My Father’s house

Enter his gates with thanksgiving

And his courts with praise. Psalm 100:4

 

Read Luke 2:41—52

It will not be long, if I flip further along in Luke’s account, before Jesus, now a grown man, goes to the synagogue. He will be asked to preach. The reading will be from Isaiah, ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.’[1] The sermon Jesus preaches is short, about the shortest I’ve ever heard, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’[2] It would make me think hard, not just about what the text said, but who it was who was preaching today. So I can see just how much Jesus was really at home in the things of the Father. As in the temple at twelve years of age, so he has moved among Israel’s scriptures, and there he has found his Father, and there he has found himself! At home! In all the things of God. All the things of the Father have been given to him, to share with us.[3] As I rest in Jesus tonight I have this treasure to ponder in my heart.[4]

 

Father, I thank you this night that I have the opportunity to sit at the side of Jesus, that I have this one story from his growing days, that he saw and knew that you are Father. I thank you that all things he received from you he was given to live in the flesh, and to share with me and with all who will receive what he has to give. I thank you that this is about my very being, my being in your house, my true home. My true home is in Christ and so it is in you. And this life I now have is not enough to exhaust it, rather to introduce me to it.[5] If there has been some time in this day when I have seen or remembered, or, now that I think of it, that has even hinted at these things, then I thank you for the whole of this day.

[1]Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18

[2]Luke 4:21

[3]Matthew 11:27

[4]Luke 2:51

[5]John 14:2—3