Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church

Jesus Isn’t Lost

Luke 2:41-52

January 12, 2020 anno Domini – Redeemer

Mary lost her son. Some of you know what that is like, to lose a child. Mary and Joseph hoped for the best but likely assumed the worst. The pilgrims travelled in groups to and from Jerusalem because it wasn’t safe to travel alone. Likely there was a group of friends and family from Nazareth who travelled together. Aunts, uncles, and extended family looked after nieces and nephews. At the end of the day, at the camp sight, everyone was accounted for and returned to their rightful parents, except Jesus.

Mary lost her son for three days. Where would you look for your 12 year old son? You would call his friends, especially the ones with a cool PlayStation 4 or Xbox 1. You would check the places he likes to hangout, if 12 year olds have such places. Maybe Jesus was enamored by all the one year lambs that had been gathered for the Passover. Mary and Joseph worried like you worry. Someone must have taken him. You would think of Jason Wetterling.

Where is the last place you would look for a 12 year old boy? In church. Most 12 year olds are bored with church. In fact most boys and girls and teens and twenties are bored with church. You’d have to be weird to want to stay in church. And that is Jesus. He is not your normal 12 year old and He makes that clear to his mother Mary and to her husband Joseph.

Mary found Jesus and the same thoughts went through her mind as did the father of that prodigal son in Luke 15, “this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” It wasn’t just Jesus who was lost. Mary was lost without her son. It wasn’t just Jesus who was “dead” for those three days, but Mary was also dying with grief over her lost boy.

It’s bothersome to our ears that Jesus doesn’t seem to understand His mother’s grief. He knew that his mother and Joseph would be sick with worry, but He displays no compassion for her suffering, no remorse for His lostness. It’s almost as if He rebukes her, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49, ESV) It’s similar to the rebuke the angels gave the women (including Mary) at Jesus’ tomb, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” If Mary and Joseph fully understood who their Son was then they would have known exactly where to find Him. He is the only begotten Son of His Father so where else would He be than in His Father’s house about His Father’s business?

Jesus’ rebuke to Mary and Joseph are also His rebuke to us for seeking life apart from where Jesus is found. There is also a great Word of comfort. Jesus tells us exactly where to find Him, where we are raised from death to life, from lostness to being found by God.

We are born lost according to Scripture. We are stillborn to God, with not a hint of life or good or holiness in us. We are born apart from our heavenly Father. Because we are also blind to God’s ways we cannot find our way home. Like Mary and Joseph we run all over looking for life, looking for hope, looking for peace, but on our own we will never find it. God sent His Son into the world to seek and to save the lost. You don’t come to God. He comes looking for you, in that baby in a manger, in that 12 year old in the temple, in that naked man on the cross dying for your sins, in that risen and ascended man that sits at the right hand of God and is also truly present under the bread and wine of the altar.

Your baptism into Christ is Christ finding you. He did all the work of salvation by His birth, His suffering, His death, and resurrection. After His ascension He sent His Spirit to call you to faith in His forgiveness, to open your eyes to see your Savior and to open your ears to hear, “You are forgiven.” Your parents knew you were in trouble from the moment of conception. Your sin was not something they could see (yet), but it is something they believed according to the Word. So after you were born they sought Jesus and His forgiveness for you where He promised to be found – in baptism, in the water He took hold of by His Word.

If you lose a child you also lose being a parent. If you lose your husband you lose being a wife. If you lose Jesus you lose His Father as your Father. You lose the Spirit and you lose faith. Sadly many who are lost imagine they have found God. They’re spiritual but not religious. They believe God is everywhere, but don’t religiously go to the one place He is to be found – in Jesus who is present where His Cross is preached, His water is poured, His forgiveness is spoken, and where His body and blood are given.

Today is the first Sunday after the Epiphany. Epiphany season is like the gift opening session after Christmas. Jesus is unwrapped for us each week so we see what God gave us in His Son. However, God’s Word often unwraps what we do not expect. Last week some wise guys from the East found Jesus and with Jesus they found trouble. They also teach us that Jesus came for all people. Who would have thought God could save Germans, Norwegians, and Swedes? Who would have thought God could save you from your sins?

This week there is another oddity with Jesus. Sometimes He will hide Himself so He can be found. Mary and Joseph sought Jesus in all the places where they thought He would be, but they weren’t led to find Him until after three days. They found Him in the last place you would expect to find a twelve year old boy – sitting in church, talking to the pastors. They needed to find Him there so that they knew His Father’s business and home was more important than their home.

Sometimes Jesus hides Himself in our lives. Those might be times like the death of a child, a family tragedy, a time of great anxiety. He does not leave us alone in those dark times, but He hides Himself so that we can find Him and look to Him alone. Like Mary and Joseph we expect to find the evidence and presence of God in the usual places, in our families, in our work, in our hobbies and pleasures. God in His wisdom allows us, from time to time, to lose something, to find ourselves in the dark, to suffer anxiety so that we turn back to Jerusalem, so that we look for Jesus, and He has told us exactly where to find Him.

Why are you looking for me all over the place? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house? If you are looking for God you will find Him only in Jesus. If you think you have lost God’s love find Jesus hanging in the cross. If you need some hope for the future find Jesus sitting at the right hand of His Father ruling all things for the good of His bride the church. If you need Jesus right now find Him in His Father’s house – in the holy conversation of confession and forgiveness, at the table of the Lord’s Supper, in the Word of Scripture, in the water of baptism. God is never lost. You can always find Him in the name of Jesus. Amen.