Sermon for Second Sunday of Christmas

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Every single year of his earthly life, our Lord Jesus came to Jerusalem to celebrate the seven days of the Passover according to the law of Moses. The faithful among Israel would remember God’s deliverance from Egypt. They would slaughter the lamb and shed its innocent blood through which God had once worked salvation. And the boy Jesus is there. He who would one day sit in the upper room as the only true Passover lamb faithfully kept the feast together with his parents all those years before. And he is especially drawn to the courts of the temple where the Israelites would gather to discuss God’s word and to receive instruction.

And it’s quite natural for him to be there. After all, the temple is where God dwells, where the glory of God is approachable for the priest. And that is the meaning of Psalm 119, which we prayed today. Those words apply to 12-year-old Jesus in the temple. Listen to this: “Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. And here it comes: I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

Mary is likewise astonished, and she treasured up all these things in her heart. By treasuring up these words of her 12-year-old son, she ponders the mystery of the incarnation. Christmas is not quite over yet. So let us be like Mary and consider, firstly, the obedience that Jesus pays to his earthly parents; secondly, the obedience that he pays to his heavenly Father; and thirdly, let us also treasure up his word in our hearts.

Firstly, Jesus sanctified all of human childhood. He perfectly kept the fourth commandment and honored his father and his mother. He lived with his parents in Nazareth and was submissive to them. And this is part of the mystery, the mystery of the incarnation that Mary ponders. She knew that she had not conceived this child from any man. She believed the angel who told her that she was bearing the holy son of God. And yet, he is a child like you and me. He obeys her and submits to her.

Mary might have been the most blessed among all women, but she certainly also had the heaviest task out of all of them. I mean, imagine yourself in her position, or in Joseph’s for that matter. You know that this child is truly God, and yet, you are supposed to have authority over him as father and mother. How marvelous! The Son of God, through whom the world was created, became a little child, humbled himself under the authority of parents, and lived to please them. He did this to fulfill the law for you and in your stead. Whereas you did not honor your father and your mother with your whole heart, he did it for you.

And this is good news for you. Not just did he bear your curse on the cross, he also gives you his obedience to his parents and applies it to you. Our Lutheran confessions call this the active obedience of Christ, which is our righteousness. Christ did not only suffer the punishment we deserve for breaking the law, that they call the passive obedience, but he also actively fulfills the law by doing what it commands, his active obedience. And both of these—this is, of course, no excuse to not honor father and mother. Quite the contrary.

At home, we have a catechism edition that has images and woodcuts next to each question. And guess the image next to the fourth commandment? A little boy with his parents on a pilgrimage, and a very small inscription, Luke 2:51. Jesus obeyed his parents. And if our God and Lord obeyed his parents, he who could have commanded them to serve him and to be submissive to him; if he did it, how much more should we do it?

So, for all you children and youth, take the Lord Jesus as your example. Obey your parents. And for all of us adults, let us not forget that we are also children of our parents. The Lord Jesus knows how it is to be a child because of his incarnation. He wants to bless us in our vocation as children. He’s our savior from our sin of rebellion, and he’s our example of obedience.

Secondly, there’s also the obedience that he pays to his heavenly Father. While Jesus’ childhood seemed to have been rather eventless, there was this one incident that Mary would never forget and about which she would tell the evangelist Luke to write it down. Jesus went to Jerusalem every year, but that one year, he had to demonstrate that there was a greater authority which he had to be subject to. He had to show that he himself had an authority that was greater than his parents.

He gave them—don’t blame Mary and Joseph. Maybe for modern American society, it is not conceivable, but in most cultures and eras of mankind, it would be totally reasonable to assume that the 12-year-old boy is going home somewhere among the friends and relatives who also came from Nazareth. Before the end of the day, they realized he was not there, and so they had to turn around. And of course, it was most troublesome to them to not find him for altogether three days. “Your father and I have been searching you in great distress,” Mary says. I think it’s quite remarkable that Mary calls Joseph Jesus’ father. Rightly so, because an adoptive father is a true father.

But nevertheless, he had to remind her that there was another father much greater than Joseph, that is God the Father. And he was not just his father in the way that he is the father of all believers. He is the eternal father of the eternal son. Jesus is the essential son of one substance with the Father. Mary kept these words and she pondered on this mystery of the incarnation. According to the human nature, Joseph is the adoptive father. But according to the divine nature, God is the father of Jesus.

And see how much Jesus loved his heavenly father. He was sent to do his father’s will. He had a divine mission to fulfill. That’s what his words mean. He had to be in his father’s house. He had to be all about his father’s business. He loved God’s word so much that he wanted to sit with the teachers of the law and discuss it. Now, any other child would have to be blamed for staying behind, not wanting to go home. But our Lord truly had all authority to do so. In fact, he could have lived in the temple his whole childhood, instructing the teachers about God’s Torah. But he didn’t. He humbled himself.

And Mary marveled, did not understand all of this, but kept these words and treasured them up in her heart. When Jesus had completed his divine mission by his death and resurrection, then she would see.

Now this brings us lastly to Mary’s treasuring up of these words in her heart. Throughout the Gospel of Luke—and we are focusing on the Gospel of Luke this year in the three-year series—we see Mary as the great example of a Christian. That is someone who does not just hear God’s word, but also keeps it. And with that, the Bible doesn’t mean, first of all, doing it. It means taking it to heart.

So, when the shepherds preached to Mary on Christmas night, she likewise kept those words and pondered them in her heart. By God’s grace, she did exactly what Jesus talked about in the parable of the sower. And when later some woman greatly praised Mary, saying to Jesus, “‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast that nursed you,'” he responds, “‘More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.'”

Let us be like Mary and not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. And how easy is it for our minds to wander? How quickly is the Word of God forgotten, even if we hear it so many times? But this Word is our life. It brings us our Savior and forgives our sins. This Word directs our paths through this sinful world and gives us the necessary wisdom. This word is the reason why we can look at the new year that the Lord gave us without fear.

And this word should be the greatest influencer in the lives of our children, as it was for 12-year-old Jesus. He sat there, listened, posed questions, and answered. He delighted in God’s word because it contains the salvation that he himself would bring. You see that our text is even more about the third commandment than it is about the fourth.

So, in this year of our Lord, 2025, let the word of Christ dwell richly in our homes. Let us hear it more often and more eagerly. And let us memorize it together with our children. Mary listened to her son’s word and to the words about him. She treasured them up and pondered them in her heart. And what she pondered upon especially was the miracle that this child is her son, but also her God. With her, we adore this child, the incarnate Son, whose birth we celebrate this Christmas season. And now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

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