Dear Christian friends:

During His life on earth Jesus came often to the beautiful temple (house of God) in Jerusalem. Our text tells about the second time that Jesus came into the temple. The first time He was only eight days old, a small Baby, when Mary and Joseph brought Him into the temple to present Him as God had commanded Jewish parents to do with their first-born sons.

God commanded their Jewish parents to do this so they would not forget that their children were a gift from God. As they were commanded to offer the first of their crops at harvest, so the first male baby must be offered to the Lord for full time service in His temple.

By these offerings God wanted to remind His people that all their blessings come from Him and that they should receive them with thanks and use them in His service for His glory. We Christians today, also, ought to learn that from these stories of the Bible and gladly offer ourselves and our children for God's use and glory.

When Jesus was twelve years old our text tells us his parents brought Him with them to the temple for the Passover Festival. After the Festival was finished Mary and Joseph started home for Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. The parents did not know that because they thought He was coming with friends and neighbors who were traveling with their large company. They did not realize He was missing until the evening of the first day's travel. They they hurried back to Jerusalem and after three days found Him in the temple.

What happened here in the temple is very interesting and important for us Christians because it shows that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary is also the Son of God, the promised Savior of the World.

We are now in the church season called Epiphany. The lessons and sermons chosen for reading and preaching on these Sundays of the Epiphany Season are about Jesus' miracles (wonderful works) changing water into wine; commanding the wind and waves to be still; healing the sick; and walking on water. When the people saw Jesus do these wonderful works they believed in Him. They knew that He was more than a man because no man can do such great and wonderful works.

They believed that God had come from heaven to walk upon the earth to help and save His people. What Jesus said and did here in the temple when He was only twelve years old is wonderful, too, as wonderful as His changing water to wine at the wedding in Cana.

We read after three days His parents found Him in the temple sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Now you know that no natural boy twelve years old will be eager to stay in church three days to listen to God's Word. I have tried to teach many twelve year old deaf boys and they don't want to listen for one hour. You know yourself how you are often bored to learn God's Word.

We are such blind sinners and do not really love God, so we don't care to learn His Word and get bored. But Jesus as a twelve year old boy was eager to listen to the teachers in God's house, not one hour but three days. Why?

Jesus was not an ignorant sinner like us. He truly loved God His heavenly Father and wanted to know more about Him and also wanted to teach the teachers about Him. We read that all who heard Jesus' deep questions and wise answers were astonished (very surprised). Also, Mary and Joseph were astonished when they found Him in the temple. They knew he was not like any other boy. He was a different, strange and wonderful Boy. He was a God hidden in a Boy.

At Christmas two weeks ago we saw God hidden in a Baby in the manger of Bethlehem. At the wedding in Cana of Galilee we see God hidden in a Man thirty years old.

God hides Himself in the Man Christ Jesus and lives with us on earth. Why? To teach us God's way and to be our Savior from sin. Paul shows this very clearly in Galatians 4:4-5, "When the right time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to free those under the Law and make us His sons."

My hope and prayer today is that God will open our eyes and help us to see His wonderful Secret, Himself, His Son hidden in a twelve year old Boy, so that we will believe in Him and accept Him for our Savior and then love Him and serve Him as His dear and holy children.

Amen.