"Your God, Your Father" First Sunday After the Epiphany January 11, 2015 Luke 2:41–52
In the Gospel reading today Mary, Joseph, and Jesus went to the temple for the annual feast of the Passover. We don’t have a temple today. We have places of worship, such as our church here in San Diego. There’s no dedicated temple we go to such as Mary and Joseph did each year. This is because there is no more need for a temple. The temple was the place where sacrifices were made. Since there is no more need for sacrifices to be made there’s no need for a temple. Does that mean your life as a Christian is different from that of Mary and Joseph and those who lived in the time where sacrifices were required? Well, you don’t make sacrifices as they did, but you believe in the same God they did. In the Epistle reading Paul urges you to live in a certain manner. He says, “I urge you by the mercies of God.” The salvation He has given you is the impetus for what Paul calls presenting your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. A living sacrifice is a fascinating concept, isn’t it? This building we’re in is not a place for us to offer up sacrifices. A slaughterhouse is where animals are slaughtered, but they aren’t offered up to God as a sacrifice. They are slaughtered for the welfare of society, so that we can eat. But Paul urges you to be a sacrifice who is living; your life, which includes 167 other hours each week. Paul calls this your spiritual worship, or the natural outcome of you being the recipient of God’s mercy. Simply put, in your life you serve Him as a living, breathing person. So your life is not all that different from those of God’s people before Christ came. But how is it different from everyone else, Christian or non-Christian, who live good, decent lives? What difference does it make if, as a Christian, you are helping others and loving them and serving them, when there are plenty of people of other beliefs who are moral and do a lot of good for others? What is this spiritual worship Paul is talking about that is distinctly different from the good lives other people live who are not Christians? There is only one difference. The difference is Christ. He is the only thing that makes who you are meaningful in distinction to just being a good person. As Christians we believe in God. But then, so do a lot of people. In fact, everyone has a god. Whether you believe in God or not, you have a god. Whatever you put your ultimate trust in is your god. Each one of us holds on to something. Whatever that something is is the god we trust in. As a Christian your God is the true God. He’s not just what you hope provides you with what you ultimately need. He actually is God. He’s all-powerful and eternal. But what makes the difference in your life as a Christian, who has eternal hope and as you live out your life in spiritual service to Him, is not that He knows everything and is present everywhere and can do anything and is eternal. It is that your God is your Father. God is your Father because of Jesus His Son. The true God is the Triune God, the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He’s not just a being, He is a personal being who is intimately relational among Himself, the Father with the Son and the Spirit, and the Son with the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit with the Father and the Son. Your God is not just a god. He’s not even just the All-Powerful God of the universe. He is your Father. What does it mean that your God is your Father? Is He your divine Parent who lays down the rules for you to follow and punishes you when you don’t comply? Is He the Old Man up in heaven who you know is the head of the household but He’s not around all that much? Is He a divine vending machine, the head of the household who you don’t want to restrict your life but who you go to when you need something? You might think that your Heavenly Father is something like the fathers we have in this life. And there are a lot of fathers who aren’t faithful, godly fathers. Even those who are fail more often than not. Every father is sinful. So, often fathers let their children down. You do get a sense of God as your Heavenly Father when you see who your earthly father is and who fathers are supposed to be in this life. But to really know Him as your Father, you need to see it the other way around. You need to see your earthly father in light of your Heavenly Father. You need to be a father in light of who your God is, the God who is your Father. You do this by looking at the difference between Him and every other father. The difference is Christ. The difference is His Son. When Mary and Joseph were returning home from the Passover Festival, they assumed Jesus was with someone else in the caravan; with some of the relatives, or perhaps some friends. But when they realized that He wasn’t with them they were horrified and turned right around to go back to Jerusalem. When you lose your child you are stricken to your soul. Where is he? Where will I go to look for him? Who can I find to help me track him down? Mary