Luke 2:40-52 Christmas 2A                             
St. John, Galveston 1/4/25
“The Miraculous in the Ordinary”
Rev. Alan Taylor
 
+ In Nomine Jesu +
 
Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.
 
    The message this morning is based on the Gospel reading from Luke 2. It’s the account of Mary and Joseph returning to Nazareth from Jerusalem after they celebrated the Passover. Jesus was 12 years old at the time. This is last record we have of Jesus and the Holy family until He begins His ministry at about the age of 30. At that time, He steps onto the scene, and John the Baptist declares Him to be “the Lamb or God who takes away the sin of the world.”

    Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth and childhood repeatedly emphasizes miraculous events occurring within the ordinary. I’m sure you can imagine what the headlines might have been in the Jerusalem Daily News after Jesus’ birth. “A Child is born in a stable, to a Virgin by the name of Mary!” “Some shepherds were serenaded out in the fields last night by Angels!” “The little town of Bethlehem was marked by a bright and unusual star in the night sky!” And then from the reading this morning perhaps the headline would be something like; “Rabbi’s in Jerusalem are stunned by the wisdom of a 12 year old boy!”  
 
    Though they knew their Son was extraordinary, even Mary and Joseph, didn’t quite understand that God was, in Jesus, putting the miraculous into the ordinary. After Jesus was born and after they witnessed the accompanying signs, all of which were rather miraculous, Mary and Joseph were left to raise a little boy who appeared to be an ordinary child. He played with His friends and He did everything a little boy does, apart, of course, from sin. It really couldn’t be any other way, could it, because Jesus was “like us in every way,” except, “He was without sin?”  
 
    Mary and Joseph had been in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. When it was over they made their way back to Nazareth. They didn’t think anything of not seeing Jesus for a couple of days after the left Jerusalem. Really, they didn’t! Families often traveled together for such a festival and the group of travelers could be quite large. All along the way they would stop and rest and eat. The kids would play. The parents would visit and talk. When they got ready to travel again, everyone would pack up and go. There was nothing extraordinary about Mary and Joseph not knowing exactly where Jesus was in the caravan.  
 
    In Jesus though, God put the extraordinary into the ordinary. What amazed Mary and Joseph was that Jesus had disappeared, not mind you to go off somewhere and play, but in order to go to the Temple to learn and to teach. I mean, church probably isn’t the first place you would expect to find your son if you had misplaced him! And, even if you found him in Church, or in Jesus’ case, in the Temple, you wouldn’t expect him to be teaching the Word of God to religious leaders, with the leaders riveted to his every word! Again, you can imagine the headline; “Rabbi’s in Jerusalem are stunned by the wisdom of a young boy who taught them the Word of God!”
 
    In Jesus, God put the extraordinary into the ordinary. It seems to me though that the last thing we want from God these days is the ordinary. Life, after all, gives us enough of the ordinary, doesn’t it? The clock ticks. Another New Year comes and goes. In the past year we counted our joys, but we also lamented our heartaches and our trials, didn’t we? We prayed, often expecting something extraordinary from God. Instead, God answered our prayers in a simple way. In fact, His answer may have been so simple that we failed to even acknowledge that He answered our prayer!  
 
    It seems then that the last thing we want from God these days is the ordinary because, well, because the ordinary is just so ordinary. Worse yet, what constitutes the ordinary in these troubled times is, in many cases, frighteningly unsettling.  
 
    And yet, it is precisely in the ordinary that God is at work doing what is extraordinary. If I may, I’d like to take you to a story in the Old Testament to illustrate the point I’m making about God and how He often does extraordinary things in ordinary ways. There is a story in the Old Testament about a Syrian commander by the name of Naaman. Some of you may remember the story. Naaman was afflicted with leprosy. God’s prophet at the time was Elisha. He was sent to Naaman to give him God’s remedy for his disease. He told Naaman to go and dip himself seven times in the Jordan River. Now, Naaman was furious with what Elisha told him to do. He said, “I thought that (the prophet) would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.” Then Naaman was upset that he couldn’t just go to one of the rivers in his own country. “Are not the Abana and the Pharpar (he said), the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?  Could I not wash in them and be clean?” Naaman, it would seem, wanted to dictate to God how He should do things in his life. If it couldn’t be in some miraculous fashion, then God should at least let him wash in one of the rivers of his own country.
 
    Well, God would heal Naaman, but He would not do it in the way Naaman wanted Him to. Rather, God would heal Naaman through ordinary means. In a similar fashion, God wants you to recognize that He is with you, blessing you, forgiving you, and strengthening you in the simplest and the most ordinary events of your life.  The birth of Jesus, even His visit to the Temple, which, by the way, is the Passover Lamb presenting himself for the sacrifice, are evidence that God intends to work the miraculous in your life in ways that may seem to you to be far too ordinary to be of any consequence..
 
    Those in the Temple, who were tempted to dismiss the little boy who was listening and asking questions and teaching, would do so to their own risk and even peril, because Jesus brought them extraordinary wisdom, even as He brought them life and salvation, deliverance from sin and death. Again, in a similar fashion, those who are tempted to dismiss God in the simple means that He works through today, namely, in water and His Word, and in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, which are His body and blood, do so to their own peril. Like Naaman, the Syrian, we are all sick and diseased, and God says, “I want you to wash in this water (that is, the font of Holy Baptism) because it is a “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” I want you to eat and drink this bread and wine because “they are my body and blood given and shed for YOU for the forgiveness of your sins.”    
 
    God repeatedly sets the miraculous beside the ordinary. I’ve probably heard the story about a man who was in danger of losing his life. He sat atop the roof of his house, a flood raging in a torrent all around him. He knelt down and prayed for God to save him. As time passed his prayers became a bit more forceful and a bit more desperate. “God, he said, why won’t you save me!? Why won’t you rescue me from this situation!?” He even began to bargain with God. Lord, all these things I’ll do if you will just save me!
 
    All the while, a ladder from a rescue helicopter dangled behind the man. His salvation from the raging waters of the flood was ordinary, but it was still by the hand of God. Lord Jesus, in this New Year, open our eyes to Your life-giving presence. Through Your Sacraments, and Your Spirit, bless our lives, so that the things that seem so mundane to us, might be, for us, a foretaste of all that we will enjoy in Your eternal presence. Let us gain wisdom, as our Lord, Your Son, teaches us to love and to honor Your Word.  

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
 
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.
 
+ Soli Deo Gloria +