Hear the words of the Collect appointed for the First Sunday after the Epiphany:

          “O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

          I’d like to challenge all of us this morning to answer a difficult question. If we could ask Almighty God for one thing – just one thing – and we were certain He would grant it, as long as it’s not contrary to His revealed will, what would it be?

          This is, of course, simply another way of asking, “What is the most important thing in the world to us?” So, if we could ask God for one thing – what would be the one thing we would ask for?…and no asking for more than one wish.

          Some of us might be tempted to ask for money. Undoubtedly, money is a good thing in and of itself. Personally, I find it very useful. But is it really the most important thing? Some of us might ask for a long life, or an extension of life. But a long life by itself may not be the best thing. Would any of us have wanted someone like Osama Bin Laden to live as long as Methuselah?

          Actually, God gave this very choice to someone over three thousand years ago. You might know the passage, related in 1^st Kings 3:5 where God tells King Solomon that he could ask for anything: “In Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee.”

          Solomon replies in Verse 9: “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?”  Solomon, of course, had asked for the wisest thing that any of us could ever ask for – he asked for wisdom.

          Many definitions of wisdom may be offered, but wisdom in Scripture has a very definite meaning. We can do no better than the definition of wisdom implied in the Collect appointed for today, in which we pray that God may grant that His people may “both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same.”

          Today’s Gospel lesson from Luke 2:41-52 deals with the only known event in Jesus’ life from the time of His birth to His baptism by John in the River Jordan. Interestingly, this passage deals not with the wisdom of Christ in His divine nature from eternity past, and not with the wisdom displayed in His public ministry, but with the wisdom He manifested when only 12 years old and not yet a teenager.

          How was the wisdom of Our Lord manifested?…by His perceiving and knowing what He ought to do – and then doing it. Our Lord was human – He had to grow, and He had to make choices. Verses 40 and 52 both mention the wisdom of the young Jesus, and therefore it appears this passage is intended to teach us about His wisdom. When He was twelve,  He demonstrated His wisdom in two ways.

          First, we read in Verse 49: “And he said unto them, How is it that ye have sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”  He knew, without being told, without being instructed, that He had to be about His Father’s business. If anyone ever knew what He ought to do, and had the grace to do it, it was Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, and our example.

          He knew what was important in His life. In fact, He was so intent on it, that it surprised those around Him – and most likely disturbed them. Verse 52 concludes: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” 

          Throughout His life, He never lost this single-minded purpose. Though the will of the Father led Him to willingly go to the Cross and all the suffering involved with it, Our Lordnever lost sight of the one thing that is necessary in life – to be about the business of our heavenly Father.

          So central to His life and ministry did Jesus consider obedience to the Father to be, that He says, “My meat is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work.” (John 4:34). Again, He says, “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgement is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the father which hath sent me.” (John 5:30).

          The second way in which Our Lord showed us His wisdom is not only in doing His heavenly Father’s business but also in being subject to His parents. His obedience to His heavenly Father and His obedience to Joseph, His earthly father, are connected – He obeyed His heavenly Father by obeying His earthly father.

          In the same way (since to love God is to obey Him), we show our love of God by loving our neighbor and by being subject to those whom God has put in some kind of authority over us. As the Father’s will is done in heaven, may it be done on earth, for this is our daily bread.

          Think about it for a minute – here you are, perfect Jesus, and you have to obey your fallible, human parents. How humbling was it for humble Joseph and Mary to realize that they had to raise a perfect son, being imperfect themselves.

          There must have been times when Our Lord obeyed Joseph and Mary, knowing He was right and they were wrong…but He was subject to them. I don’t know how many of you grew up like me, with older siblings you were compared to – but how would you have liked to have been Jesus’ younger sibling? “Why can’t you be more like Jesus?”

          We may imagine that as God, and as a human without sin that the obedience of Jesus Christ was automatic and that He didn’t have to lift a finger to obey but He was human, and He had to go through a process in His human nature…and I imagine He had to practice obedience. Even He had to start as an infant, become a toddler, and then a schoolboy, and yes, even a teenager.

          In all of these stages of life, I imagine Our Lord chose obedience. He wasn’t just righteous because He was God…as a human, He had to choose it. He chose to learn the Law, and He chose to obey it perfectly. He was tempted every way we are, yet He chose not to sin or disobey the commandments of His Father. Every time He had a choice, He made a choice for the Father.

          Maybe we’ve forgotten that obedience is a choice. We’ve been so fooled by a modern culture that wants to deny its responsibility before God that even in some churches and Christian homes people like to pretend that they aren’t really accountable. That they can’t really act any other way than the way they’re acting. They claim it must be the fault of either their genes or of their environment – because they know it can’t be their fault!

          But obedience is a choice, and the more we practice making right and godly choices, the easier they become. Each choice we make is connected to our soul and our will, and to all our other choices.

          Therefore we must follow the Wise One in His wisdom. Since, left to ourselves, we’re a ship of fools, grace is necessary. This is why in today’s   Collect we pray not only that we would know what to do but also that we “may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same.”

          Solomon had to ask for wisdom because it is a gift from God. By the grace of the One who is all-wise, the One who perfectly obeyed the will of His Father, we too can be wise.

          So how can we, by the grace of God the Father, be wise like Our Lord Jesus Christ? When He was only twelve, He taught in His Father’s house because He loved God…and He was Himself taught there. Like Him, we must love the Word of God and seek to hear it and obey it as often as we can.

          Jesus was always about His Father’s business. He was not only constantly attuned to the voice of the Father, but He made it His ambition in life to constantly obey when He heard. His calling is the same as ours because He gave it to us when He gave Himself to us.

          Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and so we must grow in wisdom…it doesn’t happen immediately or automatically. We have to take active steps, we need to make a plan to grow in wisdom and stature. This plan is known as discipleship, and it must be our life.

          How many of us can say that we are still growing in wisdom and obedience? If we want to be wise in Almighty God’s kingdom, we have to look for ways to grow spiritually. Every day is full of incredible opportunities, both small and great, to offer up ourselves as a living sacrifice to God.

          Every day, every moment, is an opportunity to make an active choice to seek and to follow the will of God. We probably already know some of the ways that He is asking us to be wiser by obeying Him more faithfully.

          The secret of the wisdom of Jesus Christ was that He made Himself a living sacrifice to the Father, and the secret to the wisdom of the ages is to seek the will of Almighty God by offering ourselves up to Him also as a living sacrifice, every moment of every day of our lives.

          Wisdom is a life of knowing what we ought to do and then doing it. As we offer up our daily prayers, let us all include something like:

“Almighty and Ever living God, I pray thee give me the wisdom and the strength to know and to do Your will.”

Amen,

The Rev. Deacon Timothy Fleming