Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Luke 2:39-52

Sermon text today is found in Luke 2:39-52. And as we read this, you’ll see why we sang that second song of praise about our savior growing in wisdom and stature and the model of obedience he is to us. Luke 2:39-52. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

There is a bookends to the narrative about Jesus when he was 12 years old. And so if you kind of listen to the way this is read, it begins and ends with the description of the growth of our savior. And then the story is in the middle of those sections.

So beginning at verse 39. “So when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own city Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong in spirit filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him. His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast.

And when they had finished the days, as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem. Joseph and his mother did not know it. But supposing him to have been in the company, they went a day’s journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances. So when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him. Now so it was that after 3 days they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.

And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. So when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said to him, ‘Son, why have you done this to us. Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously.’ And he said to them, ‘Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father’s business?’ But they did not understand the statement which he spoke to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them.

But his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.”

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for this wonderful text from the gospel, the good news of our savior. We thank you for the gospels at the center of this. And we pray, Lord God, that you would by your Holy Spirit, help us to understand this text, to delight in it, to marvel at the words of our savior that we see written here to be astonished at it and changed by it as well, that we might become those that grow also and proceed and progress in wisdom and stature in favor with God and men. In Jesus name we ask it, for the purposes of his kingdom, not ours. Amen.

Please be seated.

Do we have any young boys or girls here that are 12 years old? Do we? Could you stand up if you are 12 year old children? Are there any? Here’s one. Any others? I can’t see that. Well, Caleb W. Okay. Now, this is the age that Jesus was at in the story today. You young men can sit down.

So you children who are 12 particularly want to take interest in this, I suppose, but you younger children than that will sort of understand that this is a childhood narrative of Jesus our savior. So it has particular applicability to you as you look to Jesus as a young boy. You’ll see some things that are quite important to you. And of course the parents of Jesus are involved in this story and other people. The whole church is represented in Mary.

I think that this is something that we as Protestants frequently don’t think about too much, but Mary is a representation of the church. She is present at the beginning, at the middle, the end of his life, the narrative, his resurrection. Mary is a symbol of the church. It’s a commonly known symbol.

There’s a new movie out called “There Will Be Blood.” And now I’m going to tell myself, be very careful because I don’t want to ruin it for anybody, but I do recommend it. And there’s a girl named Mary in it. And I think that as you watch the movie, you think of Mary to some degree as a representation of the church. I think that’s an important thing for that movie.

And so all of the church is represented here in the story as well, of course, those of us that read it. But in terms of the narrative itself, we have lots of reasons to pay attention.

Now, this is a hero story. In the context of when the gospels were written, hero narratives were quite common. And what I mean by that is either mythical heroes or heroes from the past. Stories would circulate about them—Daniel, Solomon. There were stories about when they were 12 years old, because 12 was sort of seen as a sign of transition into adulthood. And frequently in these hero stories, the 12-year-old boy who would later become a hero, either in the secular world or in the Jewish world, they’d do some great thing. They’d do some miraculous thing. Some kind of weird thing would happen and they would have all kinds of powers and ability. They would see the future. They’d do something dramatic to demonstrate their hero status.

And I think it is wonderful that in the hero story of the gospels, the savior does things that are so approachable to us. And we’ll see at the end, we can be heroes too. Now, our savior is different. He’s completely different. But on the other hand, he is a model for us and we are heroes. And what was Jesus doing? He says in the narrative he was about his father’s business. So that’s my point today: may we be about the father’s business as we go about our lives. And if we are going about our father’s business, then we’re heroes in the eyes of God and hopefully in the eyes of the church as well.

So we don’t see some great miraculous thing about Jesus here. We see something that is quite, you know, attainable to us, quite approachable for us—going about the father’s business. All right, let’s look at the story. Let’s look at this narrative. And as I said, it has these bookends to it.

You know, at the beginning it says that he became strong in the spirit. “The child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.” And then at the end, there’s a similar matching bookend, if you will. After they go to Nazareth, the last verse, verse 52, of this little narrative says that “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.” That word “favor” is the same word as “grace” in the opening bookend. So we’ve got wisdom and grace, wisdom and grace. But at the end, the change is now his grace is with God and men.

And so we sort of see right away, just in the bookends, we see kind of the transition that as we grow into our adult lives and as you young men and women grow into your adult lives, then the focus isn’t upon just your family, it’s the extended community as well. So Jesus is going into the extended community and the end result of this is he grows in favor then with God and men—in the community.

So there’s transition. And we could profitably spend time on just these bookends. I’ll mention it again toward the end of the sermon, but for now just recognize that growth. And I think in the opening section where he grew, that’s a reference to physical growth. In the ending section where it says he increased in both wisdom and stature, “increase” means to progress. And so we’re all called to progress and increase. We reach an end of our growing height, but we don’t reach an end of our increasing height. And our increase is supposed to be in wisdom in both cases, but stature in the last of the two bookends. And stature doesn’t necessarily mean physical height. It can refer to that, but it means our stature in the world, our view of men—that men hold of us in the context of the world as well.

So there’s kind of movement in this narrative from Jesus as a young boy to Jesus as a young man, or at least an older boy. And it shows us, you know, the movement in our own lives where there’s still an increase. And it shows us that really the spirit’s work is seen in wisdom and grace. And the end result of applying the spirit’s work—being strong of the spirit and wisdom and grace—those are the fruits of the spirit. The result is this increase in stature, favor with God and men.

So it’s a beautiful little bookend that shows us that this narrative has a particular structure to us that should make us think. When we see those things as you’re reading your Bible, well, there’s something here in the middle. And the middle is this story that we just read of Jesus, a 12-year-old being left behind in Jerusalem.

