Doing Your Father’s Business

     Luke 2: 41-52

 

 

          There they sat by the curb. They looked like lost sheep. They were my lost sheep. When I was a single parent, I drove my three older children to and from school every day. I was trying to juggle a law practice and make a living and also be a good parent. I remember a couple times when I lost that battle badly.  I arrived at school an hour late to find my three children huddled up, waiting for their dad. I felt like the world’s worst parent. What can you possibly say to your children when you are an hour late?

          I have some old friends who had three children close together. They used to travel to Illinois to visit her parents. On one such trip, they stopped as usual to get gas. They were a couple hours down the road when they realized they were one child short. Imagine how they felt, racing back to that gas station to find their son. This was before the age of cell phones, and all they had was a good sense of geography and a lot of prayer. Everything turned out fine, but think of how much they worried until they saw him again.

          It happens, Life comes at us fast, and sometimes, one parent thinks the other parent has it covered, only to find out that things are not quite as they appeared. I suspect that I and my friends are not the only parents to drop the ball. Has something similar happened to you?

          In fact, it even happened to the Son of God. Of course, at the time, he was also the son of Joseph and Mary. While his heavenly Father never lost him, his earthly parents did. And not for an hour or even a few hours, but for 3 days!

          The second chapter of Luke’s gospel is loaded. We have the Christmas story, but that is only the beginning. Eight days later, baby Jesus is presented at the temple as is the custom, and old Simeon gives the blessing and the announcement that he has seen God’s salvation. Anna the prophetess also gives her blessing. Then the family returns to Nazareth. But Luke is not through. He fast forwards twelve years ahead to give us our only gospel glimpse of Jesus as a boy. It is a telling picture that Luke paints for us.

          Faithful Jews in first century Israel tried to get to the Temple in Jerusalem at least three times a year for the big feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. It was no small feat for Mary and Joseph. It was sixty five miles from Nazareth to Jerusalem. That was normally a three day walk.  So for Mary and Joseph and their family to get to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast was a big deal. In this story, Jesus was 12 years old. He may well have had siblings by then, and that would have only made the trip that much more difficult and expensive. It was the custom of the time to journey in a caravan where men and boys traveled together and women and girls, or small children, did the same. A 12 year old boy might have been included in either group.

          Perhaps it was because of Jesus’ middling age that there was some mix-up. It could be that one group thought Jesus to be traveling with the other. Whatever the reason, Mary and Joseph were a day’s journey away from Jerusalem before they realized that Jesus was not with them. Making their way back to Jerusalem took another day and it took a third day to locate Jesus. Three days without the knowledge of their son’s whereabouts, and no missing person’s bureau to report to, no organization to help them hunt, no communications network other than word of mouth.

          Where would you look for your child? If he or she were gone for three days and was last seen in a city flooded by tourists for a feast, where would you look? Of course, you would retrace your steps, but after that fails, then what?  You would look up kinfolk if there were any, but what then? Look in alleys? In the seedy parts of town? Where would you look to find your child?

          Apparently, the temple was not the first place that Mary and Joseph thought of. Perhaps in light of what we now know, it should have been, but Jesus’ earthly parents did not connect that way with him just yet. He was their son. He had done nothing of which we can read to show himself to be the Son of God. There was no apparent reason to seek a twelve year old boy in the temple. But on this trip, if not before, that all changed.

          When we read Luke’s account of Jesus in the temple at 12 years of age, we can easily feel the angst of his parents. Verbs like “astonished” and “distress” and “did not understand” are used to describe their reaction. You know they were worried sick. And then, after a day’s searching all over Jerusalem, they found him in the temple of all places. If your twelve year old son were lost for three days, would you come to this church to look for him? You too might be astonished if you found him here discussing theology with the pastor and the elders, and showing quite a bit of knowledge as well.

          Jesus’ statement to his mother brings the change into focus. “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” The King James translates the line as “wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? Just like that, the line has been re-drawn. The importance of Jesus’ lineage is now shifting right of front of their very eyes. Jesus must now be about his Father’s business and he isn’t talking about carpentry.

         Maybe this is why Luke’s story is here. It is the only place it is told, the only glimpse in the New Testament that we have of Jesus as a boy. And even in that one snapshot, Luke picks a time of transition. We don’t find Jesus playing or working or even in school. Or do we?  

          Jesus is moving, right in front of our very eyes, from boy to man. Perhaps in a kindness from God himself, Mary is deprived of her son for three days as a sort of preparation for what is about to happen. When she is re-united with Jesus, he is not the same boy who went up to Jerusalem just a week ago. Now, he must be about his Father’s business.

