Luke 2:41-52 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
“Find Jesus In His Father’s House”
Christmas 1 December 30, 2018
Wouldn’t you love to know more about what Jesus was like growing up? Scripture gives us only very few details about the life of Jesus until he was somewhere around thirty years old. Of course, we know how he was born in a stable and laid in a manger, worshiped by shepherds and later by Magi from the east, though we’re not certain how much time passed between those events. We know that he was circumcised on the eighth day according to Jewish law. At forty days old, we know that he was in the Temple and presented to God. We also know that his family made an emergency trip to Egypt shortly after the visit of the Magi. Almost certainly, all of these events took place in about the first two years of the life of Jesus. If you would like to know more, you are not alone. It was not long in the early Christian church before stories, uninspired reports about the early life of Jesus sprang up. These accounts suppose that Jesus breathed life into birds fashioned out of clay or curses a family so that the son dies and the parents become blind. They fed people’s curiosity about the early life of Jesus. But the reality is that from the time of Jesus first year or two up until he began his ministry as an adult, the Bible tells us about just one event, the one before us in today’s Gospel. While we might be curious to know more, God has made it clear that what we need to know he has revealed to us. The fact that this account is included in the Gospel tells us that there are lessons for us to learn from it. This account tells us about the Passover celebration when Jesus was twelve years old. Mary and Joseph had a practice of going each year to Jerusalem for the Passover, so this year was no exception. Jesus was getting to be the age when he would have added responsibility for his own religious observations. I guess we might compare it to being about confirmation age for child that grows up within our own congregation. And Jesus attended the feast along with his parents. Then they left for home. By “they” I mean Mary and Joseph, because Jesus was not with them. They assumed he was somewhere in the group of friends and relatives that were together making the trip back from Jerusalem to Nazareth, but he wasn’t. When the group stopped their journey for the night, Mary and Joseph searched for Jesus but did not find him. Back to Jerusalem they went, where they kept looking for three days before finally finding Jesus in the Temple. There he was with teachers, listening and asking questions. And all the people were amazed by the answers he was giving and the understanding he was showing. When Mary explained how anxious she and Joseph had been, Jesus responded by saying, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be taking care of my Father’s business?” Yes, Mary and Joseph finally found Jesus taking care of his Father’s business, clearly a reference to his heavenly Father. Perhaps you recall that other translations have Jesus saying, “I had to be in my Father’s house.” I don’t want to get too deep into the details here, but the Greek there says something like, “I had to be in the things of my Father.” It could very well refer to the place, “in my Father’s house,” but it could also mean something broader, like it is translated in our version. Either way, the point was clear that if Jesus would be doing his Father’s business at that point, he would be found in his Father’s house. That’s a message for us, too, that we might find Jesus in his Father’s house. And as we consider this event a bit more closely, we’ll notice a few things about what we find when we find Jesus. First, as we find Jesus in the Temple, we notice that in many ways he is just like us. In fact, in almost every way he is remarkably similar to you and to me. As a twelve year old boy, he had been growing and developing. He was taller and wiser than he had been, and we are told that this trend continued on. His parents cared for him like parents would, and he was obedient to them in spite of their mistaken assumptions in this case. In other words, Jesus is a true human being. He was living life the way a true human being needs to. But there are at least two major differences that we need to recognize between Jesus and us. One is that he is also true God. And the more time you spend thinking about what it means for his growth and development that Jesus is true God, the more you will have to admit there are just some things that we cannot know about him. How as all-knowing and all-powerful God can Jesus also develop and grow and learn? And our only