Well, the story itself, I think, has the same sort of structure. The internet’s a wonderful thing. As I was doing some studying this week for this passage, I read a reference to a man named D. Jang—that’s “Dong” in the American way of looking at things—but D. Jang, who had concentric structure in this travel narrative in this narrative here. And the text I was reading didn’t tell me what it was. I went on the internet and you know, Googled this guy’s name and “concentric symmetry” was the term he used. I Googled that and immediately from Google Books, there’s the article with the structure.

You know, we’ll see here that Jesus is increasing in knowledge as well. He wants to be around a place where he can learn more. He’s asking questions, okay, of the men in the temple. And this is a model to us. We want to grow in understanding of God’s word. And the Lord God has been wonderfully gracious to us to give us this internet and have such a wealth of knowledge to be able to use in our studies. Well, so I changed it just a tad, but I think he’s basically right.

If we look at this story and you look at your Bibles open hopefully—verse 41 and 42. They go up to Jerusalem, the parents, and notice that it says that they went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. Now it was required of males to go up to Jerusalem three times a year: the feast of Passover, Pentecost, and then the great harvest feast of Tabernacles at the end of the agricultural year, picturing the end gathering of the nations.

So the men had to go up to Jerusalem to worship there three times a year. Now, there’s some question about maybe they’re exempted because they were so far away and they’re way up north in Galilee, which is interesting, by the way, in terms of the symbolism here. What do we have? We have a united kingdom. Those of you that know your scriptures will remember we had a divided kingdom after Solomon’s son’s sins.

And we have north and south. Jesus is up there in the north and he’s coming down. Why did Jeroboam institute golden calf worship up north? To keep the people from going to Jerusalem and having their loyalties down there. So, in a way, we just have a little symbolic representation here of the united kingdom in Jesus. But in any event, they were a long way away. Maybe they didn’t have to go up three times a year, but the annual feast at least was required.

Only men had to go, but Joseph takes his wife and he takes his child Jesus. Probably we don’t know, but probably Jesus went up every year. It was a family thing. And so, right away, the text tells us in this going up to Jerusalem section that this is a very pious, devoted, committed family to the worship of God. They’re going up to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover—not sure they really had to. And certainly the wife and children didn’t have to, but the whole family goes. Pious family.

And they go up when he’s 12 years old. They went up to Jerusalem. So this is the beginning of this little narrative. And if you look at verse 51 then, okay, so verse 42 says they went up. Verse 51 says, “Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, was subject to them. But his mother kept all these things in her heart. Jesus increased in wisdom.”

So at the end of the narrative, they’ve gone up to Jerusalem. Now they’re coming down from Jerusalem. And wherever you go to see God, you’re going up. Even though Jerusalem was in the south, but they go up to see God. They come down. And now the child is voluntarily submitting to his parents. I mean, he was before, but now he self-consciously honors his parents through submission.

So certainly a part of the movement of the narrative is to see, as our first song. Now you know why we sang that first song about the Lord Jesus being obedient, willingly and willfully submitting himself to his parents. We see there a model for children, and that’s kind of the narrative moves that way. So we go up to Jerusalem, we come down. And in that exit we see an obedient Jesus Christ to his parents.

Now the next section of the story is verse 43. And in verse 43 we read, “When they had finished the days.” Okay, now pause. The days. Well, the feast of Passover was eight days long. And the Passover was there, but the feast of unleavened bread was a full week after it. There’s an octave. Musicians, there’s an octave in the scriptures. Beauty is in an octave—eight notes and eight-day festivals, all prefiguring the coming new creation in Jesus Christ.

So we have an octave referred to in the fulfilling of the days here by the parents. And it also again shows us their strong loyalty and piety. Recognize that Jerusalem at this stage in history is not a nice place to be. The Romans are occupying it. The economy is shot. There’s high unemployment. There’s high robbery and thievery. There’s insurrections going on because revolution is in the air. They think Messiah’s coming. And some people thought that meant throwing off the Roman yoke with armed revolt and insurrection. It was a very difficult place.

When you read the gospels, remember that unemployment is horrific. Crime is horrific. It’s a bad place to want to be. And yet, and it’s a long way for the parents to travel from up in Nazareth. Long journey. Yet they do it. They do it every year. They risk, you know, attack. They risk difficulties, but they do this thing. And they do it for the full eight days. They keep the octave of the feast. So this is the second section of this narrative.

And it says that Jesus stays behind. That’s what we’re going to get to. “After these days, as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem.” So he stays behind. So this staying behind in Jerusalem is what the next section of the story—Jesus stays behind—and that’s in verse 43.

“And Joseph and his mother did not know it.” Not Joseph explicitly named here. The narrative as it goes through wants us to remember this earthly father, because there’s a transition at the middle to the heavenly father. But Joseph and his mother are explicitly named here. Matching that is this verse, verses 49 and 50: “He said to them, ‘What did you seek me? Or why rather, did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father’s business?’ But they did not understand the statement which he spoke to them.”

So Jesus stays behind. And at the close of the narrative he explains why he stayed behind. So those things kind of match up as well as the narrative takes us to a particular center. Now when Jesus stayed behind, the text says they didn’t know about it. And when Jesus explains why he stayed behind, he points out that they didn’t know about that either. So they didn’t understand what was going on at the end. And they didn’t know where he was at the beginning.

And so again, it kind of seems to evidence that we have this concentric symmetry, these set of bookends coming in to the middle. And here we’re actually told why he stayed behind. We’re like Joseph and Mary. We don’t get it either at first. And even after he tells us why he did it, we still don’t get it. That’s okay. Mary didn’t get it. But as we read in the text, she pondered these things in her heart.

