Home is Where My Heart Is

---

Home is where the heart is. Home isn’t always where we are but where we sometime want to be. Home is where we feel comfortable and relaxed around familiar people and things. Like family - friends – the home we grew up in – the streets – shops and parks we recognize. Comfortable and relaxed and familiar. 

I grew up in Surrey – I graduated from Queen Elizabeth High School in Surrey – my first wife was from Surrey- and most of our families were in Surrey. After I graduated from the University of British Columbia I joined the RCM Police and I was posted to Surrey. My childhood home.

Most of the members of the RCMP were from someplace east of Hope. Up here in the interior of B.C. – from the Prairies – from Central Canada – or from the Maritimes. At Christmas or for summer vacation most of them would head back to where they came from – like Moose Jaw or Sudbury or Come-by- Chance, Newfoundland. Some just needed that recognizable comfort and refreshment that comes from being where home used to be.

Luke telling the story of the young Jesus in the temple “…with the Jewish teachers, listening to them and asking questions.” - is the only event we have telling us about the early life of Jesus. But these eleven verses in Luke tell us a lot about him at twelve years of age. 

Luke begins by telling us when this took place. In v 14 – 15 we read:

“Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom.”

The custom – as Luke tell us - was from the Law of Moses. This is what God says to Moses about attending required festivals. In Exodus 23: 14-17 we read:

“Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me.

“Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt.

“No one is to appear before me empty-handed.

“Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field.

“Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.

“Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord.

The first festival of Unleavened Bread is Passover. The month of Aviv is late March into April. 

The second is the festival of First Fruits which is Pentecost. Fifty days after Passover.

The third is the festival of Indwelling which is Tabernacles. Sometime referred to as the festival of shelters. It is late summer into early fall.

In addition to the requirement to attend the festivals God told Moses what it meant when a man brought an offering to the LORD. According to the Law of Moses in Leviticus - every male was to bring a perfect sacrifice to the LORD. In Leviticus 1: 3-5 this is what God said to Moses to tell the Israelites about what kind of sacrifice a man was to bring before the LORD and what that sacrifice would do for him; 

“‘If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, you are to offer a male without defect. You must present it at the entrance to the tent of meeting so that it will be acceptable to the Lord. 4 You are to lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you. 5 You are to slaughter the young bull before the Lord.”

Some twenty one years later Jesus became the perfect sacrifice for all us. Symbolically we lay our hands on Jesus when we accept him as our LORD and Saviour. He is our burnt offering. And his sacrifice atones for our sins.

Some years ago – when I attended a different church – an elderly lady (well elderly to me at the time) said the Old Testament did not apply to us today. In some things like the sacrificial system that is correct. However, I disagreed with her – the Old Testament does apply to us as much as it applied to the people of that ancient time. The Word of God did not stop at the birth of Jesus the Christ child. 

By living a perfect sinless life Jesus is our righteousness. During his lifetime he lived perfectly according to all of God’s laws and commandments in the Old Testament. In the gospel of Matthew 3: 13-15 we read:

“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.

Jesus is saying to John that he must do all that is required of him according to the Old Testament. 

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament.

When we read the Old Testament, it is full of prophetic verses that point to Jesus either at his first coming or his second coming.

And when Jesus’s family travels to the Temple in Jerusalem to attend to the Passover they are fulfilling one of the Old Testament Commands from God.

So - Mary and Joseph took their family to Jerusalem travelling with a group of family and friends from Nazareth. It was common to travel in groups for protection against road robbers. Also -it’s nicer to have others along as companions to talk with.

As Luke tells us - Jesus stayed in the city when the family returned to Nazareth. But Mary and Joseph did not discouver that he was missing until the end of the day. Luke says at v. 44-45:

“Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.”

You might have noticed as I did - that he had spent three days in God’s temple and later he spends three days in the grave. 

Anyway – Mary and Joseph seek and find him after searching for three days..

As parent we can understand their concern for their Son. Worried that some terrible thing might have happened to him. Luke tells us what Mary said when they found him at v. 48b: 

“Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” 

These are some of the most understated words in the Bible. For most of us our first thoughts and words would be something like relief and thankfulness that we have found our missing child. Then we - might express a little anger for doing what he did without telling us.

But Jesus said to them – almost in a matter-of-fact way - at v; 48b “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

Jesus is twelve years old and Jewish boys attended their Bar Mitsvah at thirteen signifying that they had reached religious adult hood. It seems that Luke is suggesting that Jesus is already religiously mature. In the discourse with the religious leaders Luke says at v 47:

 “Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers”.

It seems that Jesus may have already felt the special relationship he had with God his heavenly Father. He says to Mary and Joseph that he is in “…my Father’s house.” He didn’t say the temple. 

He makes the point that this is a place special to him and his heavenly Father. Was the arrangement and furnishings of the Temple familiar to him because it was the home he remembered.?

Years later after he enters Jerusalem, he enters the court yard of the Temple and chases out those selling and the money changers - he says in Matthew 21: 13 “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,…” and in Luke almost the same thing; “‘My house will be a house of prayer…”

Luke may have put in this event to assure us that God was not inactive between the nativity and when Jesus began his ministry. Clearly he was not. By the time the Magi arrived to worship Jesus – he was between one- and two-years old. And God told Joseph in a dream to take the family to Egypt. Then God would call his Son out of Egypt fulfilling the prophesy of Hosea 11: 1; “…out of Egypt I called my son.” And he would have been active in the lives of John the Baptist - the disciples and world events.

Home is where our heart is and where our soul resides for eternity. 

At twelve years did Jesus recognize that heaven was his home and that God Almighty was his heavenly Father? Later in the Gospel of John 14: 10 Jesus is aware of his relationship with is heavenly Father when he says to the disciples:

” Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? “

Twelve is young but for a Jewish boy to effectively discuss God’s Holy Word with religious teachers. It seems that Jesus was already there. 

So the young Jesus goes home with his parents and as Luke says he; “…grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” The might and power of God continued to grow within him. And that power was for us to see so that our faith would be in him.

Finally – where is our home. For those who put their faith in Jesus it is not here in the world – even though we must live in the world we must be diligent and continue to remind ourselves that our home is with our LORD in heaven. He tells us so in the gospel of John 14: 1-3:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

A promise that is in the blood of Jesus – whose sacrificed saved us and made us righteous before God Almighty.

Amen Come LORD Jesus

Copyright © 2026 St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, Kamloops

https://standrewslutheran.ca

View this sermon presented live here: https://youtu.be/R3cTYzBxM9Y