations, and concerns were not due to any sins of the Child but to the sins and weaknesses of His earthly parents. And so also with your children. Though they are not sinless, neither are you.
So fix your eyes on this Boy Jesus, for He is your childhood’s pattern, the very Image and Likeness of God in which you have been created. He actually lives the divine Life in His own human Flesh, the true human life as Man was created to live, as you are called to live in your own place.
Your duty as a child is to honor your father and mother through all the stages of life. The keeping of the Fourth Commandment changes when a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, when a woman is given in marriage to her husband. But the Commandment still remains. Whatever your age, you are to honor your father and mother. And when they are old and infirm, or when they have forgotten most things, you are then to care for them as they once cared for you.
And when your own parents have departed from this life on earth, then you have the privilege and the opportunity to care for other elderly and infirm neighbors, especially within the Body of Christ.
Your duty as a parent, if you are a parent, is to care for and catechize your children in the fear, love, and trust of God, in His Word and faith. So St. Joseph did for his family as the Prophet Samuel’s father did for his family. He took them to church. He brought his wife, St. Mary, and the Boy Jesus to hear the Word of God and to celebrate the Feast of the Passover in Jerusalem.
Fathers and mothers are to care for their children in all kinds of ways, to feed and clothe them, to shelter and protect them, to teach them and train them. And along with all of these good things, above all they are to catechize them in the Word of God, to teach them by word and example how to pray and confess His Word, and faithfully to hear and receive His good Gifts of the Gospel.
Likewise, whether you have children or not, your first and foremost duty as a Christian, as a child of God, yourself, is to listen to the preaching of His Word, to gladly hear and learn it. For faith not only comes by the hearing of the Word of Christ, but so is it sustained and nourished by His Word.
Then, also, as a child of God, you are called to live a holy life according to His Word. To worship Him in faith and love. To fear, love, and trust in Him above everything else, no matter how much or how little you have in this world. To confess what the Father has spoken to you by His Son. And to call upon His Holy Name at all times and in all places, to pray, praise, and give thanks for all that He has said and done. To go up to His Feast each week, and to live in the joy and peace of that Feast wherever the Lord has stationed you on earth; to love and serve your neighbor in that place, as surely as you care for your own body and life; and to forgive those who sin against you.
In all of this, fix your eyes on the Boy Jesus, and do not lose sight of Him in any of your activities. For one thing, you ought to follow His example. He is certainly far more than an example, but He is an example, as St. Peter writes in his First Epistle. So, follow His example. Not so much “What Would Jesus Do?” (in all sorts of situations He never encountered), but “What Did Jesus Do?”
For one thing, as you have heard this morning, He went to church. He listened attentively to the Holy Scriptures. He asked His pastors and teachers questions, and He listened to their answers, engaging them in conversation and discussion as a way of learning to know the Word of God.
He also honored His father and mother. He submitted to their parental authority, even though they were sinful and He was not, because He followed and obeyed the Fourth Commandment.
Follow His example in these ways, and fix your eyes on Him — all the more so because He is far more than just an example. Indeed, He is your dear Savior, in whom alone you have Life with God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, that you know the Mysteries of God, His good and gracious Will for you. It is in Him that God is your dear Father, and you are His dear child. And it is through Him that you receive the Holy Spirit, the Life-giving Breath of God, the Pledge of your inheritance as a son of God in Christ Jesus. Baptized in His Name, anointed with His Spirit, adopted by His God and Father, as Laura has been this morning, you belong to the Lord your God; you are His own, and He is with you, and in you, and for you.
It is in Christ Jesus that you live before God in the flesh, even now in your pilgrimage on earth, holy and blameless, righteous and pure in His sight. You live a sinless life — shocking as that may sound — despite the fact that you daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment — because you live in Christ Jesus by faith in His Gospel, and His Righteousness avails for you. Your sins are covered by His holy and precious Blood. The Lord your God is at peace with you.
Remember that, and cling to that, when you find yourself in dire straits and desperate trouble — when you have done wrong, and when others have wronged you — when everything is crashing and burning around you. Even then, your life is (and remains) safely hidden with Christ in God.
Christ Jesus is the Ark of the New Covenant. His own Body of flesh and blood, conceived and born of St. Mary, crucified and risen from the dead, is the true and eternal Temple of God, wherein the Grace and Glory and Name of God abide with you and all His people here on earth. And He is both your Priest and your King, the true Son of David, the true King of Peace. He is the Whole Burnt Offering and the Peace Offering, the Sacrifice for your Atonement and your reconciliation with God and with each other. For He is the true Passover Lamb who has been sacrificed for you.