As they went back to Jerusalem, his mother kept all these things in her heart. I should have mentioned that the going up to Jerusalem, coming down—in the coming down, Mary still doesn’t get it all, but that’s okay. Mary doesn’t say, “Well, God didn’t make that clear for me. Why wasn’t that easy for me? I’m going to forget about it.” No, she kept these things in her heart.

We learn a lot of things about Jesus. And we may not understand them as Mary still didn’t, but we’re to ponder them, meditate upon them. Okay, so that’s what she did. So Jesus stays behind. Jesus explains why he stayed behind. They didn’t know that he was not with them. They didn’t know. They didn’t understand why he had stayed behind. And then they don’t understand his answer either in verses 49 and 50.

Then in verses 44 and 45, moving into the center of the narrative. Verse 44, look at that. “But supposing him to have been in the company, they went a day’s journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances. So when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him.”

Okay. So how can this happen? Well, anybody that’s been a parent of children knows how this can happen, you know. And likely the dads would—the moms and the company that they’re traveling with, the caravan, would might go first because women go slower. Fathers, not unusual for them to come later because they’ll catch up. And so, you know, mom thinks dad has the boy. Dad thinks mom has the boy. He’s 12. He’s sort of on the edge of moving from the authority of mom to dad, or at least his transition that way.

We don’t know that’s the case. It could just be that in the crush of people, they missed him. As I said, the roads were dangerous. The caravans of great numbers of people coming to Jerusalem for the feast were large. And so they had a lot of people from up north. They were going back with a lot of people. Twelve-year-old boy, you know, not needing to hold his mom’s hand anymore—very easy to misplace him as some of us do with our children.

And there’s lessons for us here about misplacing our children. But she lost Jesus. They lost Jesus. And so they go about a day’s journey. They sought him among their relatives and acquaintances. Well, notice that they’re not going to find him among their relatives and acquaintances. Where are they going to find him? They’re going to find him among a different group of people, aren’t they? So there’s that kind of transition going on here as well.

As a boy starts to move toward manhood, his acquaintances broaden out from just family and associates and become more involved directly in seeking out wisdom of God’s word by seeking out men who would be able to give them that wisdom. So they’re seeking him one place, but he’s another, and they don’t find him. They decide to return to Jerusalem seeking him. So they go a day camping out at night. All of a sudden, where’s Jesus? We don’t know. The next day they come back looking for him.

So the parents search for Jesus in verses 44 and 45. And in verse, the last half of verse 48, I think this matches up with him. When they find him, they’re amazed. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously.”

So the parents, at the beginning of the narrative, they—well, they don’t know he’s there. They seek him. At the end, they say, “We’ve been seeking you.” So it matches up concentrically.

Now, of course, what it tells us—this is Mary’s words. Her words are interesting because what she says is “Why did you do this to us?” This is a typical parent reaction. The son did not do anything to them. But that’s the way we see it. We take things so personally, and you know, if you do that it’s okay. Mary did too. Not a good thing to do. Jesus corrects her. Well, I wasn’t doing anything to you. I was about my father’s business. But so Mary sort of says, “Why are you doing this to us?” And I, as a parent, you know, we frequently take that attitude to our children. We really shouldn’t. We should recognize that they got a lot of other things going on in their life and they’re not self-consciously striking out at us.

It’s so typical, isn’t it? You know, you’re worried about your child. Where are they? Where are they? How come they haven’t come home yet? It’s almost midnight. It’s 1:00. Maybe they’re dead. Maybe they got in a wreck. Who knows where they’re at? What’s going on? And then they call you and you—then you get mad at them. You’re not relieved that they’re not dead in the ditch someplace. You sort of are, but you immediately turn it into, “Well, why did you do this anyway? I’m up…” You know, I’ve allowed this number of times with—don’t ask my children. They all know it. Confession is good for the soul, but bad for the reputation.

Well, this is real typical stuff going on here. This is what parents tend to do. But the point is that the narrative is taking us to a center again, and that they’re seeking for him. They find him and they actually say that we were looking anxiously for you. And the word anxiously is an agony.

Now, again, you know, we should understand this is right. I mean, not only is the social situation really bad in Jerusalem, a 12-year-old boy—who knows what robbers are going to do with him or sell him into slavery or who knows what’s going on. And plus, remember this is the 12-year-old boy that 12 years previous, or 11 years previous, the king Herod was seeking to kill him. We just had that narrative in the infancy accounts of Jesus. And so, you know, he’s not exactly the most favored guy in the nation. So who knows if his, if they’re remembering him now, who knows what might happen. You can imagine, you know, being without your child even at 12 years old for several days. And there’s a great deal of anxiety that builds up in Mary and Joseph.

And so it’s kind of understandable what they do. But that’s what’s kind of taking us then to what’s happening here. So then the center, I think, is that it is in verses 46 through 47.

So verse 46: “Now so it was that after the 3 days they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.”

Okay, so there’s the very center of the narrative—that this is right, the structure God wants us to see. In part, this isn’t the only important thing, but there’s a center to this thing where Jesus is actually doing, what we’re having here is a revelation of who Jesus is and he’s bringing his light into the temple, so to speak. But look at how he’s doing it.

First of all, notice that at the very center, they find him after how many days? Three. So we’ve got the octave of the Passover feast—new creation—kind of in our minds already. Now we got a three-day death and resurrection. And I’ll mention in just a little bit that there’s kind of a prefiguring of things in this incident, but it’s after three days and they find him in the temple sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.

So when they saw him they were amazed. So this center—the center of it—seems to be, you know, he is listening and asking questions and then he is also responding in these questions. Right? So you see in verse 46 he’s listening and asking them questions. At the end of verse 47, we have his understanding and answers. So we’ve got dialogical teaching going on and instruction here between Jesus and the teachers.

