G is for Growing Up

 This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, August 4 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text is Luke 2:41-52.

This month, all the texts I’ll be preaching from are in the New Testament. Today’s is from the Gospel of Luke. The title is “G is for Growing Up.” And who might we be referring to? 

We have, in today’s gospel, our sole encounter and picture of Jesus as a boy, a twelve-year-old boy. Like any boy of that age, he could be precocious and at the same time disobedient. What, you say? Jesus, the Son of God, disobedient? Yup!

Joseph and Mary were faithful Jews. They went up to Jerusalem every year for the Passover, one of the pilgrimage feasts. That was no easy feat. Travel was considered dangerous, so people traveled in groups. It would have taken them four or five days to get to Jerusalem from Nazareth (R. Alan Culpepper, Luke, New Interpreter’s Bible). So many days out of one year just for travel time to celebrate this feast. But they were faithful, godly people. 

The year before he was old enough for his Bar Mitzvah, Jesus was considered mature enough to accompany his parents, but was he? Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, which would have been a bustling city during the feast, without even consulting Mary and Joseph! That was not good. Jesus was a bad boy! 

Can you imagine the panic of Mary and Joseph when they couldn’t find him among the other travelers going home? Mary said they had been searching with “great anxiety.”

This Greek word for anxiety is used to describe the agony and pain of the rich man in hell in Luke 16. That pain had to be much more than just anxiety (Brian Stoffregen, crossmarks.com).

Have any of you ever lost a child—whether he or she was one you were watching or your own? You know that sense of panic, don’t you? And then, to spend three days scouring the city? Upon finding Jesus, Mary and Joseph rightfully felt mistreated by the young messiah. Jesus had some growing up to do. Jesus didn’t get it. Why should they be surprised that he was with the teachers in the temple?

Now, I have a couple of questions for you. The first is, whose son is Jesus in this story? … Mary said to Jesus, “…your father and I have been searching for you” (v. 48). Here we’re told he was Mary and Joseph’s son. I had never noticed that before, had you?

Question two, whose son is Jesus in this story? Jesus’ answer, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (V. 49). 

Is he the son of Mary and Joseph? Yes. Is he the Son of God? Yes. 

Jesus struggles between his knowledge of being the messiah and his youth. He’s not yet ready to assume the responsibilities that go with the title. G is for Growing Up. Have you ever struggled like that? Maybe you always knew you wanted to be a nurse. You just wish you could not have to bother with finishing high school and could just go straight to nursing. I struggled as a teenager with the knowledge that I would become a missionary and the how and when of getting there. I wanted to go right away. Like the young Jesus, however, I was lacking in wisdom.

When Jesus went back to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph, he “was obedient to them.” He couldn’t use the excuse that he was God’s son, saying, “You’re not the boss of me!”

How did Jesus grow up into being the son God favored? By being obedient to his godly earthly parents, “…Jesus increased [or kept increasing] in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor” (v. 52). “The imperfect tense suggests something of a progressive force to the verb” (netbible.org). It was a process! Jesus didn’t get there instantly. 

And neither do we. As I think about it, we don’t do children any favors by allowing them to do whatever they want whenever they want. How differently would Jesus have turned out if Mary and Joseph let him call all the shots in his young life? 

Can doing what God has called us to do cause pain and agony in parents and other people? You betcha. Everyone was terribly worried about my first husband and I going to the Middle East with small children. The danger! What they heard on the news! How could we do such a thing, and consider ourselves to be good parents?

Can doing what God has called us to do cause pain and agony among church members? God’s vision for us as a church may differ from ours. Some churches just want everyone to be happy. Some have more of a country club atmosphere with those who are in and those who are out. 

How many church conflicts are over seeking to do what God is calling us to do (in the present and future) vs. seeking to do what God had called us to do (in the past)? It’s easy to be stuck in the past when we had a booming Sunday school, a vibrant youth group, full pews and well-staffed committees. Sometimes wouldn’t you just love to go back to that time…but we can’t.

Can doing what God has called us to do cause pain and agony to one's self? Yes. It broke my heart to be overseas at the time of my mother’s death, three weeks before we were returning permanently to the States. 

To be effective for Christ and his church, we need to grow up. We can’t make that happen, but as Paul wrote,  “…only God … gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3:7). Amen!