Jesus and the Church: Week 2

January 10, 2021 · Ben Hoyer · 28:59

Continuing the series on the role of the church in the life of Jesus leading toward Lent, this message turns to Luke 2:41-52, the boy Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem, where his family went every year for the festival.

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I was really grateful for that song this morning. We were getting set up and was thinking about this week. I was in a discussion at one point this week, a couple of friends and I was in this discussion. And I found myself saying how consistently underwhelmed I am by every politician I keep having hope will be an inspiring leader. And how grateful, it just came out of my mouth.

I didn't really think about it, but it was how grateful I am to serve a king who showed me what leadership is, where he laid down his life and recreated the world. And that he set up a world that endures forever that I get to live under. And I'm going to try and help America as much as I can, but I belong to this other rain. And that's been really enduring. And so I was thinking about that. And this morning as we were setting up,

I was like, Carol, can we sing about Come More Jesus? And she just started singing that song. And I remembered it from a while ago, but I was really grateful for it this morning. So thanks for singing that one, Carol and Mike. We're in the next several week leading up to the commemoration of Lent, where the church gets ready for the celebration of the resurrection and focuses on the passion of Jesus. As we get ready for Lent, we're looking at the role of the church in the life of Jesus.

And we're doing that one, because the church kind of historically coming out of this season, coming out of this celebration of Epiphany, which was this past week, where we commemorate the coming of the Magi to the home of Jesus. Coming out of Epiphany, the church historically looks at the life of Jesus moving up into Lent. So it's fitting that we would do that as well. But also, we're looking at it as the lens of the role of the church in the life of Jesus,

because I really have been thinking about what it means for us to be church together. We just, coming into 2021, sent out this our second year, just kind of polling each other saying, how should we plan to be church for each other this week, our this year? Where are the places that we can support each other? What are we committing to this group as a church together for the year? How are we church together? And so I'm just thinking about the role of the church in the life of Jesus.

And last week, we talked about the reality that Mary and Jertah took Jesus to be circumcised, which there's so much in the history of circumcision. And what it says about the God of creation and life, who becomes the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then finds his culmination in the God of Christ and the church, this one God consistent throughout the whole story reveals so much about this God's character through the rights

of circumcision. And what we see with the reality that Jesus continues that right of circumcision doesn't burn it, but goes through it himself, is this blessing that he is part of this lineage. And he's bringing into completion rather than doing away with something. And then of course, Paul talks about how circumcision is no longer the mark of the covenant because we have this circumcision of the heart that happens at our baptism. Next week, we're gonna talk about what it means that Jesus goes through the waters of baptism

and the invitation for each of us to go through the waters of baptism. But before we get there, there's one more story that Luke recounts in the early life of Jesus that I want us to look at. It's still in Luke chapter two. If you're following along because you don't wanna take my word for it, or you like reading it yourself, either one is fine. Luke chapter two, verse 41. Now his parents, his is Jesus.

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. Well, that's something right there just for a minute to think about the role of the church and the life of Jesus. We'll find out later that in this story, Jesus is 12, just a little bit of research tells you that most Jews were required to make the trip up to Jerusalem to the temple for three main festivals, Passover, Pentecost,

and Tabernacles. This would be because there were significant offerings to be made, significant sacrifices to be made that covered for the sin of you and your family and kept you in continuity and a relationship with your God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It seems like depending on how far away you lived from Jerusalem, you made it to those three or you didn't, but most people tried hard to make it to Passover. If they were only gonna get one out of the year, they would go up for Passover.

And we know that Mary and Joseph were not wealthy or well off just by the fact that they live in Nazareth. Right? In other parts of the gospels, we read that that kind of quoted phrase, nothing good comes from Nazareth. Right? Archaeologists will tell us that most of Nazareth, people lived in like caves carved in the side of hills. They took pair of animals, so that's why it smelled bad. They thought in Nazareth. Nazareth was not a great place.

But it's interesting that Joseph and Mary, the way she remembers it, remember we think Mary is one of the major sources for Luke, the way she remembers it. Most years, they went as a family up to Jerusalem for Passover. When I was a kid, we were the only ones of my extended family that lived in Florida. The rest of my parents' families lived in Missouri and Kansas and Nebraska at different times.

And it seems like the way I remember it, most of the summers growing up, we would take a two-week trip. Dad would only miss one Sunday, but we'd get two weeks and he'd get back in time, so the only missed one Sunday was preaching every week. But we would go up for two weeks and we'd spent one week with my dad's family and one week with my mom's family. And I have amazing memories of the houses that my grandparents lived in.