And I think that means at the very heart of the narrative is “all those who heard him were astonished.” So at the center of the narrative is the hearing of Jesus Christ that brings astonishment to us and amazement. Luke—this is a favorite phrase of Luke: “all who heard him.” It’s used eight times in Luke and Acts, the two books that Luke authored. It’s used eight times: “all who heard him.” And so to Luke, it’s very important to recognize the heart of the story. The description of Jesus is his speaking to us, and we’re supposed to hear what he tells us in this text. We’re supposed to be a little astonished and amazed at it. We’re supposed to ponder it in our hearts.

And that’s the very heart of the narrative. So I think that the story itself, hopefully you sort of see it. They’re going up. They’re coming back. Jesus stays behind. Jesus answers the parents. They’re seeking for him. They tell him they’ve been seeking for him anxiously. And at the very heart, Jesus is teaching. He’s speaking. Hearing his word is at the center.

And at the center of our lives, if we’re going to be ones that go about the father’s business, we want to—see, we want to be people who are hearing the word of the savior and allowing ourselves to be astonished and amazed at what the scriptures teach us. Not trying to understand everything. Well, we try to understand, but not thinking we will understand everything. There’s a degree of amazement and astonishment that comes to us on the scriptures as Jesus speaks to us through those scriptures. And we’re to ponder these things the same way that Mary did.

So the heart of the narrative, I think, is going about the father’s business by hearing the word of the son. The son has come as a revelation of the father. So I think that’s at the center of this.

Now, there’s one other thing I wanted to point out here in terms of structure. I think that toward the end of this, the climax of the actual narrative itself before they go back down also has a little bit of a structure to it. And this is more detailed and more individualized. But look at verse 43—oh no, that’s not right. I’m sorry, verse 49. That’s not right either. The last half of verse 48.

Okay, we read, “Look, your father and I have anxiously sought you. Now, I don’t know what your translation says. The New King James says, ‘Sought you anxiously.’ Too bad, because the literal order of the book is, ‘Your father and I anxiously have been seeking you.’ And he said to them, ‘Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father’s business?’

Now, this is a little structure. We’ve got the father and I, Mary says. And at the end, he talks about father’s—his father’s business. There’s a transition away from his father being Joseph and to his father in heaven. Now that’s really important as we raise children. I’ll mention this again, but that’s the transition we want.

And by the way, what a beautiful way to lead Joseph now in terms of this narrative and proceed on with Christ into the future. Joseph is not being dissed here. You know, he’s being—he’s being seen properly. And Jesus will actually—says at the end he obeys his parents, both of them. So it’s not that, you know, Joseph is being dissed, but in our lives there is a transition from overtly focusing on dad to focusing on the dad behind the dad, right?

And parents have an obligation to bring our children to that. So there’s father, father. They’re anxious and they’re seeking him. And he says, “Why did you seek me? Don’t you know that I must be about my father’s business?” Our anxiety is put in concentric parallelism with our not knowing things. They were anxious because they didn’t know something. They should have known it. Jesus seems to be implying. He’s saying it nicely. He’s not rebuking them, but he’s saying, “Well, you know, I’m about dad’s business. You should have known that.”

And if they would have remembered that their father is sovereign—the father’s business is what’s being part of—what’s being fulfilled for them—then the kind of anxiety, which is perfectly understandable sinful, be anxious for nothing—to that kind of tremendous anguishment. The answer to our anxiety is a remembering that the father’s business is being enacted. And the problem that we get into when we get anxious frequently results from a lack of knowledge about circumstances. We don’t know something and we get anxious about it.

And Jesus says, “Well, okay, but you should have remembered that I’m doing my dad’s business.” And the focus here is on our anxiety being healed by a recognition of the father’s business being fulfilled. Beautiful, isn’t it? I think it’s beautiful. And it depends on the word order. It’s why our translations, you know, need some work. Anxiously. They were anxiously seeking him. And at the middle, he says, “Why?” So the middle—so they—you know, the dad to dad, anxiety to a lack of knowledge, seeking him, seeking him—and at the middle is our savior’s question. Why? Why was this happening? He brings them to—and what’s he doing?

He’s doing the same thing that we saw described at the very center of the whole narrative. He’s asking questions as a way of instructing. That seems pretty important to us to recognize the importance of this as a way to engage in profitable conversations and discussions one with the other. I mean, it doesn’t—you don’t always have to do it that way, but our savior seemed to like that way. He seemed to like this idea of asking people questions and questions that he uses to drive them to kind of a realization of what’s going on.

Why? He says. And the answer is, if they’re hearing him—and it’s hard to hear a 12-year-old boy instructing you, I suppose, even if you know this is the son of God and the savior of the world. We don’t know what their mental state was like, but it’s hard. But if they’re going to listen to them, they’re going to recognize—Yeah. Okay. Why do we sin? It’s through lack of trust, lack of knowledge, forgetting. What we should always remember—that the father’s business is being worked out.

In the context of the very difficulties that we go through, Jesus’s absence is reason for us to remember the presence of the father’s business being enacted. Okay? Practically speaking, Jesus’s absence in our lives—a sense of his absence is related and an anxiety that stems from it is related to a failure, a sinful failure, to remember the sovereign father’s business is being enacted.

One more aspect of the text I want to point out before we then talk about the application. The other thing that’s going on here is there’s a little bit of—the technical term is prolepsis. Some of you like to know that kind of stuff. There’s a foreshadowing of the ministry of the savior here. And one line of evidence to show this, besides the text itself, which I think is rather obvious: when we read that Jesus Christ grew and became strong, this is identical to an earlier statement from Luke 1:80.

