The Gift of the Intergenerational Church

And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress. And he said to them, why were you looking for me?

Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house? And they did not understand the saying he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and with man.

This is the word of the Lord. This morning, I don't mind saying I've been influenced by a particular article that I read in a magazine called Trowel and Sword Revisited. It was published at the end of last year. If you'd like to read on and work out where I'm coming from this morning, there's an editorial piece in here written by Peter Stock, who used to be the minister in the Wishart congregation, and I invite you to get a copy of it from me if that's what you'd like to do after the sermon. Now to begin, just about every time you read a biography about a famous person, mentally at least you start joining the dots, don't you?

You start to answer the question, how is it possible that this particular person achieved so much, or how did they become the best at their game? And you can see things in their life story that gel, that kind of, yeah, make a connection, so it's understandable this is how they should end up. Doesn't matter if you're reading a biography about a famous leader or an artist or an athlete, there's usually a style childhood story where you begin to think, ah, yeah, I can see that's where it might have begun. The first time he stood up for a bullied friend, and today he's a famous lawyer in the court of law. Or the first time she went to, heard an orchestra live in concert, and now she's playing the violin.

Or a notebook full of sketches, and today he's a famous artist. Well, what about this? Even as a six year old getting roller skates for her birthday, and in 2032 she's earmarked to participate in the skateboard championships representing Australia at the Olympic Games all because she got those roller skates when she was little. What's striking is that the gospels almost completely refuse to give us these moments for Jesus. I mean, we have angels, we have shepherds, we've got the Magi, we have Simeon and Anna in the temple, he's still an infant, but then silence.

Thirty years of quiet anonymity before Jesus takes to his public ministry. Except for this, those few brief verses that Rob shared with us this morning. Luke gives us one small snapshot of the boy Jesus and what happens there is formative, influential and it's a big part of the reason for Jesus' mission and purpose having come to this earth. What Luke says about the child Jesus can mean so much and tells us about the man that Jesus was to become. We get something surprising, surprising because it's so ordinary, a family trip with a group of people travelling back to their home village, an anxious search, a boy sitting among teachers, a puzzled mother, and a gentle but piercing response from Jesus Himself.

And then Luke ends the account with this summary in verse 52, and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature in favour with God and man. That particular verse is no afterthought. It's theology. It's about the covenant. It's about discipleship. It's about Jesus growing up.

And this morning, my goal is to convince you that it's a blueprint or a pattern for how Open House Christian Reformed Church can operate today, tomorrow and in the future. First of all, let's set the scene. Luke two tells us Jesus is 12 years old and that matters because in first century Judaism, 12 years old was the threshold age, an age at which according to the law, you were not a child, but then again you were not an adult either. It's a kind of an in between space, a both and season in your life. You're old enough to engage seriously with scripture and yet not young enough to still be forming an identity.

And Jesus is found by not performing, not teaching authoritatively, not correcting the rabbis, but sitting among them, listening, asking questions. This alone should challenge many of our assumptions about the child Jesus. The eternal Son of God learns by listening. The Word made flesh grows by using words in conversation with others. The one to whom all wisdom was given and created wisdom itself grows in wisdom by listening to others, by discussing it with them.

We don't actually know what the issues were that they were having in conversation, but we do know that Jesus grew as He learned from them. Luke wants us to feel the tension of this time in Jesus' life. Jesus astonishingly wise and yet genuinely developing, growing and maturing. And the text says, and all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers. This is not some kind of youthful arrogance, but this is humble brilliance on Jesus' part.

Kids, here's something really important for you to notice about the text this morning. Jesus was sitting in the temple with these famous adult rulers listening, discussing with them, and Jesus did not say, okay, everyone, be quiet. I already know everything. I can give the answers you're looking for. Was that what Jesus said?

No way. The Bible verse says, He listened, He asked questions. He's fully divine and yet fully human. Not pretending to grow, but actually growing up. Luke 2:52 does not say Jesus showed us His wisdom, but it says Jesus increased in wisdom.

He was listening. He was understanding. He was asking questions. He was engaged in conversation. And that should stop us in our tracks and give us reason to think what's going on.

The verse tells us something amazing. The Son of God was growing up. The eternal Son of God did not arrive fully formed, detached from ordinary human development. He grew slowly, relationally, physically, bodily. He grew spiritually.

He grew within a family and a faith community and He grew up across the generations. And that has profound implications for how we understand growing up today. For infants, for girls and boys, for teenagers, for youth, for adults and for the elderly, not as separate individuals, but as an intergenerational community. One body of people from different age groups growing together. Maybe it's useful for me to explain briefly what I mean when I refer to the church as being an intergenerational community.

We can do that by comparing it to a multi-generational community. In both kinds of church, multi and intergenerational, there are distinct people groups representing each of the generations. But how these two groups operate or these two communities function is vastly different. You see in a multi-generational church, there's next to no or at best very little connection between the generations. They really don't have much to do with each other and perhaps this is never more true for example on Sundays, in public worship or over coffee or throughout the week.

Churches can very easily demonstrate a kind of a blindness to a particular people group within their own community, with the result that they are never seen, never heard, and eventually they disappear. But an intergenerational church is quite different. The intergenerational church, you see, thrives on the connections that there are between the different generations in the congregation. Not just through family blood ties. These things are happening that suggest each generation is dependent on the other for growth, for maturity, and for wisdom.

And that can be especially true in public worship, but we'll take another look at that later on. For now, I want us to focus on the connection that Jesus had with other generations that influenced His growing up years. In fact, Luke summarises the growth of Jesus by giving us four aspects, four dimensions, and with each one there's an impact made by other generations. Jesus, says the text, increased in wisdom, stature, favour with God and favour with people. It's not accidental.

What we have here is Luke painting a picture of how the covenant baptised children grow up in the context of the body of Christ. It's a picture of making disciples. First of all, wisdom. Wisdom is not information, it's lived truth. Wisdom is truth or life commandments that help us cope with everyday living.

Jesus grows up in His understanding of the scriptures, but in a way that enables Him to interpret life and the world around Him. Discerning God's will in real life situations is what makes Him wise. In scripture you see, wisdom is not raw intelligence. We've looked at the book of Proverbs late last year and we determined then that wisdom can be defined as the skill of living well before God. Living well before God.

Proverbs nine tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. So here's the mystery. Jesus grows in wisdom even though He is the wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians one. How can that be?

How can Jesus grow in wisdom? Again, it's because He became an infant. He became a human. Jesus doesn't use His divine attributes as kind of shortcuts to growing up. He learns scripture the way other Jewish boys learn scripture.

He memorises the Psalms. He learns from the prophets and the law. He listens to the teachers. He asks them questions. This means Jesus knows what it is to struggle to understand.

