The First Sunday after Epiphany – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Romans 12:1-5
In Christ Jesus, who by His suffering, death, and resurrection redeemed the world of sinners, so that they might have purpose, contentment, and hope, dear fellow redeemed:
Nobody expected the twelve-year-old Jesus to do what He did. He and His parents had gone to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When the massive crowd began to fan out and start their journey home, Joseph and Mary assumed Jesus was with relatives or friends. When He did not turn up, they went looking for Him and found Him three days letter in the temple. He was “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luk. 2:46). All on His own, Jesus went to the temple, His “Father’s house” (v. 49), so He could hear and learn the Scriptures. That was not typical twelve-year-old behavior. But then Jesus was not the typical twelve-year-old.
What are the kinds of things we expect from twelve-year-olds today? This is a time when major changes are happening in their lives. There are huge physical, cognitive, and emotional changes going on. There are signs of maturity and maybe more mood swings. The twelve-year-old is in the process of transforming from a child to an adult. But he or she is not an adult yet. Twelve-year-olds need love, guidance, discipline, and clear expectations, just as all young people do. They need to be molded into God-fearing members of the church and responsible members of society.
It always makes me cringe when parents say that they will wait to let their children choose their own religious path when they are older. This is another way of saying that there is no clear teaching about God, that there is no such thing as objective truth, that one religion is no better than another. What foolishness! We have our kids listen to our favorite music, watch our favorite movies, cheer for the right sports teams, and follow our lead in so many other areas. But we’re not going to teach them anything about God?!
Whatever we do not actively teach our children, they will learn from someone else. Everything we know was learned. Think about yourself: how much of your personality and preferences have formed with no outside influence from others? I’m not sure it is even possible. We are products of the place where we are and the people we are around. On a spiritual level, we are influenced by the living God through His Word, or by the tugging and tempting of our own sinful nature, the devil, and the world.
In his letter to the Christians in Rome, the Apostle Paul urged them not to “be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” To “be conformed to this world” is to be shaped and molded by the unbelieving world rather than by the divine Word. We feel this pressure to conform in so many ways, and we can think of many times that we have given in to this pressure.
Maybe we have softened our stance on sexual morality and say with the world that as long as a sexual relationship is consensual, there is no problem with it. Or we have changed our views on marriage and divorce, and we support the breaking apart of what God has joined together if husband and wife don’t love each other like they used to. Or we adopt the world’s thinking that nothing is more important than self-fulfillment, recognition for one’s work, and financial security.
Every single one of us is influenced by the unbelieving culture we live in. The devil is eager to see that this happens, and our sinful nature is happy to cooperate. We have “conformed to this world” in ways we are not even aware of. We begin to recognize this conformity when we ask ourselves how much our thoughts are directed toward doing God’s will in a given day or week and how much we are focused on doing our own will.
“Do not be conformed to this world,” says Paul. But going against the world is not easy. It is much easier to swim with the cultural current. Every young person who has faced peer pressure knows this is the case. It is hard to say no. It is hard to be singled out when we want so much to fit in. It is hard to be laughed at and attacked. It is hard to be alone.
Going against the world and living by the Word is not comfortable. It requires sacrifice. Jesus knows this. He lived that life. His own people wanted Him to be their earthly king. They wanted Him to lead them, feed them, and heal them. The religious leaders wanted His endorsement, His stamp of approval. Nobody got what they wanted.
What Jesus got for denying their expectations was hatred, rejection, ridicule, and pain—immeasurable pain. Crowds of people had flocked to Him, even up to the Sunday before His death. But then He was sentenced and nailed to a cross, all alone, forsaken even by His own Father in heaven. Jesus had not “conformed to this world,” and it ended with a lonely death.
He knows it is no easy charge when He says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luk. 9:23). He knows what will happen to those who refuse the world and their own desires and follow His Word. They will carry a cross like He did, and they will suffer. But they will not have to suffer like He suffered. He suffered alone, bearing the sins of the whole world. He suffered the eternal punishment of hell in the place of all sinners.
When you suffer, you do not suffer alone. You join Jesus in His suffering; or rather He joins you. And He also connects you with other godly sufferers, with others who reject the false promises of the world. The believers around you have been “transformed” like you have “by the renewal of your mind.” You see things differently now. You have changed. The Greek word for “transformed” is where we get our word “metamorphosis.” It is the same word used for Jesus’ transformation on the mountain when “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light” (Mat. 17:2).
