Luc. 2, 41-52.
And his parents went up to Jerusalem every year for the feast of Easter. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. And when the days were fulfilled, and they were gathered together again, the child Jesus abode at Jerusalem, and his parents knew it not. But they thought he was among the companions, and came a day's journey, seeking him among their friends and acquaintances. And when they found him not, they went again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass after three days, that they found him sitting in the temple in the midst of the teachers, listening unto them, and asking them questions. And all who listened to him were amazed at his understanding and his answer. And when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said unto him, My son,
*) In the house, 1534.
why have you done this to us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee with sorrows. And he said unto them: What is it that ye have sought me? know ye not that I must be in my Father's? And they understood not the word which he spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them. And his mother kept all these words in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom, age and grace with God and men.
(1) This is a high gospel, if one wants to interpret it sharply, and say how it is when one loses this little child Jesus from his heart. But we will save such high interpretation for another time, and now take before us that which is lightest and easiest, and most useful for the common man.
(2) Your love heard at the feast of the wise men that it was called the feast of the revelation of Christ, which took place so that the newborn babe would not remain secret, but would be revealed. Otherwise it would have been of no use to us if we had not known about it. For this reason other gospels have been preached about these days, in which it is seen how Christ revealed himself. When John baptized him at the Jordan, and after that he showed himself with the first miraculous sign at the wedding in Cana, that he was such a Lord, who had all things in his power. So that the Lord Jesus would not only be known among the people, but also experienced and famous, as being more than another man, namely a Lord, born to such dominion, who is able and capable of everything, and we would recognize him as our Savior and in all distress and need would turn to him and learn to seek help from him.
3 Today's gospel also serves this purpose. For it is also a revelation, by which the Lord Jesus shows himself to be not a common but a special child, because he secretly withdraws from his parents, and steps out of the obedience, which otherwise all children owe to their parents, by God's command. The evangelist says that this happened: His parents had to appear every year at the Easter feast, like other Jews, in the temple in Jerusalem. When they took the child Jesus, he stayed behind them in Jerusalem. That provided the parents, may perhaps be accustomed that he went before more with their relatives.
For Christ did not live like a fiend in his youth, he did not lead a special life; but kept himself like other children, played at times also with his companions, without (only) that he, as the text reports, increased in grace and wisdom before other children. This makes his mother Mary and Joseph think that he is among the companions, and so they leave him behind. But in the evening, when they came to the first inn in Jerusalem, they looked around to see where the child was. When they did not find him among the friends and acquaintances, they were very frightened. For the child was specially commanded to the mother. So Jofeph also had a strong command that he should take care of him. But Mary alone was the mother; therefore it was a great sorrow to her heart and a great fright that she should not find it. There will not have been much sleeping, eating, resting from crying, but they walked back the four miles at night. But the child was lost.
004 Now therefore reckon what their heart hath said unto them in the meanwhile? For the first day it is lost; the second day they seek it, and find it only on the third day. Because of this, they will not have slept much during the three nights, and they will have thought many things. And especially she, the mother, will have thought: God has taken your son away from you, he does not want you to be his mother anymore, that you have waited for him so diligently. So Joseph also thought, "God will no longer have you as a caretaker, because you have been so industrious and have not waited for the only child.
(5) Now this is a special thing, that the child Jesus, our dear Lord God, wanted to show himself in such a way that he would not have to be subject to his mother out of necessity and by right; but what he did, he did only as an example, out of good will, and nothing out of duty. For he was not only his mother's son, but also her son.
God and Lord. Therefore he does not present himself as a son to his mother, as we will also hear today for more than eight days, when he says: "Woman, what have I to do with you? He does the same here, showing that he is not only a man who must obey his father and mother out of necessity; but he lets himself be heard to say that he has another father, who is greater, and on whom he has more favorable regard than on Mary and Joseph. What is it, saith he, that ye have sought me? Do you not know that I must be in that which is my father's? As if he should say, I am your Son; but so that I am more the Son of that which is in heaven.
For our sake, then, he reveals himself, so that we may know him well and come to believe that he is not only a true man, but also a true God. Therefore, as the mother addresses him, "My son, why have you done this to us?" he answers for himself and says, "I have not disobeyed you, nor have I despised you, as you would have us believe. So he wants to be right and unpunished by his mother. Mary and Joseph, however, must have been wrong about the pain and sorrow they had. For they should have remembered what the angels, the shepherds, the arch-father Simeon and others preached about this child, and should have known that even if he had stayed behind, he would not have been disobedient, but would have owed more obedience to God, his Father in heaven, than to his mother on earth.
