After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and answers. And when [Jesus’] 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.” And He said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And they did not understand the saying that He spoke to them. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And His mother treasured up all these things in her heart.
We’ve likely all said it, “There has to be something more.”
When life begins to become exhausting or boring or a lot of both, we wonder, “Isn’t there something more?”
Relatedly, when the people we love and care about are hurting or struggling or a lot of both, we wonder, “Don’t they need something more than me?”
Our text presents, on the one hand, with the truth of a very ordinary child Jesus. Not much more.
His parents go the feast of the Passover every year. Jesus joins them at the age of 12, according to custom. That’s another way of saying, that’s the ordinary thing to do. Nothing more.
When Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, his parents didn’t know and keep going, supposing Him to be in the group. 12 year old boys ordinarily have friends they like to hang out with. They don’t ordinarily cling to dad and mom anymore, but find joy among their peers and other relatives, too.
Our text ends with Jesus coming back to Nazareth with His father and mother and continuing to honor them, being submissive to them – serving and obeying them, loving and cherishing them. We all know from being children and/or from having children that’s not exactly ordinary, but we also all know that it ought to be ordinary.
We can assume Jesus helped around the house. Likely fetched and cleaned up wood for dad’s carpentry business. Helped mother Mary with her duties. Whatever dad and mom needed for the household to be in as good of an order as could be possible.
The Gospel of Luke gives us the only glimpse of who the Son of God is as a boy, what it would be like to see the image of the invisible God, the Word become flesh as a 12 year old and those words – And He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them – paint an ordinary picture. In some ways, nothing more.
On the other hand, though, in other ways, our text presents this child Jesus as something way more!
He stays behind after the Passover festival. Go’s to the temple. Listens to the teachers. Asks them questions. Amazes everyone with His understanding and answers.
There’s something more to this 12 year old boy. That’s the Son of God in the flesh amazing the teachers of His Word with His understanding and answers of the Word that was written through Him.
He is something more!
He speaks to His father and mother, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Better translated as something like, I must be about my Father’s business. Do my Father’s things.
Or, for the sake of this sermon, we might consider Jesus as saying, “I have something more to do.”
He honors His earthly adopted father and the mother He was born from – yes.
But He came to be more than that – to do more than that.
He’s going about His Heavenly Father’s business. He’s got to be about His Heavenly Father’s things.
That Passover feast Jesus participated in at the age of 12 was something more than a Passover Feast because the Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, was there in the flesh. The Lamb who will be sacrificed for us so that God’s wrath and eternal condemnation passes over us because we are marked by His blood.
The temple those few days Jesus was there in the flesh at the age of 12 was something more! Because Jesus is the temple. God dwelling with us here, not to condemn us, but to save us. Jesus, giving us access to God for Him to hear us and dwell with us, to live with us and in us as our bodies are now temples of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is a carpenters son, adopted by Joseph and He likely grew up as a boy learning about wood and how to build things with wood. But He is more. He is the only begotten Son of the Father, who has loved us since through Him the foundation of the world was built.
And that love is most clearly seen when beholding the Son of God,
become incarnate of the virgin Mary and made man,
calls a carpenter, a man who works with wood His father,
and then dies on the wood of a cross to answer for the sin we inherited from Adam’s and Eve’s eating from the wood of the tree and all other sins we have committed since.
There’s more this 12 year old boy. And He gives you the more you so desperately seek.
You need more than health, you need healing for your soul.
You need more than wealth, you need the promise of riches nothing can take away.
You need more than help, you need a Savior.
There’s more to this life because we have eternal life in Him. Even now we live in Him. And He in us. Always with us!
There’s more to this life when we get so weary or bored because we find rest and joy in Him. Jesus is working, too, and we find rest believing in His works.
You are not enough for the ones you love. But there’s more for them than your love and work and promises and sacrifice. There’s God’s love and work and promises and sacrifice.
Jesus is enough for you and Jesus is enough for them.
Jesus is the something more – and that Someone more calls you to be Christ-like in your ordinary life.
There is something more –
More than husbands sacrificing for their wives, and wives honoring their husbands,
more than parents raising their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,
children honoring their father and mother, serving and obeying them, loving and cherishing them.
More than the laundry and dishes and dinners and cleaning,
more than the grind of daily work, honoring the boss, working hard, showing up, being wise, and so far as it depends upon you, being at peace with all in the workplace.
There is something more than showing up to church, receiving the Lord’s Supper often, confessing sin, receiving forgiveness, saying your daily prayers, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs,
more than helping keep the church going, caring for the property, bringing the kids, volunteering to be on the leadership, participating in Bible Study, doing all that you can to allow Christ’s light to shine through Mount Calvary Lutheran Church so that people see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.
There is something more than leading a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do,
more than not hurting or harming our neighbor in his body, but helping and supporting him in every physical need,
more than not slandering our neighbor, hurting her reputation, but defending her and speaking well of her and explaining everything in the kindest.
There’s gotta to be something more –
and there is. But it’s not up to you. It’s not you. You’re not the something more. The things you do are not the something more.
Jesus is the something more. The Someone more. He is beyond you and these things, He was before you and the things you do, and yet He also is in you and works through you and the things you do.
When you hear again that you are to offer your body as a living sacrifice by doing these things you may very well hear that you don’t do enough, that you fail, that you deserve God’s wrath for not doing more – good! That’s what you’re supposed to hear!
Because Jesus is the more for you – your righteousness, your holiness, your promises that you are God’s beloved child, with whom He is well pleased. Jesus is the more when you sin.
And also, Jesus is the more when you do good in Him.
Let Him be the more.
What you are called is to begin to think, say and do those things that are true, honorable and lovely.
In the freedom of His forgiveness and peace and the promise that God is working everything out for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose – go about your business. Go about your things.
And Jesus who did go about His Father’s things promises He is still going about His Father’s thing.
Doing the more and being the more.