Dearly Loved by God our heavenly Father, by whose name all fatherhood is known,
Parents used to allow their kids to roam free. My cousins and I used to say good-bye on a summer morning and my mother would not see us until supper. She thought about where we were but was not overly concerned. Society no longer lives so at ease because of its failure to teach right and wrong and punish the wrong.
Jesus had wandered away from Mary and Joseph as they traveled back to Nazareth from the Holy City after celebrating Passover. Jesus was not a small child and his parents trusted he was in the safe company of the caravan. Incidentally, the Greek word for “company” is the word, synod. We are travelling with like-minded Christians in the “company” we call the WELS.
Mary and Joseph found Jesus “in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers listening to them and asking questions.” Jesus was there because Mary and Joseph had taught their son the importance of regular Scripture study and worship. It was their custom to go to Passover. Jesus reminded them that they should not have been surprised to find him there again about his heavenly Father’s business.
Jesus is a model of a faithful student of God’s Word. Mary and Joseph are models of Christian parents and what you do: Parents Tend God’s Tender Plants. So our children grow in wisdom and stature; so they grow in the knowledge of God’s Word.
As a true man, Jesus set aside the use of his perfect knowledge. He was a learner as he grew up just like our children. Jesus also was subject to his parents as his heavenly Father’s representatives. There was no question in Jesus’ family about who the parents were, and who was the child. Christian parents know that distinction through judgment sanctified by the Holy Spirit, although we don’t always apply it.
Children are not, as my mother used to say, “to rule the roost.” There is not to be a “Kindergarchy” as one writer called it when parents do not act like parents. Mary and Joseph, Jesus’ legal father, realized they were to tend God’s tender plant. If Jesus had brothers and sisters, they were tender plants as well. Mary and Joseph had taught Jesus to obey them and he had learned his lesson well. Jesus’ perfect obedience of the Fourth Commandment was part of his active obedience by which he fulfilled the law and then offered that righteousness as payment for our sins on the cross.
Honor your father and mother is a commandment for parents. We are to love our children. We are to protect them from harm, especially spiritual harm to their souls. We feed and clothe them and teach them God’s Word. Joseph taught his son one end of a hammer from another and taught him the difference between right and wrong. Jesus had obeyed them for twelve years and it continued, “then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them…and Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men..”
We fathers, and mothers, tend God’s tender plants like Mary and Joseph tended to their children. Children grow in wisdom and stature as we care for their physical and emotional well-being. They learn unconditional love and forgiveness from our examples. They learn firm and consistent discipline. They learn to be good citizens, good neighbors, good friends with others. They come to know right from wrong and they know Jesus loves them because the Bible tells them so.
Mary and Joseph tended God’s tender plant, Jesus, also so he would grow in the knowledge of God’s Word. In this case, the teachers in the temple also served as God’s representatives. Jesus learned the Old Testament at his mother’s knee, in his father’s carpenter shop, in the synagogue in Nazareth, and in the temple at Jerusalem.
It must have been interesting, to say the least, to have Jesus as a student whether as a parent, or a rabbi, or a teacher in the temple courts. It would have been a good thing, a unique thing. Here was a student who had nothing but complete interest in God’s Word. He was eager to learn more and more. Jesus never was disrespectful with his teachers. He honored them both in the home and in church. Now at twelve, Jesus also respectfully taught his parents a lesson as he reminded them who he was.
It is impossible for us to understand how in the communication of attributes Jesus had to learn and grow in the knowledge of God’s Word. His humiliation was the non-use of his divine attributes. So according to his human nature, Jesus had to learn.
Fathers and mothers, pastors and teachers in the church are like Mary and Joseph, and Jesus’ teachers. We tend God’s tender plants under our care so they grow in the knowledge of God’s Word. We have spiritual authority as God’s representatives over our children. We teach our children at home and in the church. In church we not only teach our own children, but one another’s children in preschool, Sunday School, LES if a church has one, and high schools.
We teach our children about Adam, and Noah, and Abraham, and David just like Jesus parents and teachers taught him. They taught him about the coming Savior and Jesus knew that those Scriptures testified about him. We teach our children that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament and our Savior from sin and its curse of death. Luther wrote of our teachers in the church, “Since they are our spiritual fathers, they are entitled to corresponding honor, even more than all kinds of fathers.”
A home where parents tend to God’s tender plants with love and discipline, and teach them God’s Word is a strong home. A home where children honor and obey their parents is a happy home. A congregation strong in teaching God’s Word and learning God’s Word is a strong congregation in Christ. With knowledge and a strong and loving hand tender shoots sprout and grow into healthy plants that bear much fruit.
Fathers, and mothers, tend God’s tender plants, our children. Servant leaders in the church, tend God’s tender plants, his people. We all will grow in wisdom and stature and in the knowledge of God’s Word. We will bear fruit to God’s glory and shine out in the radiance of our Savior’s righteousness. Amen. <SDG>