St. John's Lutheran Church - Sermon: We trust each other best when we first trust God.

Anyone here who has been a parent would very likely agree that parenting can have some very anxious moments. Parents can find themselves anxiously listening to the breathing of their baby because they know that small babies sometimes forget to breathe. They are anxious when their babies first start to roll or to crawl or to walk. They are anxious when the children first go to out to play at someone else’s house. The first day of school, the first friendship, the first signs of independence, the first job, or girlfriend or boyfriend, leaving home the first time – all these things can be a great source of anxiety for parents.

Why? Because they challenge parents to find an answer to the question, “Is it trust or is it wishful thinking?” You see, a very key part to any relationship you have with anyone, no matter how young and helpless that person might be has to do with trust. You trust that the baby is developed enough to breathe on its own and from there on, you trust that your child is capable of handling not just increased independence, but the increased responsibilities that go along with it. It is wishful thinking if you let a child face life without the proper preparation and simply assume your child will be alright. It is trust when you have done everything you can to equip that child and then allow your child to test out the things that he or she has been taught. For that reason, when a parent allows a child to actually do something on their own, it is really a test of trust. It is not just the child who is being tested, either, but both.

Our Gospel lesson this morning is an example of this. Mary and Joseph endured a very painful test of trust as they found themselves anxiously looking for their boy, Jesus. In the end, they learned that they certainly could trust Jesus because they were reminded in this to trust in God!

This is a good place to start looking into things more deeply when it comes to trust. The whole point of our Lord’s relationship with His disciples, for example, was to train them to trust. Jesus said in John 14:1, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me.” He had spent three years teaching the disciples everything that they needed to know in order to know their salvation and trust in that salvation. Then, when it was time for Jesus to pay the price for our sins, and time to allow the disciples the freedom and responsibility that comes with being on their own, Jesus gave them a special blessing of trust. He said that just as He had prepared them to face the challenges of this life, He was now going to prepare a place for them with the Father in Heaven.

This, then, is what it means to trust in God. Trust is a firm belief in someone’s reliability. It is a confident expectation that the person you trust knows what he or she is doing. When you trust in God, what you are saying is that you know God’s Word and that you are confident that you will have enough support from that Word to guide you and to lead you and to comfort you and to strengthen you. You are saying that you are convinced that God will never lead you astray or abandon you or neglect you. When you say that you trust in God, then this trust will prove to be a blessing to you, even during times when it is hard to see that things are going to turn out just right.

The relationship of trust that you have with the people in your life has a similar starting point. There are enough things that happen in life to make it clear that people can’t always be trusted. There are times when the people you rely on most betray your trust by forgetting the promises they have made. They show that trust can be a shaky thing when they use the things you have trusted them with to gather power for themselves or to humiliate you. Your loved ones, just like you, can quickly abuse trust and break the hearts of the people who have invested trust in them. This is what makes trust such a shaky thing, and this is what causes such anxiety when you are pretty sure that you can trust someone, but then something happens to raise doubts and fears and before long, you are in a downright panic. Before long, you find yourself wondering if you trusted that person because he or she was ready to be trusted, or because you simply needed to trust them for your own sake. It goes back to the question: is it trust or wishful thinking?

This brings us to Mary and Joseph’s great test. They expected Jesus to be an obedient son. They trusted Him, but the question really was, “Did they trust Him as normal parents trust a normal 12 year old, or did they trust Him as the person who the angel had said He would be, and who Simeon and Anna said He would be?”

In Jesus' day the Feast of the Passover was a very big thing. The rule had once been that all Jewish men were supposed to gather in Jerusalem for the three days of the festival. However, over time, Jews became dispersed throughout the Roman empire and the old rule became so difficult to keep that it stopped being a requirement and became more a tradition than anything else. By the time that Jesus was a boy, the Passover trip to Jerusalem was taken mostly by only the most pious men, and they brought their wives and children along. They would travel in large groups, visting each other and camping together along the way. This not only made the trip safer, but it made it more fun. Children would run off to travel with their friends, women would walk together in their groups, and the men would stick together and talk about the things that interested them. Often these groups of travellers would include entire clans. When night came, children would often sleep over at the tents of their relatives and friends and during the day, parents could be assured that some relative or friend was looking after their children together with all the rest of kids.

