How Is the Lord Calling You To Grow This Year?
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Our text for today begins and ends
with growing. We read in Luke 2:40: “The child [Jesus] grew and became strong,
filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon Him.” In Luke 2:52, we are
told: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and
man” (Luke 2:52).
That’s something to think about. It’s
hard to wrap our heads around. How can this be? The eternal Son of God, the
Wisdom by whom all things were made, grew in wisdom. The Almighty, All-Present
Second Person of the Trinity, grew in stature and strength. The Beloved Only-Begotten
Son, with Whom God is well pleased, grew in favor with God and man.
Everything in Jesus’ life was
preparation for His work as our Savior. Early on, Jesus’ keeping of the Law was
done primarily through the actions of His parents, much like most of you were
carried to the baptismal font by your parents before you could speak or walk in
yourself. At the age of eight days, He was circumcised according to the Law and
given the name, Jesus, which means “the Lord saves” (Luke 2:21). At forty days
of age, Jesus was brought to Jerusalem to be presented to the Lord at the
Temple according to the Law of Moses.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is twelve
years old. No longer a young boy but not quite a man. At thirteen years old, a
Jewish male became a “son of the Law” and was, religiously speaking, considered
to be of legal age and obligated to fulfill all that the Law demanded. By Law,
every Jewish man was to celebrate holidays at the Temple in Jerusalem three
times a year (Deuteronomy 5:16). In practice, it did not happen that often. It
was a sign of serious piety that Jesus’ parents celebrated the Passover yearly
in Jerusalem. One such trip must have cost at least three weeks in wages for a
Galilean family who seem to be of modest means.
In pious circles, one began to
acclimate children to the observance of the Law and its provisions early, much
like we encourage parents to bring their children to worship from infancy. So,
they brought them along on the pilgrimages to Jerusalem. It is conceivable that
Jesus had already been on the Passover pilgrimage. Perhaps this is why His
parents didn’t notice He was missing until they made camp the first night of
their return to Nazareth.
When they didn’t find Him, they frantically
hurried back. Finding a boy in Jerusalem right after the Passover was not an
easy task. Presumably, the city had around 50,000 inhabitants. During the
Passover, the population would double. On the third day, the parents began to
look in the Temple area. To their amazement, they found Jesus there among the
teachers of Israel who were amazed at His understanding and his answers. At
twelve years old, when He was not yet a son of the Law, Jesus had taken His
place among the teachers of Israel, certainly illustrating what it meant that
He was “filled with wisdom” (Luke 2:21).
When Mary chastised her son because
He had caused His parents all this worry, Jesus answered with a question borne
of amazement. “Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” These
words not only show how obvious it was for Jesus that the Temple was God’s
house, but they also show a relationship to God that no pious Jew claimed
before. God could be called Israel’s Father, but it was unheard of for
an individual man to call Him “my Father.”
This account records the first hint
of the alienation that would arise between Jesus and those closest to Him until
they finally understood and accepted that He really was God’s Son. Mary hid in
her heart even what she did not understand. We do not know when she finally
understood. For the brothers of Jesus, that day did not come before the
resurrection.
The story ends telling us, that despite
being God’s Son, Jesus was “submissive to” His earthly parents and went back
with them to Nazareth. Here we encounter one of the chief words of the New
Testament: “to submit to.” It means to enter into God’s order of things out of
love for Him. God has instituted “orders” for life in the world, orders which
concern man and wife, parents and children, and superiors and subordinates at
work.
It belongs to the life work of Jesus
that He subjected Himself to this order and obeyed His parents even though He
is God’s Son. He is a model for us, even in this. But not just a model: Having
been born as one of us, He submitted Himself to the Law and fulfilled the Law
for us with His perfect obedience of the Law, and by paying the penalty the Law
demands for our sin with His holy precious blood.
The episode of the boy Jesus in the
Temple raises a lot of questions. It raised questions for Mary (and Joseph) and
it raises questions for us.
Some thirteen years earlier, Mary had
heard God’s Word of promise through Gabriel and God miraculously accomplished
just what He said He’d do. But from that point on, Mary and Jesus appear to
have a typical mother-son relationship. This reading begins and ends with
images of a normal child developing, behaving, and relating to his parents in a
normal way.
For Mary, the startling development
is when Jesus goes off by Himself, plays the part of a rabbi in the Temple, and
speaks enigmatically in response to a seemingly straightforward question. Everything
was largely normal until this exchange and immediately after it. We can
summarize the heart of Mary’s question like this: “What does it mean that my
little boy is the Son of God the Father?”
