Christmas 1 - Jesus the Temple

Scripture: Luke 2:41-52

Luke 2:41–52 NIV

41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” 49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them. 51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

12/29/2024

Order of Service:

Announcements

Church Update (Finance/Education/Trustees)

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 5: Church Update

No Update

Opening Prayer:

Light of life, you came in flesh,

born into human pain and joy,

and gave us power to be your children.

Grant us faith, O Christ, to see your presence among us,

so that all of creation may sing new songs of gladness

and walk in the way of peace. Amen.

Jesus the Temple

Children of God

We had a beautiful Christmas Eve service that almost got me through Christmas Day without sinning. I shared at Eastgate last week that Christmas seems to be the holiday that flies by the fastest because we rush so much to get to it that we fly through it and can’t hit the brakes. Just look at our scripture reading today: Jesus was born four days ago, and now he is already twelve years old. It makes you wonder, what did Christmas really accomplish?

I mean, most of us are pretty good at celebrating obvious milestones like firsts and lasts, but what about the ones in between? Do they not matter as much? When you look back on Christmas 2024, how will you describe it? It was the Christmas that… how will you fill in that blank?

Most people understand that Jesus needed to be born for us to have a savior, but once he arrives, we tend to forget about him until he is raised up on the cross. John 3:16. Cradle. Cross. Everything else feels nonessential, and we might believe we can live without it. Or can we?

In both places, the cradle and the cross, Jesus was called the Son of God by a select few and hailed as the King of the Jews by many. It wasn’t that one title was spiritual while the other was political; they both share similar meanings upon closer examination. However, the angels of God and the Roman soldier at the cross recognized a unique authority that transcended life on earth and acknowledged the kind of power Jesus possessed even in death.

To the Romans, the son of God was an emperor, a king of kings. He was granted authority over all other kings because his father was a god, perhaps even the king of the gods. However, in practice, the Roman Empire worshiped every Caesar as a son of God, or son of Zeus, whom they considered the king of the gods. Each Caesar became a god upon death, with their children being seen as sons and daughters of God and heirs to the empire. That soldier referring to Jesus as a son of God was committing an act of treason, not merely making a spiritual confession.

The Jews held much stricter spiritual views. For them, there was only one God, and he had no heirs. He had no physical body because he was not human, nor was he particularly similar to humans. Instead of their former kings, they compared God to a being so radiant that he hid in a fiery cloud when he met Moses and so beautiful and powerful that the fearsome angels sometimes seemed afraid to look at him. When God referred to them as his “children” or spoke of people like David as his “son,” it was not meant to be taken literally. Even in these instances, it was a title that represented God graciously extending his favor and authority to a kind of middle management to govern on his behalf and keep the people faithful. Thus, this concept was very political for the Jews.

But God knows we need much more than political leaders in our lives. He understands that without our spiritual lives in order, everything else will crumble. Without a true relationship with Him, we find ourselves blindly adhering to a set of rules we hope originated from God, yet we can never be certain. This is why John 3:16 begins with His love that brought us Jesus, whom we first encountered in Bethlehem.

If we hope to find true forgiveness, redemption, and resurrection—becoming people who can spend fine minutes in heaven without slipping back into sin—we must become different kinds of adopted children of God ourselves. To achieve this, we need a model to follow, and we find God in Jesus more than anywhere else.

📷

Passover

We will return to Christmas, but first, we need to look ahead, down the path to Passover, which we celebrate as Easter. These two celebrations share more in common than you might think. Passover was a time when the people of God were commanded to journey to Jerusalem to worship Him together, expressing gratitude for how He delivered them from slavery and made them His adopted children here on earth.

The destruction of the Temple, shortly after the establishment of the Church, shifted the focus of Passover celebrations to honoring a memory rather than reenacting the birth of a nation. Today, we think of Seder meals and the story of the Exodus that unfolds during these special Passover gatherings, where elaborate food and drinks create a sense of anticipation for the Messiah to come and deliver them from bondage once again. Many Jews still travel to Jerusalem during this holiday season, but without the Temple as a place to unite as one people, the experience simply doesn’t hold the same significance. As a result, traditions and festivities have changed to meet the needs and capabilities of the people.

Jesus celebrated Passover. In fact, his final meal was a Passover meal in Jerusalem. During his time, the focus was less on elaborate foods and more on worshiping God alongside all of God’s people and bringing a sacrificial lamb. Those shepherds in Bethlehem likely earned good money during Passover by providing lambs for families who traveled without their own livestock. So I wonder if Jesus watched those sheep every year as they came to Jerusalem for Passover, knowing that He was the true Lamb of God, watching them faithfully follow their shepherds to the Temple, where they would be sacrificed for the sins of God’s people.

Those lambs had to be unblemished, meaning they were born without spots and had lived free from sickness or injury. A broken leg or scars from getting lost in the thicket or from being attacked by predators would render such sheep unfit for this noble cause. Being born perfect was not enough; they had to lead a flawless life, following their shepherd faithfully until the day they laid down their lives. They needed to be the best of the flock.

Luke tells us that during the Passover celebration in Jerusalem, amidst all the hustle and bustle, Jesus, a twelve-year-old boy, entered the Temple and began discussing the scriptures with the leaders and scholars who gathered to share God’s Word with all of God’s people that week.