This dear Lord Jesus Christ gives you His own divine, eternal Life in both your body and your soul. And as such, He gives meaning and purpose to your body and life here on earth, even now.
Fix your eyes on Him, therefore, and stay with Him. Keep Him with you in all of your going out and coming in. Abide with Him, as He abides with you, within the Temple of His Church on earth.
Too easily you depart from the Feast and return to your chores and regular routines, leaving Christ Jesus behind you — and not even realizing that you’ve done so! He hasn’t left you, but you have left Him in the preoccupation of all your worries and concerns, projects and ambitions, as you turn your attention and your energies away from Him and His Word to other things. You go along with the crowd, and how quickly a day — a week, a month, a year — goes by without a thought of Him.
Eventually you realize that something is terribly wrong. Your life may be full and busy, hectic and overwhelming, and yet there is this deep lack, this gaping hole, this hollow emptiness. And there is the distress and anxiety of duties you have neglected — promises and obligations you have not kept or fulfilled — friends and neighbors you have forgotten and failed to help — and your own family, missing you because you’re always gone even when you’re there, and you missing them.
But what’s really missing at the core of all of your troubles is Christ Jesus. So, where do you go looking for Him? Typically, according to your sinful nature and the wisdom of the world, you go looking for Him, His Life and Salvation, in all the wrong ways and in all the wrong places — in the ways of the world and your fallen flesh, in that which is already friendly and familiar to you.
With misguided zeal, you make a false god out of your family and friends and out of your own frantic efforts at life, all the while dying inside and becoming more and more anxious and afraid.
For all of that, it is the Lord who seeks you out and finds you and calls you back to Himself by His Word and Holy Spirit, by the preaching of repentance unto faith in His forgiveness of your sins. He calls you back to the significance of your Holy Baptism, to the Temple of His Holy Church.
It is in His House and in His Word that the Lord Jesus is actively present, with you and for you. And it’s not for you to fetch Him back to yourself, but He brings you home to His God and Father.
Remember that He has lived His divine Life in your flesh, and that He has also lived your human life in His own Flesh and Blood. The almighty and eternal Son of God, from His conception in His blessed Mother’s womb, grew and increased through all the stages of human development.
Not only did His Body grow, but He got smarter and wiser. He listened carefully, and He learned things. In fact, He grew up and matured in all things, in favor with God and man, in holy faith and holy love. He heard and availed Himself of the Word of God! — He who is the very Word of God in Person and in the Flesh. He went up to Jerusalem, to the Temple, to the Feast. And there, in the fullness of time, when His Hour had come, by His sacrificial death upon the Cross He became the Temple of God and the Passover Feast for you and for all the people of all times and places.
Through death into life, by His Cross and Resurrection and Ascension, He has entered the Father’s House, that is, the Holy of Holies made without hands, eternal in the heavens. Indeed, He is your Anchor behind the Veil. As your merciful and great High Priest, He has entered the Holy of Holies on your behalf, and there He is your Anchor; so that, no matter how you’re tossed about by winds and waves and all the storms of this life, you’re anchored to Christ Jesus in the presence of God.
The Lord Jesus Christ has entered the Holy of Holies; and that is now your “childhood pattern,” the Way in which you live and walk with Him by His grace through faith in His Word.
You know the Way, because He is the Way. And you know where and how to find Him, because He calls you by His Word and Holy Spirit; He calls you to Himself, and He reveals and gives Himself to you — here within His House — by and with and in His Liturgy of the Gospel.
Yet, even so, He knows that you are sinful, that your mortal flesh grows weak and weary, and that you will lose sight of Him and lose yourself in all the cares and occupations of this life. Therefore, in His great love for you — which is the true wisdom, grace, and glory of God — He tabernacles with you on the way. For you, as for Laura, His Baptism remains and avails for you, wherever in the world you may be. And His Flesh and Blood, given and poured out for you to eat and to drink here at His Altar in His House, accompany you within your own body of flesh and blood.
In all your going out and coming in, from the day of your Baptism in His Name, yes, from before the foundation of the world, from this time forth, even forevermore, He goes with you all the way — unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul in Him.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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