First Sunday after the Epiphany 2024

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Luke 2:41-52

January 7, 2024

 

“Why have You done this?” Mary is not the first mother to say that. And it’s understandable. Her boy was missing. Three minutes would be horrible. Three days, that’s nearly unimaginable. When Mary and Joseph do find Him, I’d like to know exactly what her tone was like: “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously.” Quite appropriately, the NKJ capitalizes the pronouns for Jesus. It looks all respectful: “Son, why have You—the exalted One—done this to us?” I’m not sure it’s spoken so gently. She maybe says it more like you would. It sounds like she’s accusing Jesus of sin.

Was she annoyed when the twelve-year old Jesus turns it around and says they should have known where to find Him?

They assumed He was with their group, somewhere. “Supposing Him to have been in the company, they went a day’s journey,” and then they started looking for Him. On these kind of trips, people walked in large groups, for safety. You’d travel with your extended family and fellow townspeople.

Mary and Joseph simply took Jesus’ presence for granted. That made them negligent.

I’ve noticed in my own life that my conscience, my patience, and especially my faith, my trust grows weak when I’m negligent in spiritual exercise. It’s important to read the Scriptures every day, to pray every day. When we find ourselves being negligent in spiritual things, it’s good to remember where the Boy Jesus was found: in the temple.

The Temple in the Old Testament was the place of God’s presence; there the Word was read, they partook of the sacrificial food of the altar, and God’s blessing was spoken over the people. These things and greater are for us today in the means of grace. Negligence in hearing God’s Word and putting our cares into His hands – that’s every bit as bad, or worse, than if we quit breathing, or drinking water. The Word is the source of life. Negligence of it leads to death.

Attention to the divine things, the means of grace, leads to a specific way of life outside the temple. Look at what this Gospel gives us. We know very little about Jesus’ life as a Child in Nazareth. Yet from one sentence we learn everything we need to know: “Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them…”.  His obedience characterizes His entire life. It was for obedience that He came into this world. His obedience undoes Adam’s disobedience. His obedience atones for Israel’s disobedience. In obeying Mary and Joseph, He obeys His divine Father.  St. Paul says of the Lord Jesus, “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” [Phil. 2.8]. Obedience characterized the life of Jesus, all the way to death. His disciples also strive for radical obedience, irrespective of earthly cost.

Some churches teach that Baptism is an act of obedience to God. That sounds nice, because of course we should obey God. It’s not correct; Baptism credits us instead with Christ’s obedience, and absolves us of our disobedience.

However, that doesn’t free us from the Law of God; it frees us from the punishment of it. The disciple of Jesus begins at baptism a new life of extreme obedience to the teaching of Jesus. To paraphrase St. James, Faith without obedience is dead.

It would of course be easier to simply go with culture’s flow. Embrace the new definitions of sex and marriage; gossip about the people we disagree with; turn even the church into a battleground.

But this easy path, this negligence, will put us in the same position as Mary and Joseph: We discover Jesus is gone from us. He didn’t leave; we did. We forgot where He is.

How did it happen? The world started squeezing us into its mold. The pressure of the day said, “Wait awhile. Prayer and Bible reading can be done later. First let me do this or that.” Then bitterness, resentfulness, licentiousness, apathy takes over. And we find we’ve wandered off the path of following Jesus. He’s lost to us.

Is that you? Is that us?

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” [Epistle]. Mind-renewal happens in commitment to a different business of life, different priorities. So Jesus says to His parents, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Already at twelve years old, Jesus is fully conscious of His identity. We could say all our sins come from forgetting our identity, forgetting who we are as baptized disciples.

Because we are forgetful, the Lord lays crosses upon us. Because we’ve been negligent, we receive crosses that crush our pride and self-will. God calls us to despair, despair of everything except His promises and gifts.  That’s what’s happening in today’s Gospel. Mary and Joseph lose Jesus. They endure horrific distress. The anguish, remorse, and guilt is only relieved in the temple, the place of sacrifice. There Jesus is found. What can we learn from this? The crosses we bear, the distress we feel, the burdens we endure, they crush us. But we find that no cross is unbearable when we look for Jesus and find Him in the temple, that is, find Him in His Word, in His crucifixion, in His sacrifice, in His Sacrament. This is the “way of escape” St. Paul speaks of when he says “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” [1 Cor. 10.13b].

After facing this trial, what does Mary do? She “kept all these things”—i.e., the things Jesus said and did—“in her heart.” When next the world demands you conform, do the same. Recall the things Jesus said and did; keep them with you. When next you despair, call upon Him. When next you sin, call upon Him. When you remember the treachery of a fake friend, call upon Him. From boyhood your Lord walked the path of perfect obedience for you. He will rescue you, He will redeem you, He will ransom you from every trouble. Call upon Him in the day of trouble, and He will answer you. When it seems He is lost, and you’re tempted to despair, do not give in. Be obedient, be faithful unto death, and He will give you the crown of life.