and Joseph were frantic. When they finally found Him their horror turned to shock. Why was He in the temple? How was it that not only was He in the temple but He was sitting among the teachers! And not only that but everyone was amazed at His understanding! Who was this child of theirs that He would do this to them and how was it that He was acting this way? Mary was straightforward with Him: “How could You do this to us? Your father and I have been worried sick about you looking for You!” Jesus was straightforward as well. But He was genuinely surprised. “Why were you seeking Me? Didn’t you know that I must be in My Father’s House?” If Jesus didn’t understand why they had been seeking Him, they were now utterly confused. This was their son. They were entrusted by God to raise Him and care for Him and protect Him. How could they do that if He did not return home with them? They loved Him with all their heart, what was He talking about them not knowing that He needed to be in His Father’s House? Mary and Joseph believed in the same God you do, but it took their Son to teach them who that God was. Really not so much who He is as what kind of a God He is. He is not just God, He was their Father. In their Son, Jesus, God was showing Himself as Father of His people. The Son of Mary was God the Father’s own eternal Son. They went home with Him, back to Nazareth. Mary was pondering all these things in her heart. She still didn’t quite understand. Joseph, who adopted Jesus and loved Him with all his heart, I’m sure thought often about what Jesus had asked him and his wife, “Didn’t you know I must be in My Father’s House?” Joseph was a good, godly father to Jesus, raising Him in a godly home up in Nazareth. And Luke says that Jesus was submissive to His parents. He wasn’t disobeying Joseph at every turn with the reminder, “You’re not My father, God is My Father!” In fact, Jesus was perfectly obedient to Joseph and Mary. Mary and Joseph had believed that God would send the Savior. What they didn’t realize is that the Savior He would send would be His Son. They didn’t fully understand that their God was their Father. And the way He was their Father is that He gave His Son. You have to feel for Mary and Joseph in their being confused about this, God giving His Son in the way He did. Being born of Mary, a virgin. Being raised by her and an earthly father, Joseph her husband. But they came to understand that they were sons and daughters of their Heavenly Father through their Son Jesus, who is also God’s only-begotten Son. What does it mean for you that you also are a son or daughter of your Heavenly Father? How do you live as a son or daughter of your Heavenly Father, living in the way Paul described in the Epistle reading? It means that you live by the mercy of God. You live and breathe and love and serve because God loves you in His Son. He doesn’t demand you go to any temple or offer any sacrifice. He loves you because His Son entered the temple on the hill of Calvary where He offered up Himself as the sacrifice for all of your sins. The words He spoke when He was twelve years old are His first recorded words, and in a sense, He tells us there everything you need to know about God. In those words He shows you that your God is His Father, which means that your God is your Father. He is your Father in His Son Jesus Christ, who is your Lord and Savior; who is the very one your Heavenly Father has given you in mercy so that you now have eternal life. Your life is not of offering up sacrifices to Him but your life through His mercy is a living sacrifice. You are living in loving and serving others through the Son your Heavenly Father has given you and loves you through. Since your God is your Father, you are much freer now to be submissive to your parents. You are much freer with your time and your abilities, to use them not just for your own enjoyment but in sacrificial love for others. You are much freer with your money, seeing that it goes a lot farther when giving a portion of it to your Father’s House for the furthering of the Gospel ministry and mission. You are much freer to return good for evil, to pray for those who hurt you and even to love them. You are much freer to be patient and understanding of others. How can you do this? You can’t. The real question is, How do you you do this? The answer is Christ. God is not just God, He is your God. And He is not just your God, He is your Father. He loves you with all His heart and that is why He has given you His Son. He brought you into His family through His Son, adopting you as His son or daughter in Baptism. He keeps you in His Son by giving Him to you in the invitation to Feast with Him at His Son’s Table, the Feast where you need make no sacrifices but instead His own Son offers Himself to you, His body and His blood. He gives you the very body and blood He offered up on Calvary, the place where He was forsaken so that you may be in your Father’s House forever. 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. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