In Luke 1:80, here’s what we read: “So the child grew and became strong in spirit.” Now, that’s the same thing exactly that said about Jesus Christ. This isn’t Jesus. This is John the Baptist. Okay? So John the Baptist is linked up by way of the actual use of the same phrase to Jesus. Well, what did John the Baptist do? He left in his mother’s womb as a little prefigurement of what he would do later in life—to rejoice and proclaim the coming of the king.

So there’s a little indicator of what John’s doing in his earliest age. Well, here we have, you know, we’ve had the circumcision of Christ, passively showing he’s going to shed blood for his people. But here we have an active work of Jesus that’s kind of a little prolepsis of what’s going to actually happen when he goes to Jerusalem a number of years down the line, 18 years later. Now, he goes every year, but in 18 years later, he’ll go to Jerusalem, won’t he?

He’ll go from Galilee. He’ll go to keep the feast of Passover, but he’ll be the lamb this time. When he was 12, he saw the lambs being killed for Passover. Now he is the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. He’ll be lost from the church, from his mother. He’ll be hidden from sight three days in the grave. And then there’ll be a joyful reunion and people will wonder—that we will be amazed and astonished at what God has accomplished in the ministry of Jesus that last time in Jerusalem. It’ll astonish us for the rest of our lives—the depth of Christ’s love and commitment to us and to our well-being.

So there’s a little prefigurement here, you know, of Mary representing the church—absent from Christ in the passion narrative. This is gospel. My point, once more. You know, Bob Marley said, “All I ever sang was redemption songs.” Well, the only thing the scriptures tell us are gospel songs.

We were studying the book of Nahum in youth Bible class this last week, and I mean, three chapters of pretty horrific judgment on Nineveh and Assyria, and right stuck in the middle there is, you know, that joyous good news—”The one who proclaims that our God reigns.” Gospel right in the middle of horrible destruction of a wicked city. Now, this is a gospel text. We have the Passover, the octave of the new creation, the three-day death and resurrection. We got our savior doing his work—the father’s business—ultimately his father’s business.

He says, “The will of my father is, or that my very food is, to do the will of my father, to finish the work he’s given me to do—to do the work and finish it.” And that work will be finished as he says on the cross, “It is finished,” on that cross. So this is a gospel narrative. It’s a wonderful text to just go home today and if it snows tomorrow and you can’t go to work, you know, meditate on this. Be astonished and amazed at the teaching of our savior done in this beautiful little picture.

The only picture we have, by the way, between his very young infancy and his adult life—the only childhood narrative. And it’s just filled with just wonderful stuff, wonderful things for us. And of course, the gospel always is intended to elicit a response from us. It’s to comfort us and to remove our anxieties, but it also is to kind of lead us in the right way.

If this is what’s going on, we want to understand the lesson and apply it to ourselves. We want to be those—ultimately the text tells us—who like our savior are going about our father’s business, right? Whatever we do today, this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow, whatever we go, this text should be a continual reminder to do the father’s business.

Now, in some of your translations, it may say not “father’s business,” but “father’s house.” That’s because the Greek is ambiguous—whether it’s business, house, or some people even think about my father’s friends or about my father’s associates—because there’s no term filled in as the possessive father. But we don’t know what it is, and that’s okay. The text is deliberately a little vague. But we know that we’re always in the temple of God’s house, ultimately, right? And our business is going about everything we do in relationship to the father. And that means finding ourselves in community as well.

So community and the formal worship of God and the informal being in his presence throughout our lives all kind of are summed up, I think, in this phrase “his father’s business.” So that’s what we want to do. That’s the major application.

Now there’s some other things we could say as well, which we will. First of all, in terms of these lessons—you—we have the lesson of the family first of all. And I touched on this but I want to refocus on it. So we have Mary, Joseph and Jesus all going up to worship God in accordance with the law. So we have a godly family—the holy family some people call it—but this godly family, how are they identified to us?

They’re identified as those who worship God—who the formal worship of God in relationship to the scriptures and the formal worship at the church. Jerusalem then was very important to them. Now, Jerusalem was not a particularly filled with good, godly people—now either, were they? But if we find ourselves in a situation in a town, a municipality, an area where we live, and the only church is not a very good church, may the Lord God remind you of this text that your obligation is to go to worship in every Lord’s day. That’s what you’re supposed to do.

Heads of families, begin their week by taking hold of, you know, little Johnny and Sarah’s hands and walking up to the temple, so to speak, by traveling to the worship of God to place a priority on worship. I mean, remember, this was a difficult thing. This was a long walk—a dangerous walk, too. You know, they could easily say, “Well, those guys at the temple are jerks anyway. We know they’re just a bunch of thieving, lying, bad people. We know that Herod’s got his guys in there.” They could have blown it off the way we blow off things too easily. But they didn’t. They prioritized worship.

And let me say, too, that Jesus prioritized his father’s house. “I have to go by my father’s house, my father’s business, and my father’s house.” Jesus prioritizes his father’s house over being with his parents. And so I think what this tells us is that the Lord’s day worship that we’re called to and privileged to attend every Sunday morning is to be prioritized to us. Our children should see us prioritizing the day of worship.

And if we are so foolish as to not prioritize it, may the Lord God grant us children who at least by the age of 12 are telling us we should go to church today, mommy and daddy. No, it’s not good enough that we have relatives in town. We don’t want to prioritize the extended family over the worship of God. We don’t want to put our friends, our relatives and associates above being about our father’s business in our father’s house on the Lord’s day.

