The Journey

[00:00:00] In the name of jesus. Amen. [00:00:10] The journey that all the males in Israel were commanded to make every year to Jerusalem for the Passover was no small journey. You know, depending on where you came from. I guess if you were in a town near Jerusalem, it wasn't as big a deal. But the trek from Nazareth was quite a journey. There were a couple ways to get there, but one of the common ways was to travel down the Jordan River Valley. [00:00:41] The Jordan river went down from. [00:00:45] Well, from past Jerusalem in the south, it went down north down to the Sea of Galilee, and Nazareth was just a little bit over. I'm doing it backwards, actually. So Nazareth, Sea of Galilee on a map. [00:01:01] So it would be going up to Jerusalem, which is a little counterintuitive for me today. [00:01:07] I think of the landscape pretty abstractly. [00:01:11] Like, I might talk about my parents coming up from Denver to Greeley. [00:01:16] Well, it's actually coming down to Greeley, and a lot of you probably sense that. [00:01:22] I think we're getting more and more abstracted from the reality of landscape. [00:01:28] But really, going up to Denver is going up to Denver. We're about 500ft lower, I think. [00:01:35] Well, the terrain was pretty noticeable on that journey as they went up the Jordan River Valley. [00:01:44] Well, that's gradual enough, but once you get to around Jericho, then you're going to be turning and making the journey up fairly steeply, up a dry riverbed path, along a dry riverbed and up to Jerusalem. [00:02:04] So this journey they were commanded to make every year, it was an ascent, it was a climb. They were going up to the highest place to Jerusalem, which also happens to be the center of the life of Israel. [00:02:20] Think about it that way. They were all converging on that point every year, all of them going up, making this journey of ascent up to Jerusalem. [00:02:32] And they had prayers to sing together on their way up. So this was no mere, you know, yearly family reunion or something like that. This was a spiritual pilgrimage. It was a journey for spiritual growth. It was like we might have a retreat or something like that. You know, you go to a retreat and maybe it's kind of the spiritual highlight of the year. You kind of reach a high point of focusing on God, maybe growing and learning together with others. You have this experience, maybe prayer is more fruitful or more focused in that time. And then you go home and you hope that you bring some of that back with you and you look forward to next year. [00:03:25] That's what this journey was like. [00:03:29] You can look up the psalms of ascent. [00:03:32] Those would be the prayers that they would sing together on their journey. One of them goes like this. It's Psalm 121. It starts off, I lift up my eyes to the hills. [00:03:43] From where does my help come? [00:03:45] My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. [00:03:50] So picture them. They get to Jericho and kind of turn the corner and start their journey up toward Jerusalem. [00:03:59] And they're singing, I lift up my eyes to the hills. So they're looking up and saying, from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. And then the rest of it is kind of like, he'll keep us safe on the journey. [00:04:15] He will not let your foot be moved. [00:04:18] He who keeps you won't slumber. He's watching over you. And then it kind of goes on to the journey of life. [00:04:25] He'll keep you along the journey of life. He'll keep you safe. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. [00:04:33] This prayer here, they are making a journey up to Jerusalem, and they're singing about God's provision for them and reminding themselves, remembering, with the prayer God gave them in the Psalms, the prayer of the Holy Spirit. [00:04:47] They're remembering where their help comes from. Not just on that journey, but on their whole journey of life. The Lord will keep your going in and you're coming out and you're going in. From this time forth and forevermore. [00:05:02] This is like a yearly. [00:05:04] Yeah, a yearly retreat kind of experience. [00:05:08] A journey of spiritual growth and all of it aiming their life toward the center of their life, really, the source of their life. What connects them all together as God's people. [00:05:25] It wasn't just Jerusalem, but Jerusalem had a center as well, and a highest point. [00:05:32] The highest point in Jerusalem was the Temple. [00:05:35] And so they were going up, not just to Jerusalem, but to the Temple to celebrate the Passover together. And the point of the Passover, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, was to remember what God had done and where salvation had come from and how they had become a people, the people of God. [00:06:00] It was God's salvation bringing them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. God rescuing them from Pharaoh, from the oppression and slavery that they were suffering. [00:06:14] He brought them out. [00:06:16] And that's important because there are lots of other things that they could look to for salvation, for identity, for power, for honor, for provision. [00:06:30] It certainly didn't help them to go on this journey. You know, financially, it would have cost them something. There's the opportunity, cost of the labor they left behind. [00:06:40] There's the Cost of the food along the