Lost and Found

This morning we are starting a new series of studies in Luke’s Gospel from where we left off last Autumn - Luke 2 verses 41-52 and our title this morning is LOST AND FOUND. And after some words of introduction my headings are quite simply, first, LOST; second, FOUND; third, THE GOOD NEWS; and, fourth and last, THE CHALLENGE

Luke’s Gospel, together with the Acts of the Apostles, is one of the great works of ancient history writing. It is great because Luke is writing with intentional accuracy. Here’s chapter 1 and verse 3:

Since I myself have carefully [or it can be translated ‘accurately’] investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, [probably some distinguished Roman patron] so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Luke wants to write an accurate account of what certainly happened and some of it miraculous. Unfortunately there have been some New Testament scholars responsible for, I quote, “hypercriticism [that] has led to needless accretion of doubt.” So speaks a distinguished ancient historian. He shows you don’t have to be hypercritical of the New Testament to be intelligent.

Indeed, Professor Caird, a New Testament scholar and more liberal than some, said when writing about Luke: “sober criticism [simply] cannot get behind the gospel record to a plain, commonplace tale, devoid of the miraculous and the supernatural.” We must take Luke seriously as history. So much by way of

Now for our first heading – LOST. Look at verses 41-45:

41Every year his [Jesus’] parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. 42When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. 43After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44Thinking he was in their company, they travelled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him.

Jesus was fortunate. He was born into a godly family, named “Jesus” at the religious ritual of circumcision when eight days old, and, because he was Mary’s first born, he was taken to the Temple for the purification rite. But we hear virtually nothing of his childhood and adolescence after than. We are simply told in verse 40 of chapter 2 that “the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.”

Then all we are told about Jesus from the next nearly 30 years is this incident when aged 12. So there must have been something particularly significant about it. Those writing about other people’s lives often quote something from the person’s early years. That is because it is significant in the light of what happened later in their lives.

So you hear of Milton reading the New Testament aged three; Mozart composing great music aged eight; and, indeed, this past week (as reported in her obituaries) Joan Sutherland also aged three, being able to imitate the scales and exercises of her mother, a mezzo-soprano. What then is the significance of this incident from Jesus’ early years?

Well, one lesson that Luke is teaching throughout his two volume work of his Gospel and Acts is that all that happens is under God’s sovereign control. This includes the great realities of God’s universal salvation history. So Luke records Peter’s words on the day of Pentecost to the Jewish people (Acts 2.23):

This man [Jesus] was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

There you have supreme divine sovereignty, on the one hand, and subordinate but cruel and wicked human responsibility, on the other hand. Christ’s death was not a failure; it was all part of God’s salvation plan. But Luke underlines for us that God’s sovereignty is not only in these great salvation events. It is also in the private happenings of individual lives.

In this Gospel Luke is particularly concerned to show how Christ cares for the poor, the marginalized, those who suffer and the ordinary people with their problems. You have, for example, in Luke the parables of the Good Samaritan and that of the beggar Lazarus and the Rich Man in hell. And here you have a household drama where all seems to be collapsing. But the lesson to be learnt is that God is still in control.

Just imagine being Mary. The Passover is now over. 60 to 100,000 people are going home from Jerusalem, a city (at this time) of 25,000, or so it’s estimated. It’s like the crowds going home from Wembley after a soccer Cup Final or twice the numbers at St James’ Park on a good afternoon. In verse 44, “their company” refers to an ancient caravan that was so long it seems to have taken a whole day to look through. For security, people from one area travelled together like this – the men at the front, the women (with the young children) at the rear. The older children were with either the men or the women. So Mary may have assumed Jesus was with Joseph and Joseph that he was with Mary. With no mobile phones and separated by a significant distance there was no contact.

You can understand there was near panic when, at the end of the first day Mary and Joseph found Jesus was not with this caravan. The word translated in verse 49 as “anxiously” (in anxiously searching) is a pretty strong word. It is the word translated as “agony” in the flames of hell, in that Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, in chapter 16.24 and 25. So it means poor Mary and Joseph are totally distraught at losing Jesus. Is anyone here this morning is such a situation?

It may not be in losing a child, but it may be something to do with your health or wealth or family or work that gives you anxious agony – to use NIV language. Well, remember God is in control. Luke records these words of Jesus in chapter 12 verses 6-7:

6Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

So remember, God cares for you and is in control. There were many lessons that Mary and Joseph had to learn about God’s ways and the mission and ministry of Jesus. This incident was one lesson in that learning process; and Mary, we are told (v 51) “treasured all these things in her heart”

So what is God teaching you, if you are in one of these traumatic situations? At least learn to trust him and thank him, not for the trauma, but for what he can teach you through this difficult time. Remember those words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 1.3-4:

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

And comfort does come, even in the sadness. But here there was no long-term sadness. For Mary and Joseph were comforted when after three days Jesus was FOUND – and that is our …

Second, heading. Look at verses 46-50

46After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, ‘Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.’ 49‘Why were you searching for me?’ he asked. ‘Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?’ 50But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Here you have the greatest significance of this incident. It is in those first-ever recorded words of Jesus, verse 49:

Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?

The number one question for everyone is this: “What is God like?” More and more it seems psychiatrists are arguing that we are born to believe in God. Some of the theories as to how this happens seem quite strange and implausible. But there is a growing recognition that a child does not normally say, aged 3½, “I don’t believe in God.” Rather, if left to themselves, they do believe in God. But what God and what is he like?

