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January 31, 2010
“Into the Deep Water”
Luke 5: 1-11
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Fishing in the sea of Galilee during the first century AD was done at night. In the morning the fishermen would return to the shore and clean and repair their nets on the beach and in the shallows. The Bible tells us that the first 4 apostles whom Jesus called were fishermen who were cleaning their nets at the shore of the Sea of Galilee when Jesus came walking by.
These four fishermen were already followers of Jesus. Two of them had been followers of John the Baptist and John had told them to follow Jesus. Those two, Andrew and John had brought Simon (Peter) and James.
During this period of His ministry, Jesus was becoming very popular and there was a crowd following Jesus on that morning as he walked by the Sea. In order to gain a little distance from the crowd so he could address them all, he got into the boat captained by Peter and asked him to put out just a few yards from shore.
From that location Jesus preached to the crowd while he was seated in the boat. He was seated for 2 reasons: Rabbis usually sat as they taught and preached, And if you are going to preach in a boat, it is much safer to be seated. I know this because I have preached from a boat. Not on the sea of Galilee but on a lake in Southern NJ. I have also been offered a canoe to preach from for a Sunrise service. I declined and established a new rule to live by: never enter a canoe wearing a suit when the canoe paddler is a man with a sense of humor.
After Jesus preached or taught he asked Peter to take the boat out into the deep water and let down the nets and catch some fish. Peter obviously thought that this would be a waste of time and effort. They had not caught fish at night which was the best time to fish, and they needed to get some rest so they could fish the next night. But Peter acknowledged that Jesus was his teacher, and if he really wanted to go fishing just then, they would go out.
Of course you know the story, how they wound up in a shoal of fish and they caught so many fish that the boat began to sink so they called James and John in the other boat to help them bring in the fish and they took on so many fish from the first boat that their boat almost sank too.
At that point Peter realized that Jesus either had the power to determine where the fish would be or had the power to know where the fish were. He assumed that such power came with a measure of divinity or holiness and he suddenly became aware of his own sinfulness. He told Jesus “Go away from me. Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
Have you ever wondered why Jesus wants to be with you forever? Have you ever been totally honest with yourself and God about your sinfulness. You know what kind of a person you are. When you know what God expects of you and how short you come, you should be amazed that God has chosen you to be with him forever. Peter knew that he did not deserve to have Jesus in his boat teaching him the Word of God. He knew that he had sinned against God and many people whom God loved. So for a moment, just after this remarkable catch of fish, he asked Jesus to go away from him because he was not worthy to have Jesus so close to him.
But Jesus did not leave Peter that day. Jesus did not leave Peter when Peter cut off the ear of a slave who was with those who arrested Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus did not leave Peter when Peter denied three times that he knew Jesus. Peter left or turned his back on Jesus from time to time, but Jesus never left Peter. There is an old saying among Christians that goes: If you feel that God is far away from you, guess who moved.
Like Peter, you are unworthy of following Jesus. You are not worthy to be a part of this congregation of God’s people. I am not worthy to be a minister of God’s word and His people. But Jesus has not left us because of our unworthiness. He calls us to be his in spite of our unworthiness and sinfulness. He calls us to put all that away and follow Him
And he calls us to do just what he called those 4 Apostles to do. Jesus replied to Peter by saying “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”
That is the statement that defines the entirety of this passage. That is the statement that defines the lifes-work of the apostles from that moment. And it is the statement that defines the work we have been called to do for Jesus.
In that sentence Jesus called those four men and the other eight who would be chosen later to catch people into His eternal kingdom. While doing that they would have to trust Jesus. As he had led them to the fish that day, he would lead them to the people he wanted in His kingdom. All they had to do was to go where he told them to go when he told them.
And in that miraculous catch of fish Jesus also taught them that He could care for their families as they served Him. The miraculous catch of fish was probably to be sold and the profits used to support their families while they left their boats to follow Jesus.