way. I imagine they must have been purchasing food as they went. And then in Jerusalem, they must have been, you know, it's like going to a football game where the price is elevated, you know, I don't know. [00:06:57] Did the merchants have to pay for a stall, you know, to sell their goods, to sell their food and such? I don't know how that worked, but I imagine that the journey, while worth the cost, cost them something. [00:07:16] But it was worth was all pointing them to God, who alone provides for them, alone is their salvation. I lift up my eyes to the hills from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. [00:07:35] So this is the journey that they were undertaking. [00:07:38] Jesus and his mother and father and lots of other relatives. [00:07:44] And they get to their destination and they celebrate the Passover. And then the Passover is over and it's time to go home. [00:07:53] And they all leave together. Must have been a big group for them to have missed Jesus, not realized he wasn't with them. So they leave and they're on the way down, right? The retreat's over. We're going home. [00:08:06] Like, we had our kind of our spiritual high. You know, we were on the mountaintop, now we're going home. But Jesus stays there. [00:08:18] He stays in the highest place. [00:08:20] In fact, not just in Jerusalem, but he's hanging out in the temple, the highest, highest place. [00:08:27] And he's not just hanging out there. [00:08:29] He's wowing the. [00:08:32] The religious leaders. Not just any religious leaders. These are the ones that are hanging out in the temple. These are the ones that didn't come on pilgrimage because they're there at the center. [00:08:43] Maybe they're the teachers. They're the ones who are explaining God's word to the masses who are coming. Pastor Woodward mentioned St. Louis this morning and called it Mecca, or you might say Zion. Some people call it Zion on the Mississippi. [00:09:01] For us, that's kind of the center of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. So you can imagine the best theological teachers, the best explicators of God's word, are going to be hanging out in St. Louis, right there at the center. [00:09:16] My seminary professors, it's like those are the people that Jesus is wowing. [00:09:25] So they go on this journey for spiritual benefit that God has set up for them. They get to the height, to the center, and receive the benefit as they celebrate the Passover together. [00:09:38] But Jesus actually belongs at the top. Jesus, even at 12 years old, you know, he doesn't need the spiritual journey. [00:09:47] He's the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. [00:09:52] He's the man from heaven who's descended to us, who's become one of us. Not because it helped him out or made him greater or exalted him, gave him honor, although he's honored and glorified in his own self giving and descent to us. [00:10:15] He did it out of. Out of love for you and me this morning. In this passage, we see Jesus in both places where he belongs, both in the highest place as the Son of God and the only perfect human being. [00:10:35] The one who has come from the Father, who's seen the Father, who knows the Father, who makes the Father known. [00:10:44] The one who is the exact imprint of his nature, says Hebrews 1. [00:10:51] The one who is the image of the invisible God, as Paul says in Colossians. The One who unites all things in heaven and on earth, the One who's been sent to save us. We see him in the highest place. [00:11:06] But then he goes to Nazareth, the lowest place. Remember, can anything good come out of Nazareth? [00:11:14] We hear at the beginning of John, he takes the lowest place and submits to his parents. [00:11:21] You know, one of the most striking things, maybe one of the things that catches your attention first about this story is the way that he speaks to his mother, right? [00:11:34] I think in. In his interaction with Mary, you see these two things as well. [00:11:40] He's both submitting to his parents, but also kind of properly putting Mary in his place. [00:11:49] In her place, he says, why were you looking for me? Didn't you know that's what a teacher says? It sounds like Jesus is talking with his disciples and saying, o you of little faith, right? He says that to his mother. [00:12:09] But that's really important. [00:12:12] If all we had in Scripture was Jesus submitting to his mother as his authority, well, then probably many would be worshiping Mary, right? Lifting her up. It's like, well, if. [00:12:29] If Mary has authority over Jesus, she must have the name above all names, right? [00:12:35] And yet Jesus doesn't just lord it over Mary. Jesus doesn't just speak to Mary as her Lord, which he is. [00:12:45] He also submits to her. [00:12:49] See, this is the kind of the dual identity and dual movement of Jesus. That he is above all and all things belong to him. And yet he takes the lowest place, submits to his parents for our sake. [00:13:08] And that matters. That matters for you and me. [00:13:12] Because the One who has all the gifts, the One who is life, who's the true light which enlightens everyone, the One who is wisdom from on high, the One who is the Lord's salvation. That's what his name means. [00:13:26] He should be called Jesus because he'll save his people from his sins, from their sins. [00:13:32] He's the one who's come to our place. [00:13:37] You