Luke 2:41-52 – Jesus: Doing His Father’s Will

Introduction

What does God want you to do? What is God’s will for you? You may have heard before that you, like Jesus, should always be about your Father’s business, and that is to make sure that you are on mission and working in the church. But what of our day-to-day lives?

Today, we are going to see that Jesus always did what God, his Father, wanted him to do so that he could ultimately be the Savior of the world who would make us a people who do what God, our Father, wants us to do…and this might be different than you think it is.

Background

Where are we in our story? Well, from Matthew we know that after some time, some important men from the east saw a star in the sky and understood that a great king had been born of the Jews that was worthy of worship. Naturally, they traveled to Jerusalem to talk to the existing king, Herod, about it. King Herod had the Priests and Scribes investigate the Scriptures to determine where this king would be born, found out it was Bethlehem, and tried to get these men to find where this king was and then report back. But God intervened and warned them not to tell Herod. They obeyed and traveled back by a different route.

Next, God told Joseph to take his family to Egypt because Herod was going to try to kill Jesus. So, they traveled to Egypt and stayed there until Herod’s death when God told them to go back to Nazareth. Before Herod died, he killed all the male children in the region where Jesus was born who were two and under.

Next, there is a lull of 10 years in Matthew and 12 years in Luke of the history of Jesus. This lull is Jesus' early childhood. We don't really know much about this time, except that Jesus "…grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him." But now, we enter our history of Jesus when he is 12 years old.

Exposition

The context of this story is the Jewish Passover. This 7-day feast represents the Exodus and Salvation of the Jews, and ultimately of all mankind in fulfillment of the covenant blessings that God gave to Abraham some 1,800 years earlier. In other words, the setting of this story is the Passover which is a picture of Jesus' entire life.

In a nutshell, God's people were in bondage to their sin and under the oppression of the world and Satan. God sent a deliverer, Moses, to rescue them. They were ultimately rescued by the hand of God by means of a lamb that represented the covering of the sins of God’s people, so they do not have to experience the wrath of God.

Now, let’s look at our first point from verses 41-45, Jesus: Where is he?

Jesus' earthly parents, Mary and Joseph, lived lives dedicated to God. They obeyed God’s commands in Exodus 13 and 23, and Deuteronomy 16. They went to Jerusalem yearly to celebrate the Passover.

But there is something special about this year…Jesus is now twelve years old. Jewish custom specified that a boy should be taken to the feast a year or two before he was thirteen when he would be made a “son of the commandment” and become an adult member of the Jewish religious community. And so, they went up to the festival with Jesus as was customary for the Jews, with a freshly minted 12-year-old boy.

In the Talmud, a book of Jewish law and theology, it says that members of the Temple-Sanhedrin, from the end of the Morning to the start of the Evening Sacrifice, during times like the Feast of Unleavened Bread (the Passover), came out and taught. During these times, people were allowed to ask questions. Here people sat on the ground, surrounded by and mingling with the teachers. This is where Jesus was. But, as we see in our story, Mary and Joseph don’t know this.

Mary and Joseph had finished the customary days of the feast (some say that according to the Talmud, they didn’t have to stay all 7 days), they joined their relatives and companions, who were probably all from Nazareth, and they traveled a whole day heading back home. After not seeing Jesus for the day and probably getting close to the end of it, they looked for him and, to their terror, did not find him. They, like any parents, were terrified. They had lost Jesus, the Savior of the World!

Now, there are probably a lot of details that we would like to know. Like, how could Jesus not realize that everybody left? Where did Jesus stay for 2 whole nights? How did he get food? How in the world could parents leave a city without knowing where their 12-year-old was?

The Bible just doesn’t give us these answers, and speculation doesn’t add anything. The reality is that this is a completely different culture with completely different customs at a completely different time. I don’t think people back then would be amazed that something like this could happen, but rather, why it happened. In other words, what 12-year-old boy would spend 3 days talking with teachers at the temple?

At any rate, Mary and Joseph do the most natural thing, they backtrack to find Jesus. They spend a whole other day traveling back to Jerusalem, so now it has been two days since they have seen him, because he wasn’t on the road to Jerusalem. So, where is Jesus?

Our second will answer the question of where is Jesus from verses 46-50, Jesus: Doing his Father's will.

It seems from the text that Mary and Joseph spent most of another day searching Jerusalem until they found him. It has now been three days. Mary and Joseph were looking for Jesus in all the wrong places.

If you didn't know where Jesus was, who was 12 at the time, where would you look for him? With his cousins and friends his age? With his aunts and uncles and family friends he knew? Wandering on the road looking at all the beautiful sights? Hanging out in Jerusalem exploring and enjoying all its beauty and wonder? Would you find him in these?

