Jesus Must

This morning on the Sixth Day of Christmas I suppose we could tell each other sweet Christmas stories or review gift-giving, or talk about the children and grandchildren, or complain about snow shoveling, or a dozen other things.

But what we are supposed to do is to allow a Bible text to wrestle with us and make sense of our lives in this busy, confusing, and sometimes senseless days.

So how is this story of Jesus and his parents and their visit to Jerusalem working to define and shape our lives today?

The first problem is the admission that the text is supposed to have authority over us.

There are many who will not grant this first point, and thus the conversation cannot even begin.

For such persons, it is only a quaint tale quickly told and just as quickly forgotten.

Jesus went with his parents to the temple at age 12, as every other kid in Israel was supposed to do, hung around too long with the teachers in the temple portico, smart-mouthed his parents when they caught up with him, and went home.

There it is, ho-hum.

Doesn't seem to have a thing to do with me.

The key to its authority and power seems to be tied up tied up in Jesus' enigmatic response to his parents' exasperation:

“Why were you searching for me?

Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?”

The translators have a puzzlement with the last phrase in that sentence, and if we check the various English versions it will come out different ways:

- must be in my Father's house,

-about my Father's business,

- busy with my Father's affairs,

- bound to be in my Father's house, and more.

However phrased, it is pointing to a sense of obligation, of duty to be fulfilled, of relationship that is to be lived and cannot be avoided.

And perhaps we can summarize it in a single word: “must”

There is a big theological word “atonement”.

Now it is not a proper word-origin to do this, but it is a handy way to understand what this theological term means: simply divide the word into three little words ...at-one-ment...

The atonement is the bringing together again of God and man, restoring what was messed up by our initial and continuing disobedience, making them to be at-one.

Piles of animal or monetary sacrifices cannot do that.

Reams of “I'm sorry's” aren't enough.

Entire lists of of our good and worthy deeds cannot make up for the brokenness.

Every one of those attempt is tainted with self-justifying sinfulness of a dozen different stripes.

It is only when God himself takes the initiative and reaches out to us in his freely offered love that the breech between God and man can be healed.

Jesus is God's at-one-ment process, if only we would hear him and receive him.

That makes this a good lesson to be hearing during the 12 days of the Christmas season, when we are celebrating the gift of Christ Jesus come among for precisely this purpose.

Good Christian friends rejoice

With heart and soul and voice;

Give ye heed to what we say:

Jesus Christ is born today

Now ye hear of endless bliss:

Jesus Christ was born for this!

He has opened heaven's door,

And we are blest forevermore.

Now ye need not fear the grave;

Jesus Christ was born to save!

[LBW#55]

“I must be in my Father's house” is the first thing that Jesus says in Luke's gospel.

It reminds us of a verse from Psalm 27:

One thing I asked of the Lord,

after that will I seek:

to live in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life

to behold the beauty of the Lord

and to inquire in his temple.

Perhaps that was prayed originally by a priest, one whose life was tied up with service in the tabernacle or temple.

But what does it mean for the rest of us, someone other than a priest of ancient Israel, to pray that psalm-verse?

For us, “house of the Lord” takes on a wider sort of meaning.

It is not just a building which no longer exists in Jerusalem, nor is it just any modern church building.

Remember the time that King David wanted to build the Temple as a house for God, and God through the prophet Nathan told him no, that God would build David into a house, a family, instead.

Let's take the same idea here, and recognize that it is to be our joy to live in the web of relationships established by Jesus through Holy Baptism, celebrated in worship and strengthened in study and fellowship.

That is what “living in the house of the Lord” means for us: a joy in community that begins now, and will continue in the fullness of heaven.

The urgency of “I must be in my Father's house” is continued throughout Jesus' life.

We'll hear it again as he moves through Galilee and some wanted to detain him in one place longer:

I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose. [4:43]

Jesus moves with the goal always in mind, and so he instructs the disciples repeatedly on the road what will be happening in Jerusalem:

The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. [9:23]

We hear that word “must” prominently in that sentence.

And yet again, when Jesus and the disciples were preparing to leave the upper room to go to the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus told the disciples who were questioning him:

For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, 'He was counted among the lawless;' and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled. [22:37]

Oh, this atonement is serious; Jesus “must be about his Father's business.”

At their best, the Christmas carols are not sentimental fluff, but can be pointers for us to the true joy of this season:

On this day earth shall ring

With the song children sing

To the Lord, Christ our King,

Born on earth to save us;

God in Him forgave us.

Peace and love he gave us.

May the second half of the Christmas season continue to be a blessing to you in Word and Sacrament, in fellowship and gifts of every kind, in blessed memory and holy anticipation, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.