In this way, Jesus grew in wisdom and favor with God and
man. Thus, being obedient to your parents gains you wisdom and favor. Honoring
your father and mother was the first commandment with a promise attached to it,
after all.
This is because everything centers around family. Not your
family, but the family of God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the Son’s Bride,
the Church.
If this is true, why not stay at the Temple then? Why not continue, at the obvious
church, to reveal Himself as the Light of the World and God’s only Son and the
salvation of all the earth? Because His mother said “No”.
The Lord so values His own commandment and so prizes His
ordering of the family, that He even subjects Himself to it, so great and holy
is the command.
The Lord becomes a servant to His parents. With a flick of
His wrist or a syllable from His mouth He can bring false teachers to their
knees, destroy the puppet kings, and accomplish salvation. Instead, He becomes
a child to re-enter the kingdom of heaven through the cross.
If Jesus is the servant, there must be a master. Indeed, for
what other purpose do we older folks exist other than to care for, instruct,
and bring up the young? Everyone is looking for some great meaning, some grand
purpose to their lives, and the very first thing passed over on that quest is
being an obedient child. The second, is being a father or mother.
Maybe they are passed over because they are too normal. It’s
the way it’s been done for millennia. Everyone does it.
If we really want progress; if we truly are going to make
that next evolutionary leap, we need to move beyond the conventional and
pedantic.
Repent. You live in a time of unprecedented peace and in a
land of plenty. You have more tools at your disposal to train up a child, than
the entire world put together and yet there are uneducated children, un-obedient
children, and unwanted children. All must be gathered together, the good and the
bad. Likewise must we gather, as well as we can, the best of tools, for this
prosperity, this abundance will not be yours forever.
God’s Word and grace are a passing rain shower and if we continue
to focus education solely on making a living, then we will witness just how quickly
the rain passes. No one is alert. Everyone just quietly goes along with
whatever is fed to them.
The freedom to provide sound Christian schooling is the
freedom of the Gospel itself, Dr. Luther says, but when it’s gone it’s gone.
The Jews had it, but when it’s gone it’s gone, and now they have nothing. Paul
and the Apostles brought it to the Greeks and Europe ,
but when it’s gone it’s gone and now they have the Muslim. Ingratitude and
contempt will not make it stay.
The parents may be the masters, but really who is more
important in the slave/master, student/ teacher relationship? It is the child.
For though the child is submissive, he is the one receiving all the attention,
all the time, and all the effort.
And Christ came down with His parents to Nazareth and was submissive to them, but
Jesus also had a heavenly Father. And since Joseph and Mary were obeying God’s
commands, the Father’s will also fell in line with theirs, for His will was
that Jesus be born of a virgin, that He be your brother, that He disguise His
royal power, take on a servant form, like you, and lead the devil captive.
Here now is the great exchange of Christmas. The Lord
becomes a child to lead the Children of God to life and light. Jesus submits to
parent who have submitted to Him; an exchange only possible through love; love
given and shown clearly on the cross.
For there is the great and final obedience. On the cross is
Isaac obeying Abraham, Samuel obeying Eli, and David obeying Saul. The Son
accomplishes and obeys the Father to the point of death, but where the previous
sons failed to accomplish the task, Jesus succeeds.
The task is education to everlasting life. The task is
teaching that death is not the answer. The task is knowledge that leads away
from death. You are not just to urge children into eking out a living, but to
receiving a full and eternal life at the hands of the servant God: Jesus.
The Lord then becomes a servant. Seeking, saving, and
teaching. He spends the treasure of His entire Kingdom in order to give it to
you. He spends His entire life, quite literally, on making sure you have access
to life.
The prophet cries out, “All
your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the
peace of your children.” (Is. 54:13) Everyone who has heard and learned
from the Father, goes to Jesus. (Jn 6:45) You are given the Word that you may
have life more abundantly, not just in things, and what you are given you are
to pass on.
Jesus passes His life on to you. The teachings of God are
life itself. Jesus hands over His entire being in order that you be brought
into it. Clothed in this Body, death has no hold on you and sin has no dominion
over you.
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