And may the Lord God grant wives who will properly urge and exhort husbands to faithfulness to worship. May he give us husbands who will exhort wives. May he give us parents who will exhort children, and children who will exhort their parents to put a proper priority on the worship of God. We see that in this narrative. It’s important to see it. It’s rather obvious.

A second thing that we learn from the parents—from Mary and Joseph—is that they don’t own this child. This child isn’t there to fulfill their needs and to keep them from being worried. Clearly, we all know this, but you know, Mary knew it too. But it’s easy to forget it—that our children are not ours. We are stewards of them. They’re really the father’s. Their father is the father in heaven. And that’s where we must direct them to as they mature.

When they begin, they have no concept of it. But as they grow and mature, that’s our job—to be proper stewards of our children—to get them to transition as they move, not at 20 when they become adults, but at 12 as they’re moving, you know, beginning to go through that next stage of becoming a man or a young man—to transition those children to focusing on the work of God the Father in heaven, not just, or even sometimes in opposition to, their father or parents on earth.

Another thing we can say is that we should trust our children with Christ. They were anxious. We get anxious. I remember going to a mall and I don’t—it was Lana, maybe a couple years old, four years old, whatever it was—lost her for several hours. Some of you have had the same experience. I know. Tremendous, you know, you get so worried and anxious. Now, you should, you know, you should get right into action. There’s nothing wrong with seeking them. That’s what you’re supposed to do. But don’t become sinfully anxious. And as a result, then you can perhaps go about not finding them in the correct way. You get kind of in a dither. And you need to kind of settle down. Trust God with your children. He’s their father. He can take care of them.

It’s not a, you know, reason to be slothful about our responsibilities, but it is saying that our anxiety over our children in their absence and getting lost in a mall, on a road, whatever it is, should be brought under submission to Christ and trust in him.

I know some of you have actually left kids behind at gas stations on extended family vacations. I know a couple of us have had that experience. And you get down the road a couple hours. “Where’s Johnny? Oh, I don’t know. I got six back there. I don’t have seven anymore. Better go back to that gas station”—and there they were in the bathroom.

So when that happens, may God bring this story to mind and may you remember that our savior gently, but admonished his mom. “You shouldn’t have been worried because the father’s business is being fulfilled.” So may the Lord, and may God use that in a further sense to teach us all in our anxieties for our children—that we all have.

Our Sunday school class this morning, you know, what kind of interfaith relationships are able to enter into marriage? Can you marry a Baptist, a Catholic, a Buddhist, an amillennial, non-theonomic, reformed person? That the tags don’t mean a whole lot. What kind of marriage did they enter into? And we can be anxious about our children. Lots of things—marriage, whatever it is. And you know, there’s two ditches. One is to do nothing. “Well, it’s God’s work. Be passive.” No, they weren’t like that. The model for us for the Holy Family here, positively speaking, is to attend to things. But the other ditch is to be sinfully anxious, which is reprimanded by our savior—gently, but reprimanded. Sinfully anxious about our children, whether they’re going to get married, what kind of jobs they’re going to get, how they’re going to do on their homework, whatever it is. You see, sinful anxiety is to be put off.

You know, I saw several sermons online about this text. And you know, one of them was entitled, “Have you lost sight of Jesus?” And you know, Mary and Joseph lost sight of Jesus. And so the analogy is to us losing sight of Jesus as well. And it’s pretty forced. It’s an application. It’s certainly not an interpretation of the text. They weren’t ignoring Jesus. He got lost. But I suppose as an application, it struck me funny when I first read it. Okay, great. You know, that’s not really the purpose of the text, but it is worth talking about just a little bit.

Because the absence of Jesus is what produces the anxiety. And you know, it wasn’t through their sinfulness. So I don’t agree with that part of the text—that the sermon went on to say all the ways we lose sight of Jesus when we get involved in other things. We’ll talk about that next week. Talk about practical atheism. But this way, you know, they haven’t done anything to lose Jesus. But Jesus has disappeared from their sight and it produces a degree of anxiety.

In Job, losing sight of Jesus—there are some of you who are tempted this week to lose sight of Jesus. Here’s what I mean. Job, chapter 23. Job answers and says, “Even today, my complaint is bitter. My hand is listless because of my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come to his seat.” Job had lost sight of Jesus. He was looking for God in the midst of his difficulties.

Verse eight: “Look, I go forward, but he’s not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive him. When he woke on the left hand, I cannot behold him. When he turns to the right hand, I cannot see him.” So Job was in the same place as Mary and Joseph. He couldn’t find God. And it wasn’t because God was physically absent, of course, but because his pain, his trials, and tribulations were heavy upon him. And God withdrew deliberately his presence from Job to test him.

And some of you, no matter what the circumstances are, are going to have difficulty this week in various trials and tribulations that you might have—seeing Jesus as much as you may search for. You may not understand what he is doing in this situation in your life. He seems to be way far off, just like he was to Mary and Joseph. And just like here in Job, you haven’t done anything wrong necessarily. Job didn’t sin. Not why this happened. God’s will was being worked out. But Job knew the torment of not seeing his savior, not perceiving his work in his life.

And some of you go through this. We all do at various times. God says, “Take heart by this narrative. Jesus is going about his father’s business. He wants you to trust him, just like he wanted Mary and Joseph to trust him. So he wants us to trust him.”

Job went on to say, “He knows the way that I take.” That’s wonderful, isn’t it? “I don’t know the way he’s taking, but he knows the way that I take. He may be absent from my sight, but I am never absent from his sight, right? He knows the way that I take. When he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”

Job knew that the answer to the absence of Christ in his life—and it’s not sinful anxiety—it was focusing on the prize. That if he applies himself in the midst of those difficulties to being patient and waiting for the God who sees him to reveal himself again—whether it’s three-day death and resurrection, whatever it is—when he comes forth, I’ll be tried as gold. “I know that the father’s business is being accomplished in my life through the very difficult times I go through.”

