"The Twelve Year Old Who Did Everything" Second Sunday after Christmas J. K. Wilhelm Loehe, Pastor January 2, 2011 Ephesians 1:3-14
When you look at the boy in the Gospel reading, what do you see? A twelve year old boy? Jesus? The Savior? The child of Mary and Joseph? Yes, you see all those things, because the twelve year old boy in the Gospel reading is all of those things. He is Jesus and just as at one time He was a cute little baby in a manger, He also at one time was a precocious four year old wandering around the house in Nazareth. And just as at one time He was a twelve year old boy who stayed behind in Jerusalem and taught a thing or two to the religious leaders, He also grew into a young man who knew His way around His dad’s carpenter shop. This is who He is. He is God who became a man. And that means He was a baby and a twelve year old boy. He later was a sixteen year old, who, if He had been around today would have gotten His driver’s license. What we know most of Him as is the man who devoted three years to His ministry and healed and taught and had compassion. Especially He is the one we know so well who suffered and went to the cross and rose from the grave. But in today’s Gospel reading we see the Jesus who was twelve years old and stayed behind to be in the temple. Who is this Jesus who was twelve years old? He is the one who has done everything. That’s what our Epistle reading says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Paul says in the Epistle reading that God has blessed us in Christ. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. The way He has done this is in His Son. Jesus’ earthly mother and father were worried sick about their twelve year old boy, but He was bringing about every spiritual blessing for us. He was God when He was lying in the manger and when He was about His Father’s business in the temple talking with the religious leaders. He was God when He was teaching and when He was hanging on the cross. He was God when He rose from the dead and when He ascended into heaven. At one point He was twelve years old but He remains God eternally. But that twelve year old boy was indeed God. There’s no question about it, as Mary and Joseph eventually came to find out. Perhaps it has become easy for us to think of God becoming a baby since we hear about that so often. Christmas is a staple in our lives and we have heard the Christmas story so many times we might not give it a second thought that God was a cuddly little baby in a small town in Judea. But how often have you thought of God as a twelve year old? He’s not a twelve year old now, but He was at one time. For twelve whole months He was a boy that was on the cusp of being a teenager. This was God. This was a boy who was under the care of earthly parents. And yet, as God, He was doing everything, accomplishing for us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. He was doing this by being a person. People are born and they grow up. This was Jesus. He was born and He grew. Along the way He was accomplishing salvation for us. Every spiritual blessing is ours in Him. In His life as well as His suffering, death, and resurrection. While there is no salvation apart from His suffering the punishment for sin in our place there is also no salvation apart from His living perfectly the will of God according to the Ten Commandments. This was an entire life of doing this. The episode when He was twelve years old in the temple is one example. We too often disobey our parents even as we do not put our Heavenly Father first in our lives. Jesus obeyed His parents fully according to His Heavenly Father’s will even as He put His Heavenly Father first in His life. The reason He did this was so that we may receive every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. It’s amazing that we receive them now. We don’t realize them in their full glory until we actually get to heaven, but we are fully in possession of every blessing God gives. The Epistle reading speaks in terms of glory, the grace of God toward us so that we may be in possession of all His blessings and glory. It also speaks in terms of the way it comes about is through Himself, namely, in giving to us His Son. The way we achieve glory is by God Himself humbling Himself to become a baby and a twelve year old and a man. The premiere example of Jesus humbling Himself is the cross. But His entire act of becoming a man in order to save us was an act of humility. Can you imagine the patience it took a twelve year old Jesus, God, as He sat there with the religious leaders in the temple? The very God of the universe, the very author of the Scriptures, was sitting among wise and learned theologians as a young boy and was causing premature gray hair on His mom and dad. This little story Luke tells us isn’t just a side note. It isn’t just a glimpse into the childhood of Jesus. It is an account to show us the fullness of who Christ is and what He has done to accomplish salvation for us. Jesus is the twelve year old boy who did everything because He was the twelve year old boy who was God. He was the twelve year old boy that was securing every spiritual blessing for us. We need to realize everything Jesus did to save us. But we also need to realize everything Jesus gives us. Jesus accomplished everything necessary for salvation so that we may have everything from God. He did this, we don’t have it by what we have done. He bore the judgment coming to us, we don’t have every spiritual blessing due to what we deserve. Jesus as a twelve year old knew what the Scriptures said. He knew not only that He was the author but that they all pointed to Him. He knew what was ahead of Him even as He knew what He was doing at the moment. He was God and He was doing everything—everything, that is, in terms of accomplishing for us every spiritual blessing. Though He’s no longer twelve, no longer suffering and dying on the cross, no longer appearing to His disciples after rising from the grave, He is still the same God. He is the God who does everything. It’s why He came in the first place. It’s why He was patient for thirty years and was in His Father’s House at age twelve and in a smelly manger shortly after He was born. It’s why He went to the cross and why He continues to come to us still in humble ways: in the proclaimed Gospel, in Baptism, in Holy Communion. The ways He blesses you may be humble, but the blessings are beyond what you can receive from anything you can do or anything you can gain from anyone or anything else. If it’s hard to imagine that the fullness of God is in a twelve year old boy then it’s hard to see that God works all of His power and gives all of His grace in simple ways such as water and words and bread and wine. But God is working in those ways to give you everything you need. The religious leaders didn’t realize they were face to face with God in the temple on that day when Jesus stayed behind to be in His Father’s House. His parents didn’t realize it either. Will we realize that we are meeting up with God Himself when we are hearing His Word proclaimed and when we are remembering our Baptism and when we are partaking of Christ’s very body and blood in His Holy Supper? Will we realize that we are receiving every spiritual blessing in these means? All they saw was a twelve year old boy, although they were amazed at Him because He seemed to be beyond His years. Will all we see in the means by which God works are rituals that we do? Or will see them for what they are, the very means by which God forgives us and sustains us in faith and gives us the strength we need? Will we take God at His Word that He gives us every spiritual blessing in the way He works, having come as a baby, growing up as a boy, living and ministering as an adult, and going to the cross on our behalf, and conquering the grave, and now coming to us in His Word and Sacraments? The Epistle is clear that heaven awaits us. Maybe that’s why we don’t always see Jesus for who He is. The religious leaders saw only a twelve year old boy, likewise His parents. We see only water and bread and wine in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, we hear only words when the Gospel is proclaimed. We don’t see that heaven comes to us. That Jesus Himself, God Himself, comes to us to be with us. God was with those religious leaders, with His parents. He is with us in our Baptism. He dines with us in His Holy Supper. He gives us every spiritual blessing. If He could do everything as a twelve year old boy He can do everything as He comes to you in His Word and His Sacraments. Marvel, but also rejoice, and also trust in, and also rest in, this one who is God. This one who came as a baby and as a boy and as a man, who came as Savior. Who came to be your Lord, your Savior, your God. Who came to do everything for you, so that you can rejoice and rest in His promises and His grace. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. 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