“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” (St. Luke ii. 52.)
Epiphany is a teaching season, and we will learn about three significant events in the life of Christ over the next few weeks. We will hear about Jesus’ baptism by John, and the miracle at the wedding feast in Cana. Today, we have emphasized the great wisdom and understanding shown by Jesus in the temple. But, there is another significant message in this Gospel and it deals with obedience.
The 16th verse of the 16th chapter of Deuteronomy reads “Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the Lord empty.” It was not just custom that prompted Joseph to bring Jesus to Jerusalem for the feast of unleavened bread or Passover. He was doing so in obedience to the laws written in the Torah. This obedience was just as important as the teaching in the temple. But what happened between this event and the Baptism by St. John some eighteen years later?
St. Luke says, “And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them.” After this awakening to the need to be about His Father’s business, Jesus returned to Nazareth and was obedient to Mary and Joseph. The significance of this obedience is that He came into the world to offset the disobedience of Adam and to offset the disobedience of the people of Israel who repeatedly broke the Covenant.
He offset it by His obedience, not only to Mary and Joseph, but most especially, by His obedience to His heavenly Father. Our text today says, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” He increased in favor with man by obeying Mary and Joseph and the laws of the land. He increased in favor with God by obeying God’s laws. It was by Christ’s obedience to His heavenly Father that He was able to redeem us. His increasing in favor with God and man provides an example that you and I can follow. We too are called to be obedient to God’s laws and to the laws of the land.
We acknowledge that we must be obedient to God’s law. And we consider it a personal choice guaranteed by the First Amendment to our constitution. And yet, we live at a time and in a society where God’s order and his law are often denied or ignored. We realize that we do not live in a religious society. To insure religious freedom for everyone, our society must maintain a secular view to preserve order. But even in a secular society, the laws of God must take precedence over the laws of man.
It would be a complete failure of society if we were forced to directly break one of the Ten Commandments. Fortunately, most contradictions occur where man’s laws allow an action that is in violation of God’s law. We can stand firm and obey God’s law because we are not forced to take every action allowed by man’s law. But is it enough to obey God’s law and let man’s law stand in contradiction? Are we satisfying our Christian duty if we let others think that man’s laws are adequate in themselves? Shouldn’t we be educating others to get man’s laws in line with God’s laws?
If a man is an alcoholic, we don’t give him a bottle to perpetuate his sin. A true Christian would not give drug paraphernalia to an addict. We would not give a little black book to a philanderer. We are told to love the sinner and hate the sin. We cannot encourage the activity and still educate the sinner to resist it.
Man’s laws are intended for the good order of society. Is not God’s law adequate for that task? Following God’s laws will accomplish the good order of society. Man’s laws are only needed because as a society, we often fail to follow God’s laws. God revealed what He wants us to do and we are called to understand and know and follow His sovereign law. Not only will God’s law provide good order for our society, it will prevent us from being so encumbered by sin that we forget that we were made for God and not for anything else.
In Second Timothy, Paul says, “The time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but following their own desires, will surround themselves with teachers who tickle their ears.” He wrote that 1900 years ago, but doesn’t it sound contemporary? Rather than embracing the sound doctrine of God’s revelation, many people today support the short-sighted teaching of social scientists. Much of it is not of God. It is not His word. It is not the revealed teaching of God. Optimistically, it is an honest attempt to eliminate the conflict between what mankind should do and what mankind prefers to do.
Why shouldn’t we accept honest attempts to compromise and eliminate conflicts? First, if we accept their conclusions, based solely on the elimination of conflict, we are overlooking the sins causing the conflicts. There is but one standard used by secular authorities – the avoidance of conflict. As peaceful as that sounds, nothing in Holy Scriptures tells us we will be able to avoid conflict in this life. We are being led to deny the existence and the sovereignty of God in our world. God’s order, established when He created this world, is the only standard capable of guiding us back to Him. We look at society and say, “It is coming apart at the seams.” Why, because we are basing our lives on the singular standard of compromise. We are ignoring God’s will. He is the Lord of life. He is the Lord of each of us, body and soul and spirit. If we ignore His will, to follow our own feeble attempts to control His creation, we are doomed to violate His order.
Jesus came down to Nazareth, was obedient to Mary and Joseph, and gave us an example of how you and I are to live. He followed the Torah, the law. You and I are to follow the law as well and are reminded to respect the authority of our government. When we hear one of man’s laws, we can ask, “Is this of God or not?” If it does not follow God’s revelation of His will, we have the contradiction referred to earlier. We are not forced to practice abortion or euthanasia. We do not have to follow an alternate life style that differs from the one guided by God’s revelations. We have Free Will to make choices to live outside of God’s will or to align our will with His. Remember, it is God’s will that grants us the privilege of making that choice and we must make that choice carefully.
Before we feel too comfortable knowing we are not partaking of those privileges made permissible by man’s law, consider how many times silence implies acceptance. Do we let those who make our laws, know what is important to us? Do we state our objections to funding god-less activities with our tax dollars? It is hard to do. It is a sacrifice to engage that battle with the unbelievers. It is the sacrifice Paul is describing in the Epistle today.
These words are repeated in every communion in our church and they provide an excellent guide to evaluating the choices in our lives. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect, will of God.”
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. (St. Matthew vii. 21.)