Sermons 2025

Video

Text: Luke 2:42-50

Sermon Outline

ALL ABOUT THE FATHER’S BUSINESS HAS BEEN DONE.
    I.    We intend to be about the Father’s business.
    II.    We suppose we’re about the Father’s business.
    III.    Christ was not only all about the Father’s business, but he also took care of all the business for us.

Sermon

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke the second chapter verses forty through fity-two.
Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Have you ever been lost somewhere? One time, a little boy was lost in a large shopping mall. He sobbed, “I want my mommy.” The mall security people took him under their wing. They treated him to a hotdog, a chocolate milkshake, and a teddy bear to hug. He watched cartoons on the Disney Channel. Eventually, a woman security guard got off the intercom and said to the little boy, “One of the guards has found your mother.” The little boy didn’t miss a beat: “Don’t tell her where I am. I like it here.”

Thankfully, the mall security staff taking care of business. Somebody’s got to do it. Otherwise we might go merrily on our way thinking everything is just fine when in reality something is seriously out of order. Without the security staff in our lives, we might be lost forever.

In today’s Gospel, the twelve-year-old Jesus was lost—but Jesus wasn’t really the lost one. He was in the right place, in the temple. He was “about the Father’s business.” In fact, he was taking care of business, the Father’s business, for us. Thank the Lord, therefore, that, as our text this morning shows us, How does Jesus go about the Father’s Business, doing all of it for us? Ponder that question as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

I.
No doubt we really do intend to be about our heavenly Father’s business. Certainly, that was true of Joseph and Mary in our text: “Now [Jesus’] parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom” (vv 41–42). Mary and Joseph had some important business God had given them to attend. To begin with, of course, they had the business God had given to every Israelite: they were to go to Jerusalem on a regular basis to worship at the chief festivals, especially Passover. What’s more, though, this particular faithful Jewish couple had the duty of raising God’s own Son in the faith, seeing to it that he was trained in all of God’s Law.

When a Jewish boy was three years old he was given the tasselled garment directed by the Law (Numb. 15:38–41; Deut. 22:12). At five he usually began to learn portions of the Law, under his mother’s direction; these were passages written on scrolls, such as the shema or creed of Deut. 6:4, the Hallel Psalms (Ps. 114, 118, 136). When the boy was thirteen years old he wore, for the first time, the phylacteries, which the Jew always put on at the recital of the daily prayer. In the well-known and most ancient ‘Maxims of the Fathers’ (‘Pirke Avoth’), we read that, at the age of ten, a boy was to commence the study of the Mishna (the Mishna was a compilation of traditional interpretations of the Law); at eighteen he was to be instructed in the Gemara (the Gemara was a vast collection of interpretations of the Mishna. The Mishna and Gemara together make up the Talmud. The Mishna may roughly be termed the text, the Gemara the commentary, of the Talmud).

All this they did. Now this year, with their Son reaching the age Jewish custom called spiritual young adulthood, they took Jesus along. Very admirable, faithful.

We, God’s people here, intend to be about our Father’s business too. This time of year, lots of people resolve, fully intend, to improve this or that—New Year’s resolutions to go on a diet, exercise, stop smoking, limit ourselves to one drink or chocolate. Maybe we’ve made resolutions about spiritual business as well: to follow the example of Mary and Joseph by being more faithful in our Sunday morning worship, to gather here every week around Word and Sacrament. Maybe we’ve resolved to begin regular family devotions, to pray with our spouses and children. Maybe we’ve made a resolution to put to better use our talents in the teaching ministry, the music ministry, the men’s ministry, the women’s ministry of our church—even perhaps the ministry of our use of money, a more faithful thank offering to God. As believers in Christ, we really do intend to do these things. That’s being faithful, being about the Father’s business.

II.
So how are we doing? Maybe we think, assume, suppose we’re staying pretty well on task, being about our Father’s business—at least so far, just five days into the new year. Let’s look in again on Mary and Joseph: “And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the group they went a day’s journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. . . . And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress’ ” (vv 43–46, 48).

Remember, Mary and Joseph had a tough job to do! God had given them the vocation of raising the Savior, and woe to them if they should misplace him somewhere along the way! So surely they felt they were being about the Father’s business when they looked here and there, as Mary herself said, under “great distress.” The Greek word implying great suffering.

We’ve all been lost sometime. It’s scary. At a busy airport, looking for the right concourse for your gate. Driving on the freeway in a strange city late at night and taking a wrong turn. First day at a new school and you can’t find your homeroom. Worse, did you ever lose a small child? The little one let go of your hand for a few seconds, and he was gone as the crowds streamed out of the stadium after a game or as you shop at the store. You’re in a panic. You know your business—Jobs 1, 2, and 3, your only business!—is to find your child!

Perhaps this is how we feel when we are stressing over things we know are critical. Emotional hurts. Sickness. Cancer and chemotherapy. Divorce. Death. Terrorism and turmoil. Crime and corruption in high places and low places. Our relationship with God: Does he really love us? Will our sins cut us off from him forever? What if I don’t keep all those good resolutions? What if I let the heavenly Father down, fail at his business?
Jesus has a gentle rebuke for Mary’s stressing: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (v 49)—or as the King James Version puts it, “that I must be about my Father’s business?”

III.
Jesus’ rebuke to Mary is a loving one, just as it is to us, because his meaning is to free us from every stress. “There’s no need for you to be anxious,” he’s saying, “because I am about my Father’s business. In fact, I’m taking care of all that business for you.” At Christmas, Jesus came from heaven to rescue us from the hurricanes of trial and trouble. He came to save sin-tossed souls.

Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple sitting among the teachers, listening carefully and asking questions that we can only assume were brilliantly insightful. “And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers” (v 47). That was the Father’s business. God’s Son had been given the vocation of being the Father’s Anointed One, the Christ, the Savior of the world. Already at age 12, Jesus was tending to business, learning everything the Scriptures revealed about his mission.

And, of course, this was only the beginning. Jesus would perfectly understand everything the inspired prophets had written about him—that he would do battle with Satan, perfectly keeping the Law humanity had failed to keep; that he would work miracles of love, healing and freeing those struck down by the effects of sin; that he would gather a following, but that soon enough he would be abandoned by them, rejected by his own people, condemned, and have the whole weight of mankind’s damnation pressed on him; that he would be forsaken even by his Father and killed. That was the Father’s business for him. Jesus knew all that about himself in those Scriptures he discussed in the temple. And Jesus would take care of all that business, every detail. For us.

It’s all been done. Our stresses, our sins, the hurts, the sicknesses, the worries of our world, our fears about how God sees us—Jesus has taken care of them all. He has seen to it, by finishing every task the Father gave him, that God will be with us through all of these—every day as we go about our business and for an eternity free of every stress.

For us, Jesus devoted his life—from infancy to boyhood to cross to empty tomb—to being about the Father’s business. All done. For us.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.