          I get cold chills thinking about the exchange that went on at that moment.  There is the relationship between Jesus and his parents, particularly his mother. It is still tender and obedient and Jesus’ remarks bear that out.  There is also a relationship between Jesus and his heavenly Father. Jesus now clearly has an awareness that he is literally God’s Son, and he is proving that by his presence in the temple. So many emotions were at play. So many revelations were happening. All could have been anticipated, but now here they were. Mary and Joseph can hardly deny that they have a special child indeed. And now, in an instant, everything had changed and it would never be the same.

          The words uttered here by Jesus are his first recorded words. This is the first time we hear him speak. We will not hear him again until he begins his ministry at age 30. It is a short story with little detail. We don’t know where Jesus stayed or how he got by those three days alone. We only know that he was in the temple talking about God and scripture. The story is a glimpse into his life and only a glimpse. It forms a sort of bridge between the events of his birth and his adult ministry.

          Mary are Joseph were perplexed. Luke tells us that they didn’t understand. Here was Mary’s son, telling her he had to be about his father’s business. Kenny Rogers and Wynona Judd recorded a haunting song in 1986 which asks the question: “Mary, did you know.” The song reminds us of all the hopes and dreams that the baby Jesus carried on his tiny shoulders. Mary, did you know? Here, the answer is clearly No, Mary does not know. When the shepherds tell Mary of the tidings of the angels, she “treasures up all these things, pondering them in her heart” [2:19]. When young Jesus tells her he must be about his Father’s business, she “treasures up all these things in her heart” [2:51]. Mary parked these windows of revelation away, waiting for the day when she would understand more. She knew only that she had played a part in the delivery and raising of the Son of God. More than that, she did not know. On that day in the temple, she watched as her oldest son began to claim his destiny and she didn’t understand where it would take him and what it would mean.

          Perhaps what Mary saw most clearly was that not only was her child becoming an adult, but that he was called, called to something greater than manhood. He was called to be about his father’s business, and his father was God himself. And yet as we witness the budding knowledge in the boy-man Jesus of his divinity, we cannot forget that this was happening to someone as human as you and me. He was called. Mary saw that. She didn’t fully understand it, but she saw it. I suspect Joseph did, too. Luke makes it clear to us that Jesus went back home with Mary and Joseph and that he was obedient to them and honored them. But something had changed, and Luke takes note of it.

          It was to be eighteen years before we hear Jesus speak again, and then his conversation is with John the Baptist during his baptism. How many events transpired over those eighteen years of preparation? How many more things had Mary laid up in her heart to treasure and ponder? The Bible does not give us these answers, but in some part, they lie in our own experiences. As surely as Jesus was both sent and called, it is that same Jesus who now calls us. We children of God are not called to save the world. That is a God-sized job. But each of us is here for a purpose. To what are you called?

          Of course there is much more to the life of Jesus than just showing us the way, but if the life of Jesus instructs us in nothing else, it certainly instructs us to be about our Father’s business, to be found in our Father’s house, and this alone is a lesson for the ages. He came for us. He died for us. He lives for us.  

          Sometimes it may take breaking away from the safety of the caravan and even home and hearth to find our way, but God is there, waiting for us. Jesus didn’t run away from home. Far from it. He just began to show his calling. Luke says that “he increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.”  That can happen to us as well. We need only to answer that voice within us. It’s there. Listen to it. Let us, too, be about our Father’s business.

                              What Then Shall We Do?

     Luke 3: 7-18

 

 

          We are in the third week of Advent, the season of preparation for the coming of Christ. This week the theme is Joy, joy for the coming Savior, joy for what his birth means to mankind. The passage for this week from Luke 3, telling of John the Baptist and his quest to baptize his people in repentance of their sins, may leave you wondering if John had heard about the joy.

         John the Baptist is not preaching a sermon of joy. Far from it, He is on a mission and, like so many prophets before him, there is a whole lot more warning than celebration. Last week, we heard John exhort us to prepare the way of the Lord, to make straight his path. This week, John takes off the gloves and punches us bare-knuckled. We are not ready, he says, and we are out of time.

          You brood of vipers! This is the title John assigns to the crowd seeking baptism. Brood of vipers. Vipers are poisonous. They can kill a full grown human. The venom they inject with those stabbing fangs is designed to immobilize their prey. Think about it. Short term, a viper bite will stun you into inaction. Long term, it will eat your flesh from the inside out. John has a point, for sin does about the same thing in about the same way. Short term, sin paralyzes us from walking with God. Long term, it separates us and kills our ability to be saved. It eats at us from the inside out. And John called the crowd a brood, meaning that they were a family group, a species. Sin is like that too. It should offer us little comfort that we all act alike that way, for the way we act can be poisonous.