I believe that in this passage Jesus gives his primary calling to those who would follow him. The followers of Jesus are, the church of Jesus is, to be catching people for Jesus, to be bringing people into his kingdom.
Now I do not consider myself to be a fisherman, but I have spent some time fishing with my late Father-in-Law. He owned a series of boats which were taken on vacation when we vacationed with him and my mother-in-law. While fishing with him in the salt waters of Rhode Island and Massachusetts I learned some things about fishing.
The first is that you have to go where the fish are. Jesus demonstrated that he knows where the fish are. On that occasion he sent the Apostles into deep water. That can be a scary combination of words. Deep water.
I learned to swim when I was about 11 years old at a church camp on the Severn River in Maryland. We received instructions but our final exam was to jump off the end of the dock and swim to the shore. Now you could have asked every camper how deep the water was at the end of that dock. We all knew it was 10 feet deep. But our swimming instructor reminded us that the depth of the water did not matter since we were only going to be swimming in the top two feet.
Some of the people God wants us to catch are going to be deep in sin. But when we catch them we are going to be safe in God’s boat, supported by God’s people.
Another thing I learned about fishing is that in order to catch fish, you have to let down the lines or the nets. You can’t just drive the boat across the lake or bay and expect the fish to jump in the boat. You have to have bait that will attract the fish, but you also have to have a hook. Our bait may change, but our hook will always be the Word of God.
I know it sounds silly to tell people that you need to do more than just sail across the bay to catch fish, but I think that is exactly what many churches are doing today. We have built nice church buildings or boats and we expect people to jump in. Folks, we need to go and bring them in, not just into our building but into the fellowship of this congregation.
Some congregations operate as if they are Marinas. A marina is a place where the boats come for shelter and supplies. God is our Marina. We are the boats sent out by God to catch people into his kingdom.
We need to pray that God will use us to catch people for Him. We need to trust Him to equip us and to show us where the people he wants us to catch are.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2010
“Your Strength”
Luke 24: 50 - 53/Nehemiah 8: 1 - 12
Sunday, January 24, 2010
In some areas of our country you will find a lot of historical markers. If you stop and read them you will find that in that place on a certain date in history, something important happened. But you have to be careful, because there are also non-historical markers. Some folks who are tired of living in historical districts have purchased plaques for their homes that say “in this place in 1863 absolutely nothing happened”.
Now of course, strictly speaking it is not really true to say that nothing happened in a certain place. In all places and times, life goes on. A few years ago the subdivision I live in was a cornfield. But that doesn’t mean that nothing happened there. The field was ploughed and planted and corn grew and was harvested. Before the farmers came, the land was tended by the native American tribes in their own ways.
But the happenings of some times and places are more important than others, even in places where a lot of historically significant events have occurred, like Jerusalem. The coming of Ezra and then Nehemiah to Jerusalem marked the end of a period of insignificance in Jerusalem.
In 586 BC Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians and its remaining residents had either been killed or taken to Babylon as slaves. Jerusalem remained in ruins for at least 50 years. During that time it was nothing more than ancient foundations and piles of rocks.
During that time, the Persians conquered the Babylonians and then the Jews were free to return to Jerusalem and Israel. Around 520 BC a Jewish man named Zerubbabel returned to Jerusalem and he and the people who returned with him rebuilt the Temple. And then for about 50 years, nothing much happened. Not much else was rebuilt in Jerusalem. Then, Ezra and then a little later Nehemiah came to Jerusalem. Ezra was a Priest who came to restore zeal to the religion of Israel. Nehemiah was a Jewish Captive in Persia who had become the cupbearer or butler to the king of Persia.
Nehemiah was concerned that things were not improving for his fellow Jews in Jerusalem and he asked the king to appoint him as Governor in Judea so he could do something about it. His first goal was to rebuild the long ruined walls of Jerusalem and provide security so more people would build houses in Jerusalem.
Chapters 2-6 of the book of Nehemiah describe the work and intrigue of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.