You and I were transformed from darkness to light, from death to life, from unbelief to belief when the Holy Spirit brought us to faith in Jesus through His Gospel. We were changed “by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” in holy Baptism (Ti. 3:5). Like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon a butterfly, we were “born again” (Joh. 3:3). In the waters of baptism, we were wrapped in the cocoon of Christ’s death, and we emerged with Him in His resurrection (Rom. 6:4).
We have “newness of life” now that we have been joined to Christ. By faith in Him we have gained all the benefits of His perfect life and atoning death. His perfect keeping of the law covers over our less-than-holy record. His cleansing blood washes away all our sins of choosing the world over the Word, from the sins of our youth to the present day. Jesus has freed us from the hopeless expectations and empty promises of the world. He has freed us to live—truly live—to live with purpose in this life and to die with the joy-filled expectation of the life to come.
It may feel lonely to go against what the world wants you to do, but you are not alone. You Are Part of Something Big—much bigger than the world. You are part of the body of Christ. You are joined to Him “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). Out of love for you and on your behalf, He conquered the devil, destroyed death, and overcame the world. In Jesus, you are no loser, even if the world calls you one for following Him.
As a Christian, you may feel alone in your classroom, at your job, in your community. This is why God called you to be part of a congregation, to be connected with fellow Christians who are dealing with the same things you are. They are here to encourage, help, and support you on your journey through life. They are here to walk with you through good and bad times. They are here to comfort you in your pain and grief and to warn you if you start to separate from the body. You are not alone. As Paul writes, “we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
That is something big—bigger than this world and bigger than this life. We are just one link in a long chain of believers that stretches back to Adam and Eve. The temptations and challenges we face today are nothing new. We are not the first to struggle. We are not the first to fail. But we have a Savior who loves us, and who sacrificed Himself to save us. He is the Head of His body the Church. He is the One who works for us and in us, so that “by the mercies of God,” we might “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.”
By faith in Jesus, we are acceptable in God’s sight. Our sacrifices for Him are acceptable because of Jesus’ sacrifice. There is nothing more that we could be or do or accomplish that Jesus has not already completed. So whether you are twelve or twenty or sixty or whatever age, in Christ you have everything that you need. There is nothing you lack before God. You Are Part of Something Big!
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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The First Sunday after Epiphany – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 2:41-52
In Christ Jesus, whose life of perfect righteousness is bestowed upon us through His holy Word, dear fellow redeemed:
Parents want their children to be respectful, hardworking, and clean. These things don’t happen on their own. Parents teach their children to say “please” and “thank you.” They insist that their children finish their homework. They tell them to brush their teeth and pick up after themselves. One reminder does not do the job. These lessons must be repeated many times until they (hopefully) become habit.
But not all lessons are learned by verbal reminders. Children learn many things simply by watching their parents and following their example. My father demonstrated what it looked like to work hard and not complain. He taught his sons to show respect for women by opening doors for them, and he taught his daughters in the same way what to expect from a man. My parents taught us that Sunday is church day, and we went every week. They didn’t have to tell us these things; they showed us these things.
I
Today’s text indicates that Joseph and Mary also kept up good spiritual habits in their family. They would have attended their local synagogue each Sabbath day to hear the Scriptures, recite Psalms, and pray. And once a year, they made the several day journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. The Passover celebration was significant to the Jews like Good Friday and Easter are to us. The Passover was when the Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt and started their journey to the Promised Land. Without the Passover, there was no freedom—and no nation with its spiritual center in Jerusalem.
Imagine how children must have looked forward to this trip, to leave their small towns and communities and join the great crowds in the holy city. Families navigated the narrow streets while fathers and mothers told their wide-eyed kids to “Stay close!” The kids couldn’t help being distracted. There were so many people and so much going on! But what they most wanted to catch a glimpse of was the shining temple, standing high on the hill.
When the temple came in view, Joseph and Mary must have told Jesus more than once about the day they brought Him there when he was a baby, just forty days old. As the law required, they were to present Him to the Lord in the temple. When they entered the temple courts, a man named Simeon took the baby Jesus in his arms and predicted great things about Him. A woman named Anna also came over and told everyone around them that the Redeemer had come.
What do you suppose Jesus thought about these things as He got older? What did He think about the visit of the shepherds the night of His birth, the words of Simeon and Anna at the temple, the visit of the wise men, and the flight to Egypt to escape Herod’s rage? When we were younger, people made predictions about what we might be and do, which probably had something to do with the vocations of our parents. And then we all reached the point where we wanted to be nothing like our parents—before we became something like our parents….
As children, we may have been told that we could be the President of the United States someday, or a professional athlete, or a famous actor. But no one actually expected us to be this. Jesus was called the Messiah, the Savior, and the Light of the world, and those who said so fully expected Him to do it. What would a twelve-year-old boy make of all these things?