(7) And this example of the child of Jesus, our dear Lord, is intended to remind us of our ignorance and great blindness, which always tends to serve men rather than God. Therefore, when it comes to the point that we must disobey either God or our parents and overlords, we should learn to say with Christ: "I must be in that which is my Father's in heaven"; outside of this case, I will gladly and wholeheartedly be obedient to father and mother, emperor, king, lords and wives in the house. But here in this case it means: Dear father, dear mother, I have another father, I should look to him more than to you. Mary and Joseph had forgotten this.
Therefore, he had to remind them of it and teach them.
(8) Now this is written for our sake. For the naughtiness, as I have said, we have by nature, when we are to serve God and render his obedience to him, that we excuse ourselves to the world and say: I must not; for God has commanded me to be obedient to my authorities. As the persecutors of the Gospel do now: "We have learned from us that we are guilty of obedience to the authorities; they praise this same obedience highly, and say: We know well that according to the Scriptures it is not wrong to receive the Sacrament under both forms; but we must be obedient to the authorities. There is my father and mother, there is my prince, who does not want it; therefore I may not do it. Thank you, dear Junkers.
But who is the authority? My sovereign? My father and mother? Yes, this is true; but have you no other authority besides these? What do you take this man for, who says in the first commandment: I am the Lord your God? Should it not be so here, when he says: This pleases me, this I will have; that you, regardless of your princes, yes, king and emperor, father and mother, say with Christ: Oportet me esse in his, quae sunt Patris mei: "I must be in that which is my father's"? For God's word and command shall ever proceed cheaply. If it is directed, then one should also do afterwards what father and mother, emperor and king want, so that one does not harness the chariot before the horses.
(10) Just as Christ was revealed to us through the star and at the Jordan to comfort us that he is our Savior, as we heard abundantly from his baptism above and from the angels' song and sermon on the day of Christ, so he reveals himself to us in today's gospel as an example that in matters concerning God we should not look to anyone, be it father, mother, prince, or whatever you want to call it. For there is another lord and higher authority, who is called God; to him you must obey, and do what he tells you to do, and serve him above all things. When this obedience has been established, then do according to what your father and mother, your ruler and authorities, have commanded you.
But that they do not hinder you in this higher obedience, which, as I said, must be directed above all things.
(11) I do not want to touch here on the great temptation that few people feel when one loses Christ in the heart; but I want to remain simple with the little child, who thus reveals himself that he is something more than other men, because he takes himself off without permission from the obedience of his mother, and does not go after her, but she must go after him; to confirm that she had heard from the angel: "He will be called a son of the Most High. She had to be reminded of this here, so that she would not forget it.
(12) Thus this revelation is closely related to the other. For here it is seen that Christ is a peculiar man, as the shepherds and Simeon had testified of him. Therefore he did not want to be like other children, even though he sometimes ran around and played with other children.
(13) Now what he did in the temple, the evangelist shows in detail, that he did not ask what the grain was worth, how one should eat and drink; but he talked with the scribes about the word of God, listened to them at first how they interpreted the Scriptures, and then punished them for it; but in this way, as is fitting for a young boy. As an example, as we see in Matthew, when they, the scribes, preached about the fifth commandment, and interpreted it only as meaning that one should not kill with one's hand, he came out and said, "Truly, according to this commandment, it is not acceptable to speak evil of people, to curse them, or to be angry with them. For this commandment requires a kind heart toward one's neighbor.
14 In this way he also let himself be known and revealed that he, like a young child, asked about such things and how they should be understood, so that they, the scribes themselves, wondered and thought such things: Where does the boy come to such thoughts and understanding? For no doubt he will not have suffered or allowed to go unanswered what was wrong.
15 He will not have failed to ask the teachers what they think of the Messiah, where he comes from and what his ministry will be. But he will have spoken about all this with special humility, discipline and shame, and he will have acted as if he had heard it from his mother. That everyone thought that the boy has the Holy Spirit, he will become a special man. For it is customary at this time of the year for young people to show that they can sense what will become of them and how they will turn out.
(16) This is a brief history of how the infant Jesus revealed himself to his mother and Joseph, as if he were more than another child, because he was out of their obedience and still wanted to be unpunished.
Now St. Lucas concludes the gospel and says: He went down with them to Nazareth and was their subject. So that this child, who had withdrawn from his mother for the sake of his father in heaven, now becomes obedient to his mother again, and to Joseph, even though he was not guilty. As Lucas finely reports in that he says: "He was subject to them. As if he should say, He did it of his own free will, not out of necessity; for he was God, and a lord of Mary and Joseph. But that he was obedient to them, he did it not for the sake of his father and mother, but for the sake of the example. For this is to be respected, that the child Jesus did everything in the house, what he was told to do, to pick up shavings, to fetch food and drink, and not to let anything bother him.