After the walls were rebuilt, the Jews were invited to Jerusalem for a dedication service and to attend the ancient festival of the feast of tabernacles.
As a part of the festivities, the people were gathered near the Watergate in Jerusalem to hear the Books of the Law read. This would be the OT requirements of God upon his people of which the 10 commandments were a summary. But this reading involved much more than the 10 commandments, it probably contained large portions of the first five books of the Bible. As the word was read, there were interspersed periods of interpretation and instruction by many of their leaders. The reading and instructing took about 6 hours.
The initial impact of this upon the people does not seem to have been exactly what the leaders were looking for.
The people began to weep. They realized that they had not been faithful to God during their time back in Israel. They had begun to fall into the disobedient practices that they now knew had caused Jerusalem to be destroyed and their ancestors carried off as slaves. They were overwhelmed. How had this happened? They were trying to obey God by rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, but before and during that they had not been paying attention to some of the ethical and moral behaviors that God expected. And when the Books of Moses were read to them, they fell on the people with a crushing realization of their sinfulness.
But the Governor, the Priest, and the Levites said to the people: “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep…. Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord, and do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Regardless of what they had discovered about their sinfulness, this was a time for rejoicing. In the reading and their understanding of the Scriptures they were given a great blessing. They understood what God expected of them. They understood how they could now live in harmony with their fellow Israelites within those newly constructed walls. They had rebuilt the walls, they now knew how to properly rebuild their nation on Gods principles and precepts.
And Nehemiah recorded in verse 12: And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.
Whenever Gods Word and will are revealed to us, it is a time to rejoice in that blessing. God’s commandments and regulations bring great blessings to those who obey them and understanding what God expects of us should be accompanied with Joy.
This Joy of the Lord is the Joy we have in knowing that we belong to the almighty and victorious God.
It is the Joy that the Apostles had when Jesus left them and ascended to Heaven. They returned to the city where Jesus had been killed. The priests and some of the Pharisees would gladly have killed them also if they could. They returned to that city without their Lord, and they were rejoicing because they knew that their Lord Jesus was now reigning in heaven for their benefit. And bless their hearts, it is the testimony of the scriptures, the traditions of the early church and the records of the early church fathers that the Apostles never lost that joy. Yes they were persecuted, yes they worked hard to the point of exhaustion, yes they were hunted down and killed save one, but they never lost their Joy.
Now I want to go back to Nehemiah for a few moments. I want you to remember the context of this passage. They had just finished rebuilding the walls and setting the doors in the gates. Jerusalem was now “secure” for the first time in over 130 years. Nehemiah has also recorded that Israel had become an armed nation. In order to protect themselves while they built the wall they had taken up swords and spears and we assume learned how to use them. It is in this context of a Jerusalem with secure walls and a people able to defend themselves in it that Ezra and Nehemiah and the other leaders said the Joy of the Lord was their real strength.
And it is for you too. I know that some of you have concerns about your health and about people and issues in your family. I know that some of you are way less financially secure than you thought you would be at this stage of your life. But Your strength is not to be found in those things. It is to be found in your Joy in God, your joy over having been given the scriptures which tell you how God wants you to live. Your Joy over having been forgiven for your sins. Your joy over having been given an eternal life in God’s blessed Kingdom.
Now this does not mean that there is not a time and place in the Christian life for sorrow and confession and repentance.
In chapter 9 of Nehemiah we are told that there was a service of confession, repentance, and rededication for the people of Israel. But even in our confessions and repentance, we are blessed with the Joy of knowing that God is leading us and is pleased with us.
Your Joy in the Lord is your strength. You should recapture and build that joy by noticing God’s blessings upon you. You are a part of a loving and caring congregation. These people will care for you in your time of need. You have been given God’s Word to read and study and follow. You have been promised salvation and eternal life. You have been privileged to help others whom God loves. These and many other blessings should build up and restore you Joy. And your Joy should make you strong.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 07:22 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2010
“The Royal Law”
Luke 10: 25 - 37/ James 2: 1 - 13
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the greatest parables of Jesus and one of the best known. In our day when only a few people know who the Samaritans were and what they believed, many know what a Good Samaritan is. He or she is one who helps a stranger who is in trouble. Some state legislatures have passed laws that are referred to as Good Samaritan laws. These laws protect those who have helped others from being sued if their assistance did not give satisfactory results. Which probably reveals far more about our culture and society than about Jesus Parable.