Jesus coming into the world can be described in these three ways. One, Jesus came for judgment: "For judgment I have come into this world" (John 9.39) – meaning his coming caused division for and against him. Two, Jesus came to give us new life: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (Jn 10.10). And, three, Jesus came, as he told Pilate, to testify to the truth; “For this reason was I born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” (John 18.37)

But Luke and John knew, because this is what Jesus taught, that we must first face the truth about God, the Holy God who hates evil and sin but is loving and merciful. Otherwise we will not enjoy the good life he wants us to have to the full now and for all eternity. Nor will we escape the judgment we deserve for ignoring the truth and living contrary to God’s will. So truth is vital.

And a vital truth we need to know is about the nature of God. Luke, therefore, underlines that the God we are to trust and believe in is the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the triune God. And here Luke reveals that Jesus had a consciousness (as a boy of 12) of the special relationship he had with God. And so he could uniquely address God as, “my Father” – he spoke of “my Father’s house”.

He was aware that he personally was in a unique relationship –a relationship of sonship - to the God worshipped in the Temple at Jerusalem. So he can speak of “my Father”. Verse 50 tells us that Joseph and Mary could not at this stage understand at all what this meant. Nor even after the death and Resurrection of Jesus and the giving of the Holy Spirit can we claim to “understand” the Trinity and the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the one Godhead. What we can say is this.

In the early centuries faithful Christians recognised that, as the Old Testament is clear, there is only one God, the divine Creator. He only is to be worshipped and loved. They also recognised that the New Testament agrees, but it speaks of three personal agents, working together to bring about salvation. And in the creeds faithful Christians have given us the historic teaching on the Trinity.

But this is not an attempt to explain the unimaginable. Rather, as has been well put, it provides us with …

a boundary and safeguards for our thoughts about this mystery, which confronts us with perhaps the most difficult thought that the human mind can know. It is not easy; but it is true.

And we must keep within that boundary. So we cannot, for example, bypass such hard facts as Jesus teaching us to baptise, listen,

in the name [singular] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit [plural]” (Mat 28.19).

So here in the Temple, in his reply to Mary when she finds Jesus, Jesus gives that first hint of the Trinitarian relationships. He seems conscious of uniquely being able to call God “my Father” – in this his first-ever recorded utterance. And it was unique.

Yes, the Bible teaches that God is the Father of us all by creation. He is the Father of the Jewish people by his ancient covenant through Abraham. And he can be our Father personally through his adopting us as sons and daughters as we trust in Jesus and unite with him. But Jesus alone is the eternal divine Son; and this incident reveals Jesus’ conscious of that sonship aged 12. We must move on …

Thirdly, to what, here, is especially THE GOOD NEWS.

It is that Jesus is not only God, the divine Son who reveals to us the truth about God and what God is like. He also reveals the truth about Man and the truth about what we should be like as human beings. Look now at verses 51 - 52:

51Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.

Yes, he is truly God; but, yes, he is truly man. This is the mystery of the incarnation – of God becoming man. And again, in those early centuries as faithful Christians wrestled with this mystery, they realised various things. They realised we cannot say Jesus was a split person or that his manhood was swallowed up in his deity. No! He was truly man as well as truly God

And they realised also that Jesus was one person, yet with two sets of possibilities – divine and human. But there was no mixture or confusion, as they said, of these natures. As with the Trinity, the doctrine of what we call “Christology” – the doctrine of the person and nature of Christ - is fundamentally setting boundaries. And they are needed from the fact that Jesus was a man who convinced those closest to him that he was also God. But his humanness was never in doubt. For example, he was a normal boy. Look at verse 51:

Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them [his parents].

He was like us but without sin – which his friends also realised. But this did not make him seem odd in any way. Rather, verse 52:

Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.

One of the great temptations is to deny the true humanity of Jesus. That is the warning of John’s first Epistle. Of course, we must not deny Jesus’ deity (as the Arians did, some of the first heretics). But we cannot deny his humanity because the Gospels show us Jesus experiencing all sorts of human limitations. He was hungry, tired, ignorant of some facts and sad. And it is this humanness that is the good news spelt out especially in the letter to the Hebrews. Listen to chapter 2.18:

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Here is chapter 4.15-16:

15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. 16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Is that what you need to do this morning? Well, this promise is good news. Who needs to return to Christ after drifting away, or you’ve not drifted but done something you know is wrong and it is haunting you? If so, here is more good news – this is Hebrews 5.2:

He [Jesus Christ] is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.

But fourthly, and finally, THE CHALLENGE

The challenge is whether you can call God “my Father”, not as Jesus did, but as an adopted child in God’s new family. Is there anyone here this morning who only knows God as their Father by creation – from the belief that he created you?

But the creation (and that includes all of us as human creatures) is fallen. For us that means we, by nature, go away from God and so inevitably are under the judgment of God. But the good news of the Cross and the Resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit is that there can be forgiveness and change as you trust in Christ as your Saviour and Lord. You can then know God as your Father as part of his new family. By faith you can be adopted into it; and then you can and should (as we all should) live for him.

So let me finish by reminding you, as we hear every Christmas in the Christmas Gospel, of John 1.12-13:

12…to all who received him [Jesus Christ], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.