(18) Young people should diligently remember this example, that the Lord, who is the God of us all, did these things in his childhood, and did not let anything he was commanded to do go to waste, even if they were small, minor, and unsightly works, so that they might also do such things and learn obedience and humility. For such things are well pleasing to God; and as the fourth commandment teaches, He will have all children to be obedient and willing to their parents.
19. before times was a question in monasteries
Among the young monks, what Christ would have done in his childhood? How then the monks have written their own book, De infantia Christi, since there are many clumsy fools inside. There is a fable about a bishop who should also have desired to know such things. He dreamt that he saw a carpenter hewing wood, and a little child with him, carrying shavings, until finally a maiden in a blue skirt came, with a pan, and called both the man and the little boy to eat. Then in a dream he thought he would secretly go and stand behind the door so that he could see what they were eating. As the mother was preparing a little dish for the child, the child said, "Yes, mother, what should the man behind the door eat? The bishop is said to have been frightened and awakened by such a word. Such a petty thing they have fantasized.
20 But if you really want to know what Christ did in his youth, listen to the evangelist here, where he says: "He was subject to them," that is, he did what his father and mother told him to do, and did not let anything stand in his way. Every child and servant should be ashamed in his heart who hears such stories about the infant Jesus, and yet does not obey his parents or their rule in such a way, and even lives in shameful disobedience. It does not do to ask, to remember, or to speak of it, as everyone commonly does: If I knew what the infant Jesus had done in the tabernacle, I would do it too. As the monks say: Franciscus did this, dressed like this, watched like this; I will do the same. But no one knows what Christ has done. I say no to that. For here it is written, "He was subject unto them." With such words the evangelist sums up the whole youth of our dear Lord Christ.
Twenty-one: But what does it mean, "He was subject to them"? Nothing else, but that he went in the works of the fourth commandment. These are the works of which the father and mother of the house have need, that he fetched water, drink, bread, meat, kept the house, and such like things, which he did.
He was called like another child; this is what dear Jesus did.
(22) Then all children who are godly and pious should say: Oh, I am not worthy to come to glory, and to be like the child Jesus, in that I do what he, my Lord Christ, has done. If he picked up shavings, and did other things which his parents commanded him to do, which were common, small works, as they are in the house; how fine children we would be if we followed his example, and did also those things which our parents commanded us to do, it would be as bad and small as it could be.
(23) Therefore, do not write great books about what the infant Jesus has done. Just pay attention to what the father and mother need in the home and what they call the children: Only pay attention to what father and mother need in the home and what they use to call the children. For here it is clear that he did not run away to a monastery and become a monk, but went with them to Nazareth, stayed among the people, and there waited for obedience to his father and mother, and let himself be brought up like another child.
(24) The crude and fanciful monks write that the infant Jesus made new birds and other animals in his youth. But these are works that do not belong to obedience and the fourth commandment. So the parents would not have told him to do such things. For filial obedience requires other works, namely, those that belong to stewardship, and which, as we see, almost no one wants to do. Of such works the evangelist reports, which are called obedience to parents.
(25) That it may be diligently observed, and that there may be no doubt that these works are so sanctified and sanctified by the infant Jesus, that we may shut our mouths, that we may come to them. But the world does not allow itself to be told. Therefore we have left such works and obedience standing, and in the name of the devil have gone to monasteries, to St. James, and elsewhere. Everyone thought he would do better and more deliciously than the dear little child Jesus. They did not see that
Such household works and obedience to father and mother are sanctified by this holy person, the Son of God, who himself in his youth carried wood, stoked the fire, fetched water, and did such other household work that we are not worthy to imitate him.
Therefore we should learn this history with diligence, and consider ourselves blessed if we walked in such obedience and works, since we see that Christ himself did not let such works spoil him. For they are a thousand times better and holier works than the works of all monks in monasteries can ever be. For the infant Jesus did not enter a monastery, but was born in a monastery.
He stayed at home and served Joseph and his mother, as an example to us, so that we might learn how such works are worthy, noble and holy, which Christ our dear Lord Himself has done.
(27) So that this is the sum of today's gospel: Christ is Lord over all, and yet, as an example to us, he lets himself down and is obedient to father and mother, so that we may learn both, first of all to obey God, and then also to be faithful to father and mother and all authorities. In this way we can boast on both sides that we have done right, and because of this all happiness and blessings will be with us. May our dear Lord Christ grant us this, amen.