The Parable of the Good Samaritan was given by Jesus to answer a question. Jesus had been having a public conversation with an expert in the Jewish Law. The initial result of the conversation was that they agreed that under the requirements of the Jewish Laws, Salvation would be given to those who loved God with all of ones heart, soul, strength, and mind and who loved his neighbor as much as himself.
But then the Jewish Law Expert asked another question. It seems that he wanted to place a limit on who might qualify as his neighbor, so he would not have to love everyone, so he asked who was his neighbor. The Parable of the Good Samaritan was given by Jesus as the answer.
This parable is a master work among parables because it combines normal and familiar occurrences with something quite unusual. It begins with the normal occurrence of robbery and attempted murder on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho runs through rugged territory and almost every foot of it goes down a steep grade. All along the twisty descent are caves and boulders that provided excellent hiding places for strong-arm robbers. The Roman Governors had constructed garrisons along the road and stationed soldiers in them to keep the road safe, but brutal robberies still persisted.
The parable presents a fictional account of such a robbery. A man whom it has always been assumed was a Jew, got ambushed on the road, was beaten, robbed, and left for dead. A Priest and later a Levite came by and refused to touch him. If Priests or Levites touched a dead body they could not work until they took some time to be ritually purified in a process that involved them spending money to purchase sacrificial offerings. They did not want to take the chance that the man was dead or might die while they were tending to him, so they passed him by.
Then the parable takes an unexpected turn and goes sideways. The next man to come down that dangerous road is a Samaritan. We read the passage without any special reaction to the term Samaritan, but when Jesus said it at this point in the parable there may have been gasps coming from the crowd. The Jews hated the Samaritans for many reasons but the important reason was that they practiced a corrupted form of Judaism. In other words, the Samaritans were heretics. And the Samaritans returned hatred to the Jews.
Nonetheless Jesus presented this particular Samaritan as the true neighbor the to man needing assistance. The irony is that when Jesus asked his questioner who proved to be the neighbor to the man in need, the Jewish legal expert did not use the word “Samaritan” he said “the one who showed him mercy.”
Now the fact that a Samaritan is presented as a neighbor does not make the Samaritans less heretical. They were still wrong in their beliefs. On another occasion, Jesus met a real Samaritan woman at a well in Samaria and treated her as a neighbor, but in his conversation with her he made it clear that on certain issues regarding religion, the Jews were right and the Samaritans were wrong.
This is an important point to remember as we live in a place where we are in daily contact with people who are of different nationalities and ethnic groups and who practice different religions or no religion at all. We Christians are to accept them as neighbors. We are to treat them lovingly and kindly and with dignity as being equal to ourselves. We do not have to and should not believe that their religion is as true as ours or that it will lead them to the one true God. We must accept them and treat them well. We must not embrace their beliefs when they conflict with essentials of the Christian Faith.
In this parable Jesus made it clear that we are to love anyone who is in our proximity, especially those who need our assistance and care, regardless of their ethnic origins or beliefs or appearances. And yet a few years later, James the half brother of Jesus discovered that Christians were violating this command even during Worship. He warned them not to judge on appearances and chastised them for doing so.
In James’ day the rule to love ones neighbor as oneself had become known as “The Royal Law” The term Royal Law probably also referred to the command to love God with all of ones heart, soul, strength and mind. These two commands are Royal because they have their origins in the 10 commandments given by God as Israel’s king when they came out of Egypt. They are also royal because Jesus, the King-Messiah issued them to his followers.