          You brood of vipers, says John. You family of sinners! What are you doing here? Who warned you? You haven’t acted in a way that would give you a ticket to this event. Why are you here? Do you think being Jewish gives you some sort of free pass? Luke says Jesus was talking to a “crowd.” Matthew tells the same story and has Jesus addressing Pharisees and Sadducees. In each case, these were people leading lives in need of adjustment.

          There is nothing theologically subtle about John’s message. Some call it John’s gospel. That’s not an accurate description. Gospel means good news and John’s message was not good news unless you had lived out the Jewish law both to the letter and the spirit. Few would have come close to that standard. John came preaching repentance or else. Although verse 18 is translated as good news, it is only good in the sense that John is announcing the coming of the Messiah. It was the news of terror that John brought, unless one had been baptized and had repented.

          One commentary I read suggests that John actually refused to baptize these people because they had not repented.  I can’t tell from the text whether that is so, but I can get Luke’s point. Repentance is the act. Baptism is only the sign of that act.  John says to the crowd or to the Pharisees and Sadducees, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” In today’s language, it might be: Put your money where your mouth is. Perhaps it was only the Pharisees and Sadducees who were denied baptism. If that is the case, they heard from John that their kinship with Abraham gave them no special status for salvation. I love John’s answer to that way of thinking He said that if God were in the mood, he could just raise up stones to be sons of Abraham. In other words, God’s power and blessing extend to those who believe in him and are obedient to him, not to some birthright.

          At any rate, there is a change in John’s delivery and message starting in verse 10. The crowds ask John: “What then shall we do?” I get the impression that it is a plaintiff cry, a pleading, reaching out almost in desperation. “What then shall we do?” And John’s tone seems to change. In front of him are the crowds. There are also tax collectors, perhaps the most despised of all, and soldiers, those who enforce the collection of the tax.  All in all, John the Baptist is confronted with the most unlikely of all the people and it is they who are clamoring down to the riverbank to be baptized. Go figure. Where are the religious leaders?

          John reminds those who would be baptized that they must repent and that repentance means change. The lessons are as old as the Scripture itself. What, then, shall we do? Share. Share and don’t cheat. Do you have two coats? Give one away. Do you have extra food?  Feed someone hungry. Make room in your house and offer shelter. Give someone a ride, not just to your workplace, but to his. For the tax collectors, who were engaged in corrupt collection practices, John’s message was equally simple. Don’t take what does not belong to you. Collect only what is due and live within your means.

          Repentance is a simple concept. It means to turn away. Look at who you are and what you do that goes against God’s teachings and quit doing those things. Turn away and change your behavior. Share the wealth. We have more than we need, but there are those who don’t.

          So in this world of John the Baptist, where we are just about out of time and the Messiah is coming not with open arms but with a winnowing fork, who is paying attention?  Who is seeking baptism because they have turned away from their selfishness? It’s not who we would have first thought. It’s not the people with the answers that are being baptized. It’s the people with the questions that are getting baptized.

          That might be a pretty good place to stop with this message. For most of us, repentance just means to turn away from selfishness and greed. It means to turn from a life lived by looking out for number one to a life of sharing with others. It can be as simple as the sharing of food, clothing and shelter, but it is a life of generosity and giving rather than taking.

          What the, shall we do? Don’t despair. We’re just like those people in the crowd. Let’s all go down to the riverbank and tell John that we get it. We can give that other coat away and we can do a lot more than bring in a few extra cans. We can find the “good news” that Luke 3: 18 was talking about. John the Baptist did preach a message of fire to those who held back and relied on themselves. But for those who came forward out of repentance, they found their baptism. Maybe that’s the joy for which we are searching in this 3^rd Sunday of Advent. When you turn away from the things that separate you from God, you find him standing there waiting for you.

           What then, shall we do? Let’s take John’s advice. Let’s repent and claim our baptism! Let’s live as if our Savior is coming tomorrow, for he may very well be!

                        Preparing the Way of the Lord

     Luke 3: 1-6

 

 

          “A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our Lord.” This is part of a passage from the 40^th chapter of Isaiah, where the great prophet begins his prediction of the future. Unlike most of the prophetic books of the Old Testament which tell of God’s message in their contemporary situation, the latter part of Isaiah focuses on the future. Isaiah looks down the long road to come. He sees God upholding his own cause with a world-transforming display of his glory. Isaiah aims his vision at such an event, the time when the way of the Lord will be revealed, when the King will come.

          John the Baptist is a lot like Isaiah. He looks like he came out of the woods. He is not a pretty sight. Isaiah wasn’t either. The Old Testament prophet once went naked for three years and pulled out his hair to make his point. The new one wears a garment made of camel’s hair, rough to the touch, and eats bugs for his nourishment. These are not your average seminary products. John is like Isaiah in more ways than one.  Like Isaiah, he is setting the table for another. Both are prophets, heralding the coming of the real thing.

