Luke 2:41-52

So, many of you know that Melanie and I are expecting our first child this spring - so naturally, my mind has been occupied with all things baby of late. I’ve really been an emotional wreck all throughout this pregnancy, but especially as we come closer to his birth. Guys, I almost cried at the end of Elf this year. And again at the end of Muppets Christmas Carol. And again at the end of Tangled - Disney’s animated take on Repunzel. So, my head is all wrapped up with babies. So I apologize if all of my sermon illustrations revolve around infants, but that’s just where I am.

So one of the things that we get really excited about as new parents is our child’s first words. As a culture, we view a child’s first words as important. And it’s funny really, because the more I talk with parents, the more I’m really unimpressed with first words - because as far as I can tell, these so called first-words, are really no words at all. They’re garbled syllables and that kind of sort of sound like something similar to words. But we get really excited about them, and I know I’ll be absolutely over the moon the first time my son says something remotely close to a real word. First words are important.

In our text this morning, we’re looking at first words - the first words we ever hear from Jesus. Luke is the only gospel writer to give us any account of Jesus’ childhood, and he only gives us one glimpse - just this one story. And in this story, we hear Jesus speak for the very first time. And his first words are very important.

So in Luke chapter 2, we see Mary and Joseph, devout Jews as they are, they’ve brought Jesus, who is now twelve years old, to Jersualem to celebrate Passover. Now, a large group of people would be making this pilgrimage from Nazareth to Jerusalem together to celebrate the feast, and Mary and Joseph would have had a whole host of family members and travel companions. This is why it took so long for them to realize that their son, Jesus, was not with them as they were returning home. This isn’t bad parenting. They expected that he was with someone else in the traveling party, and it wasn’t until probably that evening when the family would gather around the fire that his absence would have been noticed.

So they high tail it back to Jerusalem, looking for their boy. He’s been missing for three days now - one day on the road home, one day as they returned to Jerusalem, and now on the third day they find him. And where do they find him? He’s in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers of Scripture, actively engaged in their discussions of Scripture. He’s asking questions and giving answers to counter questions from the teachers.

And Luke says in verse 47, “All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.”

But Luke isn’t really all that interested in playing up Jesus’ knowledge of Scripture or how he’s astounding the teachers and the crowds with his religious acumen. Very quickly he moves to the encounter between parent and child.

Verse 48:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

48 And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.”

Isn’t this exactly what you’d expect a mother to say? I love that Luke captures this scene for us all these years later, because it wonderfully illustrates the humanity of Jesus. What is more human than being guilted by your own mother? But in all seriousness, this is such a normal and human interaction between mother and child - an interaction and a relationship that we could easily see in our every day. When we talk about the Incarnation, when we talk about God becoming human, it’s so easy for it to become an abstract theological construct; but here Luke gives it flesh and blood. Jesus is human. But Jesus is God. But he’s this boy being chewed out by his mom. That’s crazy. That’s paradigm shattering. That’s the Incarnation. That’s the mystery of Christmas.

Okay but how does Jesus respond? What are his first ever recorded words in the gospels? Mary just said, “Your father and I have been looking everywhere for you.” It’s this very normal, everyday human interaction. What does Jesus say?

English Standard Version Chapter 2

49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

English Standard Version Chapter 2

49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 50 And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them.

So all of the sudden this very normal, everyday interaction between mother and child becomes very not normal. And we are reminded that this isn’t a normal child. This isn’t just Mary and Joseph’s child, This is Yahweh on earth. This is the Messiah, the Savior of the World. And Mary and Joseph are caught off guard by his response, because they haven’t quite come to grips with the truth about who Jesus is.

In fact, this episode fits perfectly into Luke’s infancy narrative in chapter two. Luke gives us three occasions when a pronouncement is made about who this child is. First is the angels, appearing to the shepherds when Jesus is born. The angels announce that this child is the Savior, the Messiah, and we see the shepherds run to Bethlehem and they tell Mary and Joseph what the angels had declared concerning their child.

Next, we see Jesus being presented at the temple in Jerusalem as a baby, and an old man named Simeon approaches Mary and Joseph, takes the baby Jesus into his arms, and thanking God that at last he had seen the Lord’s salvation - which was this child in his arms.

So we’ve heard from the angels, we’ve heard from an old man, and now at the end of Luke’s infancy narrative we hear from the child himself. Each of these episodes are pronouncements that declare something important about Jesus.

And what we learn about Jesus in our story this morning is that he has a uniquely personal connection to God. He has a uniquely deep and intimate relationship with God.

In the ancient world there was no deeper or more intimate and connecting relationship than the relationship you had with your family. Some of that is true today for us. There’s a quality of closeness that we experience with our family that we really don’t experience with anyone else. In fact, even in unhealthy relationships that we may have with family members, there’s something unique about our connection with that person. In fact, betrayal from a family member is one of the worst relational wounds we can experience because it breaks that sacred bond that we share.

But we can see a break with tradition here in the way that Jesus responds to his family. There’s a contrast in his response. The claim that he is making is that his relationship with God is deeper and closer and more intimate than even his relationship with his family. He is by no means denigrating his family, nor the love and affection that they share for each other; but he is clearly drawing a contrast. The quality of closeness and connection that Jesus experiences with his heavenly Father exceeds even that closest of relationships that humans experience.

Nobody in that room would have seen God in this way. Nobody in that room thought of God as Father - at least not in the sense that Jesus is suggesting.

But this is the claim that he is making, that he has a uniquely deep and personal connection to God that is unlike anyone has ever experienced before.

And some of us in this room can relate to the people in that room who couldn’t understand a relationship with the God of the Universe as deep and intimate and familial as Jesus is suggesting. Our relationship with God is not close, it’s not intimate, it’s nothing like family. And there are so many reasons that this may the case for you.

Which is exactly why we need to hear these first words from Jesus. We need to hear and learn about his deep and personal connection with God because Jesus is not merely describing his unique relationship with the Father - he’s describing his unique relationship with the Father that he’s come to bring us into along side him.

As I studied and prayed over this passage this week, I was struck with how much we struggle with this aspect of the gospel. Chances are, when you think about the gospel, you think about the death and resurrection of Jesus, and you think about how your sins are now forgiven because of Jesus. We think of the gospel in terms of what was taken away, our sins, and we completely miss what we’ve gained.

The gospel is that we are not just forgiven, we are adopted. The same deep and intimate relationship that exists between Jesus and the Father is now open to you and me. We are forgiven, yes. But more than that, we’re adopted as sons and daughters of God.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God

I’ll be honest with you guys, there have been seasons in my life where I’ve believed that God loves me, but not that he likes me.

The first of these focuses on God as the source of blessing, and it’s sometimes called the consumer relationship. We bring our unmet desires to God and we ask for blessing. Our desire is for God’s blessing, but we aren’t all that interested in God himself.