Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

"Jesus as Ark"

Text: Luke 2.46

From the Old Testament of the Day: Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house, in Most Holy Place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. [1 Kings 8.6]

From the Holy Gospel: And after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. [Luke 2.46]

Because of the crowded nature of the transition from the Christmas Season to the Epiphany Season, today we observe the theme normally found on the First Sunday after the Epiphany of Our Lord, namely the Scriptural focus on Jesus at Twelve Years Old in the Temple, a revelation of the fact that your God is in-process of becoming the man, Christ Jesus.

I.

This Gospel account is an intriguing one. It is the only glimpse into the life of Jesus between His birth in Bethlehem, and the beginning of His public ministry with His baptism in the Jordan river. I think that most of us wish we could know more about Jesus as a child. It passes our understanding to grasp what it must have been like see Jesus growing from a baby, to a toddler, to a child, to a teenager, to a young adult. But, this is all we are given by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Gospel for this day begins by noting: "His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover." This year, in the text, is a special one for their family, for their Son, Jesus, is about to reach 13 years of age, at which time He would attain the Jewish rite of spiritual adulthood known as the "Bar-Mitzvah," becoming a "son of the commandment."

Thus, it was the practice of faithful Jews to take their 12 year old sons up to Jerusalem for these major feasts, in preparation for their forth-coming Bar-Mitzvah in their local synagogues. When St. Matthew’s Gospel account notes during Jesus’ final Passover leading up to His crucifixion that while at the temple boys were "crying out in the temple and saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David," these were among the large number of 12-year-old boys preparing for their Bar Mitzvah. So, today’s Gospel presents a very important time in the family of Joseph and Mary.

The holy family spends at least 8 days in Jerusalem, for the Festival of Passover is followed by the week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread. It is not a time simply to observe the religious obligation and then spend the rest of the time enjoying the company of relatives. It is a time for the family to formally introduce their 12-year-old boy to the fulness of the adult religious life and responsibilities that he will assume at His Bar Mitzvah later in the year. So, the boy Jesus has a week of exposure to this life during this Passover stay in the holy city. He is at the temple every day, seated with one of many groups of boys as they receive religious instruction from the teachers of the Law. This instruction summarizes all they had been learning from their parents at home and their rabbis in their own synagogues.

When the Feast of Unleavened Bread is concluded, the pilgrims return to their homes. And so Joseph and Mary join up in a caravan of travelers heading north to Galilee, in order to have the protection of large numbers as they take the dangerous road leading down from Jerusalem to Jericho and on to the Jordan river valley. As the texts reports, Joseph and Mary make the assumption that Jesus is with the other 12-year-olds of their relatives and traveling companions in the large caravan. According to the custom of the day, in such a caravan the women and small children went ahead and the men and older boys followed. It would be easy for each parent to think a 12-year-old boy was with the other.

Of course, they are wrong. Jesus is not among the other boys. He is back where He has been for a week, back in the temple, back with the teachers of the Law, whose attention is focused on Him, not only because of His own attitude and His questions, but also because the other 12-year-olds have all departed for their homes. Joseph and Mary discover their error of their assumption when evening comes, and the caravan stops for the night. Jesus is not where they assumed Him to be. And nothing can be done about it now. It is far too dangerous to return to Jerusalem at night. So, they must anxiously wait for morning to dawn, and while the caravan of pilgrims continues to head north on the second day of their journey, Jesus’ parents must travel south, back up to Jerusalem. They arrive at the end of this second day, and again, darkness compels them to wait until the following day to begin a search for their Son. Toward the end of that day Joseph and Mary find Jesus in the temple, among the teachers.

II.

Up to this point, what you have just heard today is what you hear every year, for how many ways are there to explain the wrong assumption, the three days of anxiety, and the discovery of Jesus in the Temple, apparently the last place that His parents sought to the find Him? But, at this point today, your attention is drawn to the Old Testament of the Day – a new reading given you by the new Lutheran Service Book. From the record of the rise and fall of the Israelite nation, you hear the description of the finishing touches being put on the glorious new temple. In this account, the Ark of the Covenant is being moved to its permanent place in the Holy of Holies of the temple.

This Ark, in its new place, becomes the very center of the life of God’s Old Testament people. The Ark, with it’s gold-plated covered called the Mercy Seat of God, is where the annual Day of Atonement occurs, where the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies just once each year, to spread the blood of the sacrificed Lamb of God on the mercy seat, thereby enacting the God-written drama in which He forgives the sins of His people, covering those transgressions that are revealed by the Law contained in the Ark.

During the wilderness wanderings, there were three things to be found in the Ark: The tables of the Law, a jar of manna, and the budded rod of Aaron. Each of these items attested to the sins of God’s people – their transgressions against the Law of God, their grumbling over the food that God provides, and their rebellion against God’s chosen spiritual leadership. Now that the Ark has a permanent home in the temple, the specific items reminding the people of wilderness transgressions are taken from the Ark, and only the tables of the Law remain as the testimony of the sins of the people.

And so the Ark is brought into the Holy of holies, underneath two huge image of winged angels, whose wing-spread, side by side, stretched from wall to wall – thirty cubits, or roughly, forty-five feet. The heavy curtain and the 15 feet staircase together separate the Holy of Holies from the so-called Holy Place where daily prayers were said. This special place in the Temple was used only once each year by the High Priest, for the annual atonement, but the Holy of Holies remained in use by God, as His authorized place on earth where He is to be found. By the Ark, God will in His Holy Temple, all the time! And so, on the glorious day mentioned in the Old Testament of the Day, The Ark comes to the temple – God’s presence comes to the temple, as He has so designed it to be.

III.

Now, your thoughts turn back to the discovery that Jesus’ parents make when they find Jesus in the temple. Of course, this is not the same building as that to which the Old Testament reading points. That temple was destroyed long ago, as also was the second temple that God authorized when the people were brought out of captivity in Babylon, back to Jerusalem. That, one, too, has been destroyed. This temple of Jesus’ day, is the third temple built in Jerusalem. It is the temple that King Herod built. It was much more grand, as humans count grand-ness, that the temples of God’s designed. It looked more like a monument to Roman architecture than a testimony of the presence of God among men.

But, it too, had a Holy of Holies, separated by curtain and staircase from the rest of the Temple. Grand images of cherubim hang inside, as of old. But, there is one difference – there is no Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies! There is no established and authorized place for the presence of God among men, where God wishes to be found! Until Jesus is brought into the temple on the day of His presentation to God and Mary’s purification according to the Law. Then, of course, He leaves. He is taken home.

Now, twelve years later, by His own adolescent drives, Jesus is again in the temple. And He is the New Testament version of the Ark – the authorized place of the presence of God among His people and the place from which is proclaimed the forgiveness of sins! Here is the presence of God among men, located not by a mercy seat – a gold-plated top to the Ark box, but located by the flesh and blood of the Son of God among men!

Jesus will return to the temple once a year, and at each time, He is the Ark of the Covenant – He is the one who confronts us with the Law that exposes are sins and the mercy that forgives them. His last trip to the temple will be during Holy Week, when He will end up outside of temple, even outside of the city, where the eternally valid sacrifice of flesh and blood will take place on the holy cross. At which time, the temple curtain is tossed aside by God, for the presence of God among men now will be, and now it – until Jesus returns at His Second Coming – wherever God gathers faithful people around Word and Sacrament – wherever Christ exposes sins and forgives them through His flesh and blood.

He does that for you, here, at this altar, every holy day! This is where you find your God, and where He touches you and forgives you and heals your soul. That is the lesson – nay, more than a lesson – that is the glorious revelation of Jesus as Ark!