My dad's family did this thing at their dinner prayer where they would all stand in a circle when they were there together around the table, whole dance, and they would sing this prayer together. I have amazing memories of like playing cards, big multi-table card tournaments with families, right? Like, you can imagine an annual trip. This is at least a day's walk up to Jerusalem, right? Every year Jesus is doing it and is around the Passover.

It's for a celebration of the deliverance of God for his people. It's about creating identity and belonging. It's saying we live under this Roman rule, but we are these Israelites and we do these things. Very formative. You can imagine for Jesus by the time he's 12, they've done it every year he can remember. Very formative experience. Walking up to Jerusalem was groups of families

to celebrate Passover. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year for the feast of Passover. And when he was 12 years old, they went up according to the custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. Remember if he's 12, the next year he's 13. So as he's 12, he's probably starting to prepare for what becomes later in the second and third century

a formalized bar mitzvah experience. But they still had this rite of passes where when you're 13, you become a man in a different sort of way. And there's still a rite of passage that by the time he's 12, he's starting to realize when he's 13, he's a member in the synagogue in his own standing, no longer underneath his parents. He starts to have to answer for the questions of the faith himself, Jesus does. So when he gets to the temple,

this is not some country synagogue in Nazareth. This is Jerusalem, man. These are the lawyers of the church. These are the gentlemen that run the sacrifices. This is it, man. When he gets there, he starts asking questions and he just can't pull himself away, 12 year olds, Jesus. Just can't pull himself away.

And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem and his parents did not know it. But supposing him to be in the group, they went a day's journey. But when they began to search for him among the other relatives and acquaintances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem searching for him. So you get the docent, all the families are getting ready back for the journey that says two purposes. One, it's like more fun to travel with a group of people

when you're walking. Two, it's considerably safer. It's way harder to drop in and rob somebody that's in a whole group of people than it is to rob one family walking by themselves. They go in a group of friends and acquaintances and they walk for a day together. That sounds great. And they don't pay attention to where Jesus is because he's probably running around with the kids somewhere. And they get to the end of the day and they're ready to kind of set it down for the day

and they're gathering their family together and Jesus is not gathered with them. Right? I want you to see, this is not like Mary and Joseph messed up. Like Jesus made a choice. He stayed at the temple. When they get ready to look for him, he is not there. They journey the day now. So even if they go back, they're walking through the night,

they probably just spat down the hatches for the evening, get up and journey a day back to Jerusalem the next day because he's clearly not here with everyone. I've thought about that a lot. We've talked about that before, what it might be like to be with a group of families like that, to have a group of people that you count on. Of course, pressures on our time are completely different now. So it would be unreasonable to hold ourselves

to a standard to suggest that in order to have church, we needed to have family relationships like this, but the piece of that is there, they count on each other for safety and camaraderie. Part of what it means to be church is to have people that you can count on, like that will go with you if you need them to, that will stand next to you when things are hard,

that will celebrate with you when things are good. Part of the reason that the people continue to gather in synagogues in Nazareth is because this is what it means to be Israel is to have some people who are your people. These are Jesus's people, these are Mary and Joseph's people. And even if they only see them every year, which they probably see them more than that, but even if they only see them every year,

they have this experience together for fun and for safety. Okay, then they return to Jerusalem searching for him, and after three days they found him in the temple, this is the part that really stuck out to me when I thought about the role of the church in the life of Jesus. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed

at his understanding and his answers. And his parents were astonished and they were like, hey man, what do you, why did you treat this this way? Why did you just stay here? Like what's going on? Hey man, why'd you do this? And then Jesus said to them in verse 49, why were you looking for me? Did you know that I must be in my father's house?

And they didn't understand what he was saying, and then he went down with him to Nazareth and was submissive to them, and his mother treasured up all these things in her heart, and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. It seems like Luke includes this story, I mean, it's hard to know why exactly, but one of the things we gained from it is this reality that Jesus grew up, like anybody else, which is like fascinating, isn't it?

Jesus, 12 year old Jesus, is asking the church leaders questions. Not because he's a smart aleck, but because the boy is learning. If you get really kind of platonic about your notion of God, this really blows your mind. And you can get twisted outgoing, but God's not supposed to change, he's supposed to be perfect and immutable. If Jesus is God, does he have to learn,

or should he already have known everything all the time? The beauty of our tradition is that it's rude, and it's not a word, but it's not a word, and it's not a word, but it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word,

it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word,

it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, it's not a word, in Jesus' name we pray.