know, we need everything that Jesus has. [00:13:41] We need to be right with God. We need righteousness. [00:13:46] We need peace, and he is our peace. We need light. We need understanding in the darkness, and he is the light. [00:13:58] We need everything that he has. [00:14:00] Well, including forgiveness. [00:14:03] He has forgiveness to give you and me. [00:14:07] We need all these things. And, well, if he just stayed in the highest place and hung out there, it might be up to us to make that journey, to lift ourselves up into the hills and grasp it, to ascend to that place. And we just can't do it. That's why it's like I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? [00:14:37] Well, that's nice that it comes to us, right? We receive it, we don't go and get it. We don't go and earn these things from God, lift ourselves up into God's graces with good behavior or that kind of thing. [00:14:56] And yet we do. We do come, we do travel, we make the journey. [00:15:03] All right, here's a connection. [00:15:08] I was talking about the landscape of Israel and the ascent that's made every year. Well, there's kind of an ascent right here. [00:15:19] It's shaped the same way in a, you know, pretty humble way. I mean, you know, you could find churches. My father in law was just showing me pictures of churches in Spain that just. It's like, you know, and it's silver all the way up, right, that's designed to. [00:15:41] Well, after the landscape of Israel, there's an ascent there and a recognition that God is the highest. He is, you know, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace as he gives his favor, as he gives his grace. Here we are. [00:16:07] And when we have communion, you know, here Jesus is giving himself to us in the highest place. And here we are coming to his table and lifting our eyes up to the hills from whence our help comes and Jesus descends to us. [00:16:31] He has brought all the gifts to us down to us. So that it's not when you're having, like when you're on a spiritual high, when you're at a high place in your spiritual life, then you've got the gifts. [00:16:46] No, it's like when you're in the midst of temptation or difficulty or suffering, when you're in the hospital bed or when it feels like nothing can go right. [00:16:55] That's where Jesus is right there. [00:16:59] It's in the wilderness. Being tempted by the devil, like that's where Jesus went for us. [00:17:05] It's suffering on the cross, taking on, humbling himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. [00:17:12] It's there where he's weak and powerless, where we are weak and powerless, that he has come to bring us his gifts. [00:17:20] And so there, in the very low point of weakness and temptation and humiliation, loss of honor. [00:17:28] That's where Jesus is to give you and me his gifts. [00:17:35] And he's called our attention. [00:17:37] He's drawn you and me to himself, to recognize where our help comes from, to recognize where our salvation comes from. Our strength, our hope, our life, our forgiveness, our light, understanding all of those things. [00:17:55] And so in faith, we lift up our eyes to the hills. That's not even something we could do on our own, but, well, God has called us by the gospel and enlightened us with his gifts. And so in faith, we lift up our eyes to the hills, to Jesus Christ, our rock, our mountain, our salvation, our fortress. [00:18:21] He is. [00:18:24] He is the destination of our spiritual journey. [00:18:28] I want to leave with this image as we find ourselves in those low places. [00:18:39] There's a journey to be undertaken, and we do undertake that journey. Think about a time or just the experience of anxiety. [00:18:51] When you're anxious, you're not just. It's not like I've arrived at my destination. I'm just going to be anxious. [00:18:59] No, you want something else. [00:19:02] You want to leave your anxious situation and come to rest, to peace, understanding, whatever it is you're lacking. [00:19:11] There's something unresolved and you want resolution. [00:19:15] You can think of that like a journey. [00:19:19] You can think of it like seeking. Think of it like Mary looking for her child everywhere, in every place. Like, where is he? [00:19:29] She's looking for Jesus. [00:19:33] Well, you and I, when we're looking for peace or stability, when we're looking for provision for honor, any of those things, well, Jesus is all that for us. [00:19:48] Like maybe we're looking for it in the wrong places or misidentifying what we really need. [00:19:57] Jesus is the end of every such journey that we take. [00:20:01] He's the destination and he's come to us to bring us there. [00:20:10] And so faith, like the activity of faith, is to look to Jesus and to follow him and to let him lead us to Himself, to give us everything that he has. [00:20:25] That's faith and that's Christmas. [00:20:29] Jesus, who as the name above all names, who has everything, has come to us to give Himself to us. And we. [00:20:38] That's the Christian life. We look to him and receive everything from Him. He's our life. He's the center of our life together. We all. We all come together, journey here to receive him, to eat his body and drink his blood, to hear his word and to be filled with him and remade in Him. To be built together into his body. [00:21:00] Jesus Christ is our journey and our destination. He's our life. In Jesus name, amen.