But I suspect that most of us stumble
over the opposite side of things. We wonder, “What does it mean that the Son of
God the Father is Mary’s little boy?” We are used to Jesus going off and doing
His own thing. We know His propensity for parables and hidden sayings. He often
ignores questions and changes subjects. We know He will follow His Father’s
hidden will, no matter the shock it might cause others or the cost it will
bring upon Himself.
But what does it mean for Jesus to
have learned? “To increase in wisdom and in stature and in favor with
God and man”? We can go to categories like His “state of humiliation” and kenosis
(Christ’s setting aside His divine attributes), but it is difficult to reconcile
Luke 2:24-52 with Colossians 1:15-20. The image of the invisible God, the
firstborn of all creation, the one by whom all things were created in heaven and
on earth, visible and invisible, the one who is before all things and in whom is
everything held together grows and learns! How does the second Person of the
Trinity submit to Mary and Joseph? How could Jesus, very God of very
God, increase in favor with God?
When it comes down to it, we can’t understand.
We must do as Mary and “treasure up all these things in [our] heart.” Mary did
not understand everything Jesus taught her, but she treasured these things and
so do we. Rather than spend all our time speculating on what has not been
revealed to us, we should focus on what God has revealed about His will
and His plan of salvation. We do not always understand the Father’s way of
doing business, but we keep listening. We keep pondering. We marvel. We keep
learning from the crucified and risen Teacher as we study the Scriptures that
proclaim His name.
At Christmas God became man. And as
a man, Jesus grew up and increased in strength and wisdom. And by God’s grace,
we are called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to grow in His image. The
power for this growth comes from receiving the grace of Jesus in His Word and
Sacraments.
How is the Lord calling you to grow
this year? I’m not necessarily talking about personal or professional goals.
Those are often helpful tools for achieving success in relationships or business
but are not necessarily spiritual exercises. I’m not talking about New Year’s resolutions,
either. While usually well-intentioned, we all know most of them will fall by
the wayside in a short time when we run out of energy and motivation.
No, I’m talking about spiritual
growth, something that our Lord clearly desires, as St. Paul praises the Thessalonians:
“We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because
your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one
another is increasing” (2 Thessalonians 1:3).
How is the Lord calling you
to grow this year? Consider your various callings and stations in life: Is the
Lord calling you to grow in the wisdom and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? Is
He calling you to grow in the faithful stewardship of the resources He has
placed under your care? Is He calling you to grow as a faithful spiritual head
of your household? Is He calling you to grow as a loving and devoted spouse? Is
He calling you to grow as an obedient child who honors your father and mother?
Is He calling you to grow as a leader in your congregation or community?
Of course, none of this can you do
on your own power. Only God gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:7b). God gives the
means of this growth. St. Paul writes:
“[God] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the
shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for
building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of
the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children,
tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by
human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth
in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from
whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is
equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it
builds itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:11–16).
There is only one way to grow in the
wisdom and grace of our Lord. Be in the Word. Come to your Father’s house for worship
often. Hear God’s Word read, preached, and sung. Gather the family for
devotions sometime during the day. Start and end your day with prayer and
meditation on God’s Word.
I invite you to join us for Bible
study. Each Tuesday at 7:00 pm, beginning January 21st (Thursday at
7:00 pm, beginning January 16th) we will study “The Robe,” an
engaging story that follows the lives of twin brothers as they live out their
lives in Baptism.
If you can’t make it to Bible study in
person, find one of the good Bible studies available on podcasts. I just
recorded one with Synod’s radio station KFUO. Pastor Tim Appel and I take a
close look at Isaiah 22 on Sharper Iron. It will be broadcast at 8:00 am on
January 15th and available in the internet archives for your
listening convenience. Check it out. For your daily prayer and/or devotions there
are resources like Portals of Prayer and Treasury of Daily Prayer.
As we reflect on the growth of Jesus
in wisdom and stature, we are reminded that our own spiritual growth is a
lifelong journey, one that is nurtured by the grace of God. Just as Jesus
submitted to the Father’s will, we too are called to submit to God’s will,
trusting in His guidance and His Word. Spiritual growth does not come from our
own efforts but from God, who equips us through His means of grace. As we grow
in our faith, let us remain steadfast in listening to God’s voice, cultivating
wisdom and grace, and growing in love and service to one another. Let us
embrace the opportunities the Lord gives us this year to grow in our various
callings, knowing that it is God who gives the growth. May we, like Jesus,
continue to grow in favor with God and man, becoming more like Christ in every
way.
How is the Lord calling you to grow
this year?
Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English
Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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