In the second chapter of his epistle, James chastised some Christians because they were treating some visitors at Worship better than others. They gave prominent seats to wealthy and well dressed and accessorized guests and allowed the poor and dirty and maybe smelly guests to sit on the floor. That is the way the unsaved people of the world behave, that is not acceptable behavior for Christians.
The irony James finds in this behavior is that the oppression that was coming upon Christians was mostly from wealthy influential people who considered the Christians to be heretics. Poor people don’t persecute any one, they have no power.
Now, in case you haven’t caught on yet, the reason I am addressing this subject this morning is because tomorrow is the holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. He is, of course considered to have been a great leader in the civil rights movement, seeking to bring equality between Blacks and Whites. But he was much more than that. He was a Christian minister calling those who considered themselves to be Christians to apply the Royal Law of neighbor-love to all people.
He ironically used the nonviolent passive-resistance methodology of Mohatmas Ghandi to deal with the power structures of hate and separation that were run by white people. But his message was one of love and acceptance. He was concerned even for those who hated him and his people because he was convinced that their hatred was harming them as much as it was harming the people of his race.
Moving back 2000 years, this passage written by James has some phrases that could have been used by Martin King.
James asked a question of those who were honoring the wealthy and dishonoring the poor. He asked “Do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” In other words, can a Christian logically and truly claim to follow Jesus while entertaining and acting on the prejudices we have all been raised with? It is a rhetorical question and the implied question is no. When we treat people without dignity and respect we deny that we follow the one who gave the Royal Law.
At the end of this passage there are two phrases that are reminiscent of the Lord’s prayer. Every Sunday we pray, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” When we pray that we are stating that mercy and forgiveness are principles we believe in and as we receive them from God we extend them to others.
James put it this way: “Judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.” Remember that as you deal with all the odd and sometimes unpleasant neighbors God brings your way. Extend to them Gods love and mercy, treat them with dignity and respect. They are, after all, creatures of our God and King.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2010
“John’s Baptism and Christian Baptism”
Luke 3: 1-18 & 21-22
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Some folks might be taking a slow pace as they begin the new year, but not those of us who Worship at Faith Church. We are quickly moving through the first part of the life of Jesus. Two weeks ago as we ended the previous year we looked at events that occurred some 40 days after the birth of Jesus. Last week we moved ahead 12 years to see the 12 year old Jesus in the Temple. This week we have moved ahead another 18 years to read about the baptism of Jesus when he was 30 years old.
Luke really does not tell us much about the event of Jesus’ Baptism. He does tell us that after Jesus was baptized, while he was praying, The Holy Spirit came on him in the form of a dove and God the Father spoke from heaven saying “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased”.
Although Luke does not give us many of the details of Jesus’ baptism, he does tell us a lot about what being baptized by John signified. He tells us that John’s baptism was “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Which means that the baptism of John was a sign that the baptized person had repented of his or her sins. John came calling people to repent. He came calling people to repent because there was a judgment coming from God.
There is a lot of language in this passage that deals with the coming judgment. John yelled at those who he thought were not taking his baptism or their sins seriously by calling them the offspring of vipers, snakes, fleeing a coming fire. We assume that these people were coming to John for baptism without taking repentance seriously.
He also said “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire”. The references to an ax and fire warn about a coming judgment. The Messiah was coming. His coming would bring about Salvation for those who would trust in him, but it would bring judgment upon those who would not. Those who were baptized were declaring that they were sorry for their acts of disobedience against God. They were declaring that they were ready for and looking for the Savior whom God was sending.
But being prepared for the Salvation that the Messiah was bringing involved more than being baptized. It involved a change in behavior.
Those who came to John to be baptized asked him what they should do to escape judgment. He said “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” Those who are baptized are to share their wealth and resources with those who lack the essentials of life.
To tax collectors John said, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” To soldiers he said, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages”.
Those who are baptized are to be generous to the poor, they are to be honest, not cheating others in any way or threatening others, and they are to be content with their wages and live within their means.