Now, that’s true of our sins as well. If you’ve sinned and you’re suffering some great tribulation or some minor tribulation, sorrow, difficulty, you’ve lost sight of Christ because you’ve been placed in a darkened place because of your sin. Take hope, Christian. As God works through us, he’s trying us as gold and we’ll come out better. Don’t be sinfully anxious in these times. Trust in God. Work what he wants you to do. Do the proper things you’re supposed to do and trust him.

Job says, “My foot has held fast to his steps. I have kept his way and not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” It’s almost this text in Job is talking about Jesus at the temple because it’s the words of Jesus’s mouth at the center of the narrative for us. And Job says, “I don’t see him. I’m in torment, but he knows me. His eyes upon me, his eyes on the sparrow. His eyes certainly watching me too. And because of that, I’m going to attend to what I should do in the right way. I’m going to keep his commandments. I’m going to go to the feast. I’m going to do whatever it is. I’m going to obey him.”

So the Lord God gives us as an illustration to us the people that do lose sight of Jesus for various reasons and reminds us by Jesus’s general rebuke of his parents that he loves us. He’s doing his business and his business is good toward us as well. We don’t need to be sinfully anxious. We don’t see him, but he sees us.

Now this is true of Mary as an individual. So individuals here at this church, you know, we have trouble trusting Christ in particular circumstances and after the third day will come the resurrection. God will bring us through those trials. We’ll be as gold. And the same thing is true of Mary as a representation of the church and the other example that Mary is to us is her pondering these things in her heart, right? It’s a beautiful verse.

Let’s see: “He was subject to them, but his mother kept all these things in her heart.” That’s the second time Luke has told us that in the first two chapters. And Luke tells it to us because Mary’s a representation of the church. We’re members of the church. And when we don’t understand something—which she didn’t—we can still treasure it in our hearts.

This is why scripture memorization is so important. This is why we want you to memorize scripture. It’s the words of our savior. That’s the center of the narrative. And we want to treasure the words of our savior in our heart. Ponder them if we need be.

I preach various things here. You know, I can’t be understood. People go away. I don’t know what he’s talking about. Well, that’s the way it was with Jesus too. I’m sure that my communication skills are highly lacking. But the point is this: if this is where God has you today, and I don’t know where he’ll have you next Sunday, but if you’re here today and you don’t understand something, I know what you’re supposed to do about that. I know what I’m supposed to do if I don’t understand some of the text here. I’m supposed to ponder it in my heart. I just don’t dump it because it isn’t a practical use right now and I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do about it. I’m supposed to marvel and be astonished at the words of our savior and treasure them in my heart and think on them. It’ll profit us later on. It’s like a seed planted in our soul—the word of God.

And at some point, the words of our savior will come back to mind. He’ll clarify what he meant. We’ll meditate on them. My wife, you know, is—I don’t know how old she’s old like me. We’re not—we’re 50something. That’s all I know. Soon we’ll be 60something. She’s read the Bible throughout, ever since I’ve known her. I think through her whole life, she reads the Bible every day. And every day, almost every day, she’ll read something in there that she did not notice before. She’s treasuring the word of the Savior. And God in faithfulness is causing that word to be understood by her in new and marvelous ways. There’s no end to it. The Savior’s words are to be treasured.

Memorization is important. And as good moms and dads, we should want our kids treasuring the word of the Savior—that they don’t know in their hearts. The Psalmist says, “I can know more than the ancients because I attend to your word,” Psalm 119. “I can know more.” Jesus at 12 knew more. He was able to instruct in his questions and discussion with the teachers. Now, we’re not Jesus, but we are Christians, and we should know that if we know the word of God, we can have wisdom well beyond our years. And our children should be brought early to the instruction of Christ’s word in our home and in the church and receiving that word in worship, pondering in our hearts, memorizing the scriptures.

And God will use it for the purposes of his kingdom. So if you know, walk away with nothing else today—walk away with a renewed commitment to have your children and you memorize the word of God. God, to find yourself in it, treasuring your heart when you don’t understand it, chewing on it, meditating upon it. Jesus himself is an example.

So we’ve seen the family as an example, and Mary and Joseph are an example to parents. And Mary herself is an example to all of us as Christians in some ways. And Jesus, you know, clearly he’s distinct. He’s the savior here. He’s prolleptically fulfilling the three-day resurrection. But he’s also an object lesson to us. I think there are things he does here that should be quite important to us.

And one of the most significant ones is just a tiny little thing at the end of the narrative. And as I said, we can sort of see the center of the narrative is the word of the savior and the astonishment. The center of the climactic thing is “Why are we anxious?” And the very end of the narrative, you know, as we get to the other bookend, the going down to Nazareth—the climax here is in a tiny little phrase.

“He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them.”

Now he’s just instructed them about how he’s doing his father’s business. Now he’s made the transition from Joseph to the heavenly father clear in the narrative, right? So, you know, as children grow into adult life and have, you know, more of a direct relationship with the father, how is that evidenced? Well, in Jesus’s case it’s evidenced by obedience to the fifth commandment. He voluntarily submits himself to the rule of not just his mom, but his mother and his father. Okay?

So as they said, Joseph—the last thing we’re told about him in this gospel—and I think, I think in all of the gospels (I could be wrong)—but I think in all the gospels, this little narrative of 12 years into the life of Jesus is the last reference to Joseph. And the last thing we’re told about him is Jesus obeyed him. Jesus submitted to him. And isn’t that wonderful? I think it’s just a wonderful truth for us. And it should be a wonderful truth for our children.