No. If you know who Jesus is, and his life’s purpose, you might say, “Wherever his Father's business took him”, or “Doing his Father's will.”

In my mind, the main question of this text and the point of this sermon is, "What does it mean that Jesus must be in the things of his Father? And what are the things of the Father? And why does it matter?”

The things of Jesus’ Father at Jesus’ age of 12, were his being among the teachers of the law, listening to their teachings, and asking them questions. His work, as a child, was to come to know God's law, getting to know his Father better in his humanity. This is actually the job of every one of you young (and old) people here.

Later in his life, Jesus was so concerned about his Father's honor and will, that he overturned tables of those who were buying and selling in the temple courts. Jesus' heart was his Father's. His Father wanted the temple as a house of prayer for the nations, and to Jesus, this is what the temple was.

Now, we can only imagine that after a long journey, a feast, being gone from your home for over a week, you would want to get back home, to get back to your routine…but not Jesus. Jesus saw life as designed to be doing whatever his Father wanted him to do. Mary and Joseph and all their relatives completed the feast, doing everything required of it, but Jesus, saw Jerusalem, being in his Father's temple, and learning about and conversing about God, the whole point of his early childhood.

His parents eventually found him, and they were astonished. Jesus was sitting in the middle of the teachers, listening to their teachings and asking incredible questions. A 12-year-old boy! This is why everyone who heard Jesus ask questions and interact with the teachers were amazed. Jesus understood the law and in particular, possibly the meaning of the Passover and atonement, that no one expected a 12-year-old to have. Jesus was sitting among the great teachers of Jerusalem, asking penetrating and wise questions.

Imagine the scene. Mary probably runs up to him, throws her arms around him, and asks him why he would put her and Joseph in such a terrible place of distress or anxiety. Probably both amazed and upset at the same time, speaking in a frantic tone and a quivering voice. Doesn’t this sound like something you or I have said at one point or another to our children, “Where in the world have you been? We have been looking all over for you? We were worried to death! How could you run off without telling us like that?”

Jesus responds with something that is a bit jarring. He probably looked at Mary and Joseph and legitimately asked them why they didn’t assume that he would be at the temple. In other words, Jesus might have been saying, “You, knowing that I am the son of God, the Savior of the world, the Messiah, wouldn’t you expect that I would spend as much time as is possible in the temple of God, who is my true Father?”

Jesus' response to his troubled and finally relieved parents is that it is  natural and to be expected that he, a supernatural-born child, God himself, the second person of the Trinity, would be completely absorbed in the purpose and work that his Father had given him.

To Jesus, his life was the mission of his Father, to which, of course, he completely agreed. Jesus was so focused on his Father's mission, his Father's will, that everything else around him was of little consequence.

To Jesus, the temple, the place where humanity finds atonement for sin, some 20 years from this date, would be where he gives himself up to be crucified and killed on a Roman cross as THE Passover Lamb, the Exodus of Israel. I believe that Jesus not only understood this at this age but was absorbed in all his life's preparation for this. To him, the temple was his Father's house. It was a place of prayer and communion with God. And so, what more could there be in life than this communion with God? This was the place where Jesus knew he should be.

To Jesus, now that he is becoming a "son of the commandment," having reached the age of 12, being old enough to come to Passover and fulfill the commandments that a Jewish man was obliged to, he is now singularly bent upon what he responds to his parents as seen in the original language which says, "…it is necessary that I be in the things of my Father's." In other words, “My duty is to be doing what my heavenly Father, my true Father, has commissioned me to do.” Jesus is to be about his Father's business or work…we might say will.

To Jesus, the carefree fun and joy of being a child was not his purpose or mission. These things were not his concern. He knew his life was designed as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable before God, which as the Second Adam, was his reasonable service of worship. You see, Jesus sacrificed his entire life to be on his Father’s mission.

We see here in Luke that Jesus is living out a sacrifice of self, in a way, an absorption of his will into his Father's. He was the anointed one who was wholly and completely consecrated to God. This shows us his active and passive obedience. Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, and he knew it. He is living in light of this even at 12 years of age.

Some might say that the moral of the story is that we should do what Jesus did and sacrifice our lives to the will of our Father and that we should be about our Father's business with urgency, self-forgetfulness, and intensity like Jesus. But that can be moralism, and the reality is that you are not Jesus. You will never merit or earn anything by being as serious as possible about always doing your Father's business.

To take the life of Jesus that was given as a sacrifice, wholly dedicated to God, and say that this is what we must do, does not seem to be the whole picture the Bible gives us. Paul tells us that whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we are to do all to the glory of God. God tells us that we are allowed to marry, enjoy food and drink, and work, and be about those things that every other human is about. Yet, underneath it, we are to give glory to God by enjoying and living life for our Father.

Now, don't hear me say that we should not be about our Father's business…we should. But the Father's business for us and Jesus are different. Jesus was a sacrifice for sinners, he lived a life of sorrow and misery, a life acquainted with grief and pain. Our life is to be lived as a disciple of Jesus. We are to love God, love others, and make disciples. We are to do our work to the glory of God, always keeping his commandments by loving God and loving others, living out this love in a community of Christ-followers, and living it before a watching world, letting our light shine. But we should also always be ready to give a defense for the hope that is in us, as Peter says.

In other words, we should live our lives in such a way, setting Jesus apart as Lord, meaning living a life of seeking him in active obedience, and living this way before others. We should be caring, loving, praying for, and listening to others, and whenever a chance arise to show the love of Christ, doing that and being ready to tell them about the amazing love of Jesus.

Please hear what I am saying. We aren't Jesus. But we are his disciples. We don't die for others and live a life of misery and pain so others can be saved. Rather, we live out the cost of being a disciple, living by God's ethics and commandments, not the world's, being willing to pay the price when needed, and living in love for others at the cost of self. Our business is to live our lives for God because Christ lived his life at the expense of his own ease and glory. We should not try to intentionally suffer because we think that is what God wants of us.

As we love and follow God, there will be a cost…suffering, I'm not minimizing that, but what I want to maximize what Christ did. Don't make Christ's life and work cheap by assuming that our lives can be what Jesus' was. No, our life is only a faint representation of his, albeit a representation, for we are made in Christ's image.

So, what is the bottom line? Should we forego our relationships with our spouses or children and say, "I must be about my Father's business?" No, our business is to be a child of God and keep his commandments, which tell us to love our spouse and care for our children. God's commandments tell us to work and make money to provide for them. God's commandments tell us to live righteously before others. God's commandments tell us to live a balanced life.

The reality is that we are to be about our Father's business, but our Father's business for us is different than Jesus’. Jesus' life was given as a perfect atonement for us so that we could live in love for God and love for others. We are to live a balanced life, being about the work of our Father that is balanced with church, family, and work.

Finally, our last point from verses 51-52 is Jesus: The perfect man.

Notice after all of this in these verses that Mary and Joseph didn't really understand things completely. And they couldn't have. Because, if they did, they couldn’t have raised Jesus as a normal child. If the only thing they thought about was the fact that he was the eternal God, the Christ of God, how could they have ever told him to come and eat, or help clean up, or told him to do anything? If they lived like that, then Jesus wouldn't have had all the experiences he did and been able to understand our struggles and trials. You see, his divinity was hidden from so many because he needed to learn obedience through suffering the humilities of this life so that he could love and understand us.

And so, we see that Jesus simply listened to his parents, subjected himself to them, and went back to his earthly father's house instead of staying in his heavenly Father's house. Jesus lived in subjection to his parents even though he was the King of the universe. He willingly became a servant, emptying himself of his glory so that he might rescue us from our bondage to sin. Jesus did this because he is God’s Passover.

And what we see in these last two verses of our section is an inclusio with the last two stories, verses 19 and 40. Just like in verse 19 when Mary heard the shepherd's statements, she didn't quite know what to do with them, so she simply held on to them in her heart, wondering what was going to become of Jesus, the Savior of the world.

Then, just like verse 40, the rest of Jesus' teenage years and adulthood are characterized by him, the wisdom and power of God, increasing in wisdom and, in a sense, physical power. But more than that, he shows himself to be the perfect lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world as he increases in favor with both God and man. In other words, he does nothing wrong and always does what is right.  Both God and men see him as an exceptional and perfect human.

This closes out our story of Jesus' birth and growing up and will lead directly into his ministry and the ultimate tie in of the two stories we have been tracking…John the Baptist and Jesus. John the Baptist is great, but Jesus is greater. John the Baptist comes to prepare the world to meet Jesus, who is the Savior of the world.

Let me conclude by saying this. Isn’t one of the most complicated questions of the Christian life, “What is God’s will for my life?” Most Christians want to be doing God’s will. For some, like myself, this might mean that you go into full-time ministry. For others, this means something completely different.

The reality is that you should be doing God’s will, what he wants, after all, that is what Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer. But you are not Jesus. Your job is to live as a resurrected child of God who has rivers of living water flowing out of you in the position you are in and with the skills and gifts the Spirit has given you. Love God first. Love others as yourself. And be a part of Jesus’ mission to make disciples. But, don’t confuse yourself with Jesus, the Savior of the world.