Sermon Index
January 2, 2022
Reading : Luke 2:40–52 [The Boy Jesus in the Temple]
And the child grew and became strong; He was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him. Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When He was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking He was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for Him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find Him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for Him. After three days they found Him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard Him was amazed at His understanding and His answers. When His parents saw Him, they were astonished. His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for You.”
“Why were you searching for Me?” He asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what He was saying to them. Then He went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
Some thoughts about today’s Gospel reading.
First, at the age of twelve, Jesus knew who he was. He was the Son of God. He said, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” He knew that God was his true Father. This confirms what the Angel Gabriel had said to his mother Mary: “the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God,” Luke 1:35. And it will be reconfirmed when Jesus is baptized. A voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased,” Luke 3:22. Therefore the devil challenged him in the wilderness saying, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread,” Luke 4:3. This is the core of Christianity: that Jesus is the Son of God, and that means that he, like God his Father, is God. Therefore, he has the power in his death and resurrection to forgive our sin and to give us eternal salvation. Therefore, he has the power to hear and answer our prayers. Therefore, he is always with us.
Another thought: The temple in Jerusalem is his Father’s house: it is his real home. He was born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, but his real home is the temple in Jerusalem. A temple, by definition, is the place where God dwells, and so Jesus, being God, should dwell there. And by that same definition, wherever Jesus dwells is a temple. So, when we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, Christ is always with us, he dwells with us. St. Paul says it this way in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, 6:16, “We are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."” St. Paul says that since a temple is holy, we should keep the temples of our bodies holy, too, by holy living.
In the Gospel of Luke, the next time Jesus comes to the temple is on Palm Sunday. We read: “Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘“My house will be a house of prayer,” but you have made it a den of robbers,”’ 19:45-46. This is what Jesus wants to do to our hearts and lives also. He wants to clean up. He wants us to live holy lives, like a house of prayer. He cleans us with the water of Baptism and by forgiving our sin. People new to Christianity often think that they have to change their lives and work hard to become holy before Jesus will enter their hearts. Actually, it is the opposite. The message of Christmas is that Jesus came to his unholy world in order to make it holy. Only God can forgive sin. And so only God can make us holy. If you think that your heart is unclean and is no fitting place for Jesus, then remember this: Jesus was born in a barn. He came to his messed-up world. He comes to us when we are messed-up. He does not leave us when we sin, because he loves us and dwells with us no matter what.
Jesus said to Mary and Joseph, “Why were you searching for Me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” If you are looking for Jesus, where should you look today? How about starting at the House of God which is the church? We find Jesus in the Word that is read and sung and taught and preached. We find Jesus in the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. Even when our church is not perfect, because it is a group of sinful saints, Jesus chooses to dwell with us. It is not that he overlooks our faults as a small congregation or the faults of the institutional church in the various denominations and synods, it is rather that he knows that we need him. God knows that we need Jesus to be with us. He saw it fit to be born in a barn, he sees it fit to live in our churches, in our congregation, in our families, in our hearts.
Amen.
May the peace of our Lord dwell in your hearts in this new year. Amen.
Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church