In other words, Luke is telling us that Mary and Joseph were actually very faithful people. The fact that they took the long, expensive trip every year showed that they were like the active, "every Sunday" Christians that pastors cherish so much nowadays. The fact that they took Jesus along showed that Mary and Joseph did everything they could to make sure that Jesus had a proper upbringing. Even the fact that Mary and Joseph lost track of Jesus says something. It says that they had a very good relationship with their son, and trusted Him so much that they were not afraid that He would run off to get into trouble. They knew He would behave Himself wherever He was. Even so, every good parent keeps track of their children, and when the time came for the parents to keep track, the unfortunate couple knew they had a problem!

They had to search for their son. We only search when we don't know where to look for something. In our translation, the twelve year old Jesus told Mary and Joseph, "Why were you searching for Me? Didn't you know I would be in My Father's house?" Actually, the King James Version has a much better translation here. The Greek actually says this, "Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?" Mary and Joseph would not have needed to look if they had understood just who their Son was. They would not have had to be so anxious and worried if they had remember that Jesus was no ordinary child. They would have spared themselves a great deal of grief if they had remembered Jesus would be near the Father!

That is something that we need to remember, too, especially when the people we love have fallen short of the trust we have placed in them. There are times when we realize that it really was just wishful thinking when we thought we could trust someone. Those times, when the trust we have placed in other people proved misplaced, we have the temptation to think that God Himself betrayed our trust along with that person. Our ability to trust gets so bruised that it becomes a challenge to trust God Himself. It is like we think that if anyone can betray our trust, then everyone can, and everyone is doing it right now.

In our lesson this morning, though, we have a beautiful example of how God works in us precisely when we need confidence from Him the most. Mary and Joseph didn’t understand Jesus’ answer to them right away. Luke tells us, “They did not understand what He was saying to them.” Later, though, Luke tells us that “Mary treasured all these things in her heart.” What did she treasure there?

When Mary had time to think, she had time to realize that Jesus was asking the Bible experts questions and listening very well to the answers. She realized that Jesus appreciated the Word of God and respected those people whom God entrusted to teach the Word. Jesus also showed His deep understanding of God’s Word. He showed that He certainly was equipped and He certainly was ready by God’s Word to trust in God Himself. Mary and Joseph were first so astonished to see their son behave as He did that they couldn’t take it all in, but once they had time to think about it, they came to realize that they could trust in God Himself to help them in their own challenge of trust. They came to realize that they could trust in God to show them that we are prepared and we have prepared our own children when they have a sincere desire to know for themselves what God has to say to them through His Word.

Paul tells us in our second lesson this morning that the key to trust in God is this, “You were included in Christ when you heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” (Ephesians 1:13) This does not mean that you are guaranteed salvation no matter what. This does not mean that you can go off and sin whatever sin pleases you and put yourself into all sorts of situations in which you are greatly tempted and expect to come out fine. What it does mean, though, is that if you are filled with worry and doubt and anxiety and all those things for fear that God’s Word is not clear enough or God’s love is not strong enough, you have these words to hold onto in faith. You have heard the Word of Truth. You can certainly trust in that Word by a trust that is greater than anything that you can come up with yourself. You can trust by the power of God Himself who has chosen you in the first place and who has lavished His on you the riches of His grace and wisdom and understanding.

The best place to look for Jesus is where He wants us to be! That is really the key to finding Him. Mary and Joseph would not have had such worries if they had remembered that Jesus is found where God's grace is found. Jesus is found where God speaks to us. He is found to that place where God brings us when we come to faith and receive the great blessings of faith. He is found where He Himself reaches out to us in the Holy Spirit as God’s own Word works on us through hearing that Word, or receiving that Word in Baptism or the Lord’s Supper. When we learn to be about the Father's business, and not just our own, then we learn how to find Jesus exactly how He is and where He is!

How can we learn to look for Jesus in the right sorts of places? Our epistle lesson this morning tells us God provides for that. Here we learn Jesus came to us to "bring many sons to glory." Here we learn that Jesus was born to make us family so that we can know Him as a brother. Jesus came to be like us so that He could put His trust in God for our sake and offer us the faith to trust in God ourselves. Jesus came to be our enabler. He came to enable us to believe. He came to unable us to understand. He came to teach us, Jesus is found where His Father's business is done. Jesus is found among us! Are you searching for Jesus? Then look right here! Amen.