You know, children, you 12-year-old guys, you’re getting smart. At 16, 18, you’ll be a lot smarter. You may well, being raised in this church, hopefully, and with godly parents, you may well know more than your moms and dads. Jesus did. No doubt about it. His mom and dad were astonished at his teaching. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t submit to the authorities in your lives. You may know more than your boss. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t submit to him. You may know more than your husbands. As I said before, 50% of you women will, maybe more. From my perspective and my experience in our culture, maybe more. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be in a submissive attitude to the authorities that God has placed you. Now, the husbands are to submit to—I think I’m going to preach on that in a couple of weeks for Valentine’s Day. What this submission thing is all about, I think we get it all goofed up a little. But in any event, there’s proper relationships.

Jesus submits himself to his mom and dad. And children, you know, I don’t care how smart or wise you are, really—we are not just think you are. Jesus is your example to submit to his parents willingly. And older people, by way of application—fifth commandment: fathers relate to church authorities, state authorities, business authorities in the world. Submission to your wife when she’s right about things. Submission of the wife to the husband. All these things are sort of wrapped up in this beautiful picture, this example that Jesus Christ is to us of submitting to the authority structures that God has placed over him.

It’s a wonderful application for our children, looking at the model of Jesus. But beyond the children, to all of us.

And then finally, in all of these things—as I said at the beginning of the sermon—these things are all indications of what the father’s business is. Yeah, we all want to be about the father’s business. Well, the father’s business—when he went down back to Nazareth—was to submit to his parents. His father’s business at the middle of the text was to focus on this interaction he had with the people at Jerusalem, at the temple, to be in his father’s house, among his father’s people, doing his father’s business.

So throughout this narrative, everything I’ve talked about by way of application are specific ways to obey this text—the model of Jesus Christ to us—to be about the father’s business. That’s at the center of this either end it’s described his growth and maturation—from growing physically to growing in stature—getting a little taller over here to now increasing. The word “increase” means to plow through waters to get to a destination. Jesus increases at the end of the text. He’s moved past boyhood growth into manly increasing in wisdom and in stature.

And the text makes it quite clear that the only way this is possible is being strong in the spirit. Now, I know Jesus is baptized in the spirit at the beginning of his ministry. But look, the text here explicitly tells us that the spirit of God—strong in spirit—the spirit of God is the source of wisdom and grace. And so that tells us as well that for us to move in maturity, to continue to increase by the time our bodies stop growing, to increase in stature and in favor and grace with God and men, that the way to do that is to have a spirit-empowered life.

And the evidence of that spirit is two things: wisdom and grace. That’s what these bookends tell us. So I don’t care about your ecstatic utterances. I don’t care, you know, what you think the Holy Spirit is. Here the text—well, I do care. That’s cavalier. I didn’t mean to be that way. But the text tells us that the spirit’s manifestation is wisdom—wisdom, being wiser than the ancients because we know God’s word. Wisdom—how to interact. Wisdom—how do we be at favor with God and men? And if you have a problem with being in favor with men in your adult life over and over again, you’re probably not too much in favor with God either.

Or being in favor with the community we live in and those that we work with is part of the evidence of our being in favor with God. And the way to accomplish that is wisdom. And the way to accomplish wisdom is to focus our lives on being about the father’s business, seeking the spirit through the word, which brings us wisdom from God. And then as well, grace—favor—and the grace of God is found in the word of God.

And so Jesus is this great example to us of a maturation, a progression that’s linked to the evidence of the spirit, which is wisdom and grace being evident in us. And as a result, being strong in the spirit. The scriptures admonish us to the same thing. 1 Samuel 2: “Child Samuel grew before the Lord.” In verse 21, 26, “The child Samuel grew in stature and in favor both with the Lord and men.” Sound familiar? We could have spent the whole hour talking about the relationship of Jesus and Samuel because they’re obviously tied together. But the point is Samuel is not Jesus. He’s a man like you or I. And he grew in stature and in favor both with the Lord and men.

So don’t say it’s just Jesus that can do it. Samuel did too. Chapter 3 of 1 Samuel: “Samuel grew and the Lord was with him. And let none of his words fall to the ground.” May the Lord God grant us to grow in wisdom and grow in the strength of the Holy Spirit so that our words are effectual as well, that we be in favor with God. Amen. That we be about the father’s business.

In Ephesians 3, Paul says, “This is why I’m praying—for this reason I bow my knees to the father of the Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named—that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man.”

Now, that’s our calling—to be about the father’s business, being strengthened in the spirit, growing in wisdom and stature, in grace and favor with God and men. And if we do that, boys and girls, adults—then we’re heroes. This is a hero story. Don’t forget it. And the heroes in the Christian faith are not people that do miraculous deeds of strength in terms of physical prowess or some weird miracle thing going on at their 12. Jesus shows us the way to be a hero of the Christian faith: be about your father’s business.

May he grant us that this week.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for this wonderful text, this wonderful narrative, these wonderful stories in the gospels. We thank you for the gospel in this narrative—that this is what you’ve called us to be, this is what Jesus has died and raised up to effect: a people who go about their father’s business. Help us this week, Lord God, to do that. Help us to not be strangers to your word or to the savior that the spirit manifests to us in that word. Help us to seek Jesus in the scriptures and in the voices of the friends of his, the way our savior did.

Grant us, Lord God, to increase, to grow in grace and favor with God and men, and to grow in wisdom by the strength of your spirit. Lord God, help us this week. Help us now as we come forward in response to this wonderful gospel to see that our proper response today is to consecrate ourselves anew to doing the father’s business.

In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.