          So in Luke 1, John the Baptist is the new prophet and he quotes Isaiah: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness; Prepare the way of the Lord.” Luke uses more references to people and kings in this passage than in any other place in his writings. He does so because he wants everyone to see the significance, to mark the date. Jesus is coming not just for the people of Israel, but for everyone. Luke is connecting the old with the new, but John’s prophecy is more than Isaiah’s. John is the herald, the announcer, not just the prophet. No matter who your king is, the real king is about to be introduced, and that is the job of John the Baptist. He would help smooth the way, prepare it for the Son of God. John’s call had worldwide significance, for the Savior was coming for all people.

          Luke tells us that the word of God came to John. The same words are used to describe God speaking to Samuel (1 Sam. 15: 10), to Jeremiah (1:4), to Ezekiel (1:3), to Jonah (1:1), Haggai (1:1), Zechariah (1:1), Malachi (1:1) and others. In each case, God was speaking to his servant, giving him both a vision and a task. The words introduce a special revelation, a revelation received to take to the people. In that same tradition, John the Baptist is sent as God’s prophet, and his proclamation is the “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

          How do you prepare the way of the Lord? Well, John seems to say that we need to level the field. John says make the path straight. Fill every valley. Lower the mountains and the hills. Straighten out the crooked. Make the rough places level.

          I think about that in practical terms. I like to ride a bicycle for exercise and for recreation, but I like it so much better when the terrain is smooth and fairly flat. I can go farther when the resistance is small. These days, there are bike paths designed for cyclists to move more easily with traffic. It’s as though the valleys have been filled and the mountains leveled. It makes the path straighter. I can see what John the Baptist was getting at. He wanted the path for the coming Savior to be clearly marked, easy to navigate. He wanted to prepare the way.

          When you want cyclists to be able to navigate safely with motorists, you create a bike path. You set aside a space where cyclists can ride. But what do you do when your objective is not just a safe place for a few, but a path for the Savior of mankind? It’s going to take a bigger path for that job. How do you prepare the way of the Lord?

          Prophets like John cry from the wilderness. That is, they are not the most visible, nor do they have the most credibility. They are prophets. If there is one thing that most of the prophets in the bible have in common, it is that they aren’t popular. They come talking about wrongdoing and they call for us to turn away from it, and we would just as soon they didn’t, for we are all too comfortable in our lives. This is not the way to win friends and influence people. The fact that they are right is just incidental information. If they don’t come preaching the message we want to hear, then we tune them out. They are marginalized from the start.

          In addition, John the Baptist is telling the people that the real king is coming. He says that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”   John does not promise salvation for all. Rather he heralds that it will be in sight for all to see. John points to the revelation of the Messiah, the physical manifestation of the Son of God. He goes on to say that the way must be prepared for him. The leveling to which he refers is nothing less than removal of the sin of the people.

The prophets talk in metaphors to tell us what needs to be done. How do you prepare the way of the Lord? Straighten the path, fill the low places, flatten the high places, straighten the crooked, make what is rough become level. It sounds like the prophets are in the grading business, and in a sense they are.

          That’s why John talks in terms of mountains and valleys. That’s why he uses such big terms to describe the grading project, because sin is everywhere. It’s as big as the mountains and as deep as the valleys and if we want God to be able to come to us, there is something we must do. We must be baptized in our repentance if our sins are to be forgiven. This is how we prepare the way of the Lord.

          What do we do to prepare for a royal visitor, a head of state? We make preparations of all kinds, from transportation to security to food and lodging and venues from which to speak and meet. We pull out all the stops to be sure we are ready to receive someone of so much importance in our midst. The ancients did the same for their kings and emperors. In the days of Isaiah, when a king proposed to tour a part of his empire, he sent a courier in advance to tell the people to prepare the roads. In Luke’s gospel, John acts as that courier. John knows he has been called to make way and that is exactly what he is trying to do. In his zest for the job, he thinks back to the visionary words of Isaiah and he attempts to remove the immoveable. Even though he knows that sin has pervaded our lives, he appeals to us to wipe ourselves clean, not only to ask forgiveness but to repent, to turn away. These are the hills to be leveled, the paths to be made straight, in our lives. The result of that repentance is salvation.

          How do you prepare the way of the Lord? Break down the walls. Tear down the fences. John the Baptist was called upon to tell the people, and through that testimony God calls upon us, to prepare our hearts, to prepare our lives. William Barclay says it this way: “The King is coming, Mend not your roads, but your lives.”

         John the Baptist tells us that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”  Of that, we can rest assured. But John does not promise us that all shall receive that salvation. Neither does God. For that, we must prepare the way.

          Are you prepared? You first have to ask forgiveness. You have to turn away from your selfishness and sin. That is how you prepare your way for the Lord. Make straight your path. The King is coming!