The people who came to John asked if he was the Messiah. He said No and stated that he was just a humble servant of the Messiah. He also spoke of the difference between his baptism and the baptism that would come from the Messiah: “I baptize with water….He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
John’s baptism was a ritual washing, nothing but a symbol of the cleansing salvation that the Messiah would bring. Jesus’ baptism, Christian baptism is more than just a symbol, it is a means of Grace. God’s Holy Spirit is present in the act of Christian Baptism and from that point on continues to work in the lives of those who truly believe in Jesus and seek to please him.
This explanation of John’s baptism might lead you to ask or at least wonder why then was Jesus baptized by John? If it was a baptism that was anticipatory of the forgiveness of sins or the remission of sins, why would the only one who was sinless be baptized. He had no need to repent. He had no sins to turn away from.
The answer is this: Jesus was baptized for you. He was baptized as an example for us that all who are His are to be baptized as He was. He was also baptized as a symbol of what he would do on the cross. In his death on the cross he would take our sins onto and into himself. In His baptism he claimed our sins and repented of our sins and pledged to offer the sacrifice that would erase our sins.
Today we remember and celebrate our baptism. We have been baptized not by John or into John but by the church and into Jesus. Our baptism is a symbol of our repentance. We are sorry for our sins and we are striving to live free from sin. Our baptism is a pledge that we are trying to be generous to the poor, honest in all our interactions with others, and content with what we have. In our Baptism we identify with Jesus, God’s own beloved Son, the one who died for us, and we acknowledge that He is the promised one who has been sent by God. In our baptism we celebrate the accomplishment of our salvation. We have not yet received it in its final form, but it is finished and waiting for us.
Let us now renew the vows that we took when we were baptized or that our parents or guardians took for us when we were infants or children.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2010
“A Twelve-Year-Old in the Temple”
I Kings 8: 1-13/Luke 2: 41-52
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Did you notice the similarities in the two Scripture passages this morning? The most obvious thing they have in common is that both have to do with events that took place in the Temple in Jerusalem, although strictly speaking they were different temples.
The passage from I Kings is referring to the original Temple, the Temple built by Solomon around 900 BC. The Passage from Luke records an event that took place in the Temple that had been rebuilt from the ground up when the Jews returned from the Babylon captivity around 500 BC then rebuilt again by Herod the Great in the generation just prior to the birth of Jesus.
The second thing these passages have in common is a little more subtle. Both passages describe God coming into his temple. In the passage from Kings, God is described as moving into the new temple as the Shekinah, the cloud of glory that had led the Israelites in the wilderness 500 years earlier. God’s cloudy presence on the day the Temple was dedicated so overcame the interior spaces of the temple that the priests had to leave it and temporarily stop their work.
The passage from Luke also describes the presence of God in his temple, but on this occasion he was present perhaps in a more physical but also much more subtle way. He was present in his temple in the 12-year-old Jesus.
Subtlety is a good tool to use when you want to reveal something that can otherwise be overwhelming, but the danger of being subtle is that if you overdo it, if you are too subtle, no one picks up on what you are trying to reveal. This is important for Christians to think about because our God is one who often comes to us in subtle ways. He speaks to us through the voices of children as well as through the voices of pastors. He reveals things to us through the major points of his scriptures as well as through some of the details.
The danger of subtlety is seen in this passage from Luke because it doesn’t seem that anyone realized that God was present in his temple that day in the 12-year-old Jesus, not even his parents. They knew that he was the Son of God in a very real way, but they did not seem to know that they actually had almighty God growing up in their house. Everybody else who was in the temple that day seems to have been amazed at the precocious 12 year old in their midst, but no one recognized him as Almighty God.
And that is not the end of the subtleties in this passage. At a first and casual reading this just seems to be a pleasant anecdote about the 12 year old Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem, but there are some lessons for all of us in this passage.
The twelfth year of life was an important year in the life of a Jewish boy. That was the final year of his preparations for his Bar-Mitzvah on his 13th birthday. He would be learning to read the Hebrew Scriptures (remember, Jesus spoke Aramaic and may have known some Greek).