📷

My Father’s House

A 12-year-old boy teaching in the temple would have certainly captured everyone’s attention. This wasn’t just any local synagogue. Jesus didn’t come from a well-connected family in that time. So, I’m not sure whether I should be more surprised that it miraculously happened and he was allowed into the temple to converse with those Jewish leaders, or if I should be more surprised that no one created a fuss about it, punishing him or his parents. We don’t know because this story is told from Mary’s perspective. We can only speculate about what Jesus might have said when one of those priests likely asked where his parents were. I wonder if he used that “this is my father‘s house” line on them too. Sometimes, preteens have a way of being shockingly honest.

But the answer he provides really is the heart of this whole episode. Even as a boy, he knew he was God‘s child, and he recognized this in a way that was different from everyone else. Jesus was unique, just as the temple itself stood apart from any other building. The temple was the place where you went to meet with God personally. The Jews understood that you could pray to God anywhere, and He would hear you if He chose. They also knew they could write a letter to the emperor if they wanted, and he might even read it someday. But to meet them in person, that was a whole new level of communication. That was a whole new level of relationship. And not everyone had the privilege of doing that.

Jesus walked into this most sacred space in the world and proclaimed it to be his father‘s house. As a young boy, he had the confidence to go toe-to-toe with those who had dedicated their lives to studying the scriptures. He felt at home in the temple. All these elements should set off bells, whistles, and sirens in our minds, signaling that there’s something very unique about this boy. He is the one who would calm the storms, walk on water, heal with a word or a touch, and teach us all how forgiveness truly works.

📷

Why are you searching?

“Why were you searching for me?” he asks. “Didn’t you know I would be in my father‘s house?”

At Christmas, we first learn about the incarnation of God. That’s a fancy term that means God in the flesh. While the Greeks sometimes believed that people could eventually rise up to become gods after death, or that their false gods might descend to earth and disguise themselves as humans, Jesus was both fully God and fully human at the same time, consistently. He spent his entire life holding back his power and embracing our weakness. For a God who could eradicate all sin and evil in the world with a single word—and perhaps someday will—this plan of entering our world, taking on our weakness, and sitting with us in the pig pens of life, rather than simply snapping his fingers to fix everything, seems perplexing. So don’t feel bad if you can’t grasp what it means to be fully human and fully God at the same time. We’re all right there with you.

But because God came to us in Jesus, his only begotten Son, who is fully God and fully human, God reveals to us a new possibility for our lives. Until Jesus, we were taught that sin was in our DNA and that anything with flesh was sinful. The fall may have corrupted more than just our skin and bones; it may have permeated the very DNA of our souls as well. We may not understand all of the spiritual aspects of our lives, but history consistently reminds humanity that no one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone sins. Even on Christmas Day.

However, due to Christmas and Jesus, humanity now has one tally on the winning side. This may seem insignificant in the daily struggle against death. What does one victory mean compared to 500 million trillion losses throughout history? Why should we even care about this?

You can find the answer to that question in Genesis chapter 1. In a vast universe of darkness and chaos, void and nothingness, God alone stood against it all and simply said, “Let there be light.” The rest is history. The darkness and brokenness can fight back and win a million trillion gazillion battles against us. But it cannot win the war. And that unstoppable, unfathomable good that is our God did not disguise Himself as a human, but poured Himself into it, embracing our weaknesses and frailties. He fought in death on the front lines with us, not from an ivory tower in the sky. And He won. As we will learn in a few months, He took that human body with Him. The human body—the very thing that has forever stood as a symbol of sin, rebellion, and weakness—God took to heaven and sat on the throne.

All Jesus had to do to win the war against sin and death was to be born into this world and become the person God created him to be. He knew exactly who that was because he was God. Now, because of Jesus, we have that opportunity as well. All we need to do to experience the victory that was won for us over darkness is to be born into this world and become the people God created us to be. While we may not always know who that is, we can always turn to God and listen to him tell us. When we struggle to understand, which sometimes happens, or when we lack the courage or motivation to actually do it, which often occurs, we can look to Jesus. In Him, we find ourselves. When we want to know what a child of God should look like, Jesus is our perfect example.

Many of you know the story of the prodigal son that Luke shares with us later in his gospel. I think if we were to sum up all of Luke chapter 2 and Jesus as the incarnation of God in a similar parable, it would start off the same, with the younger son squandering his inheritance after running away from home and finding himself lost in the pig pens of life, enslaved and starving. But one day he looks up and sees his older brother out there in the pig pens with him. The older brother looks at him and says, “Don’t you think even the servants had it better back home than here?” But the younger brother has been away for so long that he doesn’t even remember the way back home. He is hopeless. The older brother tells him, “That’s no problem, I know the way. Come and follow me.” “But I have lost everything!” says the younger brother. “That is not my home anymore. I have no place there.” “Then you can share what I have there,” says the older brother. “Our father sent me to search for you, to pay your debts, to set you free, and to bring you home, no matter what the cost. He is waiting for you to come home today.”

Jesus is both fully God and fully human. He came into this world to show you who God is and what he can do in your life if you are willing to trust him enough to follow him home.

Do you trust Jesus enough to follow Him into this next year with us?

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for entering our world and rescuing us through Jesus. When we realized we could never earn a place in Your home, You came to show us that we were not just invited, but You were willing to do whatever it took to ensure we arrived there. When we find ourselves confused, struggling with doubt, or uncertain of our ability to make it, help us to see Jesus as He truly is: our Savior, our Lord, the person we go to when we are searching for You, and the living example of how to live faithfully as Your children. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

📷