Of course, Jesus was not simply a boy. He was God. And God knows all things and has power over all. But Jesus was still a human being. As a human being, He did not make full use of His divine powers. He humbled Himself. This means it was possible for Him to learn and to wonder about things. He wondered about those predictions for His life. Where could He go for guidance, for deeper insights about what was coming? What better place than the Holy Scriptures, and what better teachers than the ones in the temple?
Now that Jesus was twelve, His parents trusted Him to do some things on His own. Expecting that He was part of the group going back to Nazareth, they left Jerusalem. But Jesus was not part of the group. He had gone to the temple. He found the temple teachers and sat among them, “listening to them and asking them questions.” For at least parts of three days, the boy Jesus gladly heard and studied God’s Word.
II
But He wasn’t the only one learning. All who listened to Jesus’ questions and responses “were amazed at His understanding and His answers.” It was not as though Jesus was presuming to lecture the group. He did not take the teacher’s chair. He humbly studied under those in authority over Him. But teaching is not a one-way street. Those who teach probably learn as much themselves as their students do. I suspect you would agree with this if you have taught Sunday or Wednesday School or helped your child with a Catechism lesson.
The same is true with home devotions. When parents lead devotions with their children, they learn just as much as their children do, if not more. Sometimes the learning comes from insights their children have or from questions they ask. Have you ever had a child ask you a profound question about God or about the meaning of life? It takes you by surprise. These don’t seem like the kinds of things children think about, but they do.
Besides the questions they ask, children model for adults a strong faith in Jesus. The minds of adults are full of doubts about God and His love and the future. But children are not troubled by these things. They sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” and they believe it wholeheartedly.
Jesus Himself pointed to children as the model for faith. On one occasion, parents were bringing their children to Jesus for His blessing. Jesus’ disciples were trying to keep them away. They thought children were a distraction to His work. Jesus was not pleased. He told His disciples, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mar. 14-15). His words still stand. You and I do not outgrow the need for a childlike faith.
But having a childlike faith does not mean being content with the basic teachings of the Bible and digging no further. When a child has a hobby, does he just declare what his hobby is but never do anything with it? No! He explores it. He wants to know more about it. He wants to know how it works. Materials to advance his hobby are all he requests for Christmas or his birthday. We should be the same way with God’s Word. We should study the truth with no less dedication now than we did in Christian Day School, in Sunday or Wednesday School, or in Catechism Class.
We should want to listen to the Word and ask questions about it, just as Jesus did. We can learn a lot from a Twelve-year-old. Mary and Joseph learned from Him too. They were understandably distressed when they could not locate Jesus over three days. But Jesus had not gone to the temple to frustrate them. He said to His mother, “Why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” They needed this reminder. It was probably too easy for them to view Jesus as a regular boy and to forget that He was God in the flesh.
We forget that too. We can think of the accounts about Jesus in the Bible as nice stories that don’t have much impact on us today. But Jesus was not simply a wise teacher or a miracle worker. Jesus is true God and Man, who shed His holy blood for our sins. He came to redeem us from the sins of our youth, our teenage years, our 20s and 30s, and beyond. He came to atone for our sins of being bad examples to children, of failing to study His Word, and of taking His holy gifts for granted. Jesus died for all of these sins, and He remembers them no more.
Through the message of forgiveness, Jesus also works in you good and holy desires. He leads you to pay closer attention to His Word, and He helps you to make it a part of your home life. You may not feel equipped to study the Word on your own or to teach it to your children, but you would certainly acknowledge that you have more to learn. Learning and growing in God’s Word is as simple as setting aside five minutes at breakfast or after supper or before bed to read a devotion or a chapter from the Bible. Then you and your children will develop good spiritual habits. And you will be passing along to them a greater inheritance than any amount of money or precious things.
Even Jesus, who according to His divine nature knew all things, made the study of the Scriptures His priority. His example was a powerful lesson for the adults around Him, just as it is for us today. But He is not just our example. He is our Savior. His perfect desire for God’s Word counts as our righteousness for all the times we have broken the Third Commandment. And His perfect submission to His parents and to all earthly authority counts for each time we have broken the Fourth Commandment.
His righteousness is continuously applied to us and brings relief to our conscience every time we hear His Word. You and I will never outgrow the need for this instruction and comfort. Whether you are ten or twenty or forty or eighty, God has more to teach you about the rich blessings of His grace, which Jesus obtained for you.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(painting excerpt from “Jesus Among the Doctors” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)