So this visit to the temple may have been the first one on which Jesus was able to articulate his views of the Scriptures since he had studied some of them in the original Hebrew. He had been studying about the Scriptures and the Hebrew faith for some months and now when he visited the temple he could understand the symbolism of the building and the rituals. He could more fully appreciate the significance of the priestly garments.
He seems to have enjoyed himself so much that he forgot to go home. Now this is where some folks have problems because to them it seems as if Jesus is irresponsible or disobedient to his parents which is hard to reconcile with his sinlessness.
But as a father looking back on my active years of parenting, it has occurred to me that I sometimes expected my children to know things that I did not explicitly tell them and that I sometimes expected a level of maturity of them that was unrealistic. So I am inclined to leave the discipline or lack of discipline in Jesus’ family up to Jesus’ family and still maintain that Jesus was without sin.
But, having said that, I must admit that I cringe when I read the words of Mary to Jesus in this passage. She said “Why have you treated us like this?” Now again, I am willing to give Mary a lot of slack because she had been looking for her son for a day or two or three and had spent another day getting back to Jerusalem after she had spent a day headed home. But what I want to say to Mary is “this really is not about you. It is about Jesus.”
I can remember some times when I disciplined my children more out of a sense of my disappointment or anger out of a sense of my being harmed in some way by their behavior than because they had actually done wrong. To those of you who are still raising children or are very much involved in the raising of your grandchildren my advice is try to take your own personal feelings out of the situation. When hear yourself about to say something like Mary’s “Why have you treated us like this?” Take some time and get your anger out of the way long enough to determine if there really is bad or disobedient behavior that has to be dealt with.
By the way, in their defense, Mary and Joseph were not guilty of child neglect in not knowing that Jesus was not with them. The women usually left as a group earlier than the men. The men formed a group and left later, walked faster, and joined the women at the end of the day’s journey. Children traveled with either parent, sometimes in a group with their friends traveling with one of the adult groups.
Now I have some advice for children and young people who might be listening. At the end of this passage we are told that Jesus left the Temple and Jerusalem and went with them to Nazareth and was obedient to his parents. Jesus’ parents were not perfect, but Jesus was. Your parents are not perfect, but you aren’t Jesus, so neither are you. Jesus obeyed and respected his imperfect parents and he expects you to respect and obey yours.
During the last part of this sermon I want to back up and get to some words of Jesus that I think will provide us with some good advice as we face a new year.
When Mary wanted to know why he mistreated her and Joseph and informed him that she and his father had been searching for him in great anxiety, He said “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?”
Jesus was truly surprised that they did not know where he was. He could not imagine that they searched other places for him first. They should have known he would be in His Father’s house or about His Father’s Business. If you look in the King James Version’s translation of this passage you will see “business” instead of House. That is because the Greek word here is ambiguous. If it is to be taken as in the Masculine form it means Place or House, if it is in the Neutral form it means Affairs or Business. I like to think that Luke was guided by the Holy Spirit to use this ambiguous term to guide us. As children of God we are to be about our father’s business and in his house.
Now this church building is not God’s house in exactly the same way that the Temple in Jerusalem was, but on Sunday morning when other Christians are Worshipping here, it is very much God’s house. So during this new year, if you claim to be a child of God, a person who has been adopted into God’s family by the death and resurrection of Jesus, you know where you ought to be each Sunday morning - you should be in God’s house Worshipping Him with his other children.
Some people think that Jesus referred to the temple as His Father’s House because Mary had referred to Joseph as Jesus’ father. Jesus might have been reminding her that God was really his father.
Sometimes we need to remember that about ourselves. God is our Father. After we exercise our responsibility to our parents to obey and honor them, we are still responsible to obey and honor God as our eternal Father.
A new year has begun, but we are still expected to honor God as our Father. We are still expected to be taking care of his business and getting ourselves to his House on Sunday morning.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)