The Second Sunday after Christmas
The Holy Family Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. In today’s Gospel, Jesus “*went down with His parents to Nazareth and was submissive to them.*” Dear Christian friends: When the Virgin Mary “*gave birth to her firstborn son and… laid Him in a manger*” (Luke 2:7), the Lord God was doing something more than merely entering into His creation. In Mary’s infant Son, God nestled Himself into the most intimate recesses of our lives. God entered a family. It did not need to be that way. The angel Gabriel had earlier preached to Mary, “*Nothing shall be impossible for God*” (Luke 1:37). Those Words indicate that our God could have come to us as a fully grown man at the head of an unconquerable army. God could have come in a dark and frightening cloud, as He did at Sinai. God could have arrived in a monastery, as part of a traveling circus, or in any other way He pleased. There is but ONE way that pleased God to come: God was born into a family. Is there any better place to be, than near to family? It is why we travel at the holidays. It is why we Facebook and Skype. Family is why we abandon at least a portion of our dreams in life. Family is also why we seek substitutes. Life in this sinful, lonely world has forced radical reconfigurations of family. There is no such thing as a “normal family,” but all the other descriptions are too painful to bear. Who wants to admit such phrases as “dysfunctional family” or “blended family” or “nontraditional family” or “broken home”? When I was a young child, I thought my parents had achieved something exceptional. It took twenty years for the illusion to die. When it finally did, I was stunned to see that the Rottmanns were just like everyone else. Family is something more than the most basic building block of all human society. Family is where we each stand, the most vulnerable, the most unmasked, the most tempted. Is there anyone · whose repetitions or insubordinations make you angrier? · who has more deeply hurt or saddened or disappointed you? · who has stirred more fear in your soul? · who has presented themselves as a more worthy idol? · you were more chagrined to lose? · who has done more to leave you wanting more? · for whom you would more quickly open your veins? · who knows you better and tolerates you more than your family? No one is as strange as our parents: Are those people really the same people who raised you? No one is more worthy of exile than our siblings: You would never have gotten away with such things when you were growing up! No one is more able to tear us away from the Christian faith than our children: It might be easier to change your opinion concerning the Holy Communion, rather than to accept that your child’s willful rebellion has separated him from the communion. Family is something more than the building block of all human society. Family is where we each stand, in all of our weakness and in all of our glory. Family is exactly where Christ Jesus our Lord chose to be. Today’s Gospel is for your comfort and for your forgiveness and for your strength: Jesus “*went down with His parents to Nazareth and was submissive to them*.” · Christ Jesus our Lord experienced the full spectrum of family life. We know this because the Scriptures declare that He was “*tempted in every respect, as we are, except without sin*” (Hebrews 4:15). Only Jesus was without sin; Joseph and Mary had plenty of sin. That means Christ Jesus our Lord had to exert the same sort of endurance in His family life that you and I must exert in ours. Our Lord’s endurance contains power and strength than will help us endure. We should pray that our Lord’s family life be brought to bear upon ours. · Jesus “*was submissive to them*.” That means Jesus placed Himself under the authority and guidance and decision-making of other people. He abandoned His divine right; He tolerated parental injustices; He allowed the needs of His family to shape and direct His everyday life. To speak in sociological terms, Jesus placed His individuality into the context of His God-given group. In so doing, Jesus allows us to think that our family obligations and responsibilities do not end up robbing us of who we are. Whether our families are large or small, distant or near, they help make us who we are. Perhaps we can even dare to believe that our family pressures play a role in “*conforming us to the image of God’s Son*,” to borrow some wording from Romans chapter 8 (v. 29). If we should get pressed into the image of God’s Son, we can be sure we are headed in a good direction because Jesus “*the image of the invisible God*” (Colossians 1:15). · Today’s Gospel shows that there is but one thing Christ Jesus our Lord could not do for His family. Jesus could not trade His faith in God for their sake. “*Why were you looking for Me*?” He asked. “*Did you not know I must be in My Father’s house*?” Translated another way, “*Did you not know I must be about My Father’s business*?” (see the KJV) With these Words, Christ Jesus is showing us that: o absolutely the best and most loving thing we can each do for our families is the hold the Christian faith undefiled. o the Christian faith should form our opinions of the family, rather than allowing the family to form our opinions of the Christian faith. o our Savior remained undeterred by family idolatry. That is why we get to live. Our Lord’s family would gladly have prevented Him from suffering the cross. What family would not prevent such suffering for one of their own? Jesus responded to family temptations by throwing open His arms and welcoming us through Baptism into His family. Thus it is written, “*My mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it*” (Luke 8:21). Again, When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (Galatians 4:4-5). Yet again, “*He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers*” (Hebrews 2:11). Still another: “*See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are*” (1 John 3:1). Finally, “*I am ascending to My Father and your Father, My God and your God*” (John 20:17). In today’s Gospel, our Lord’s death for our forgiveness still waited in the distance. The big things would happen soon enough. For now, the little things require His attention: Jesus “*went down with His parents to Nazareth and was submissive to them*.” In so doing, Jesus has added honor and glory and respectability to the many ways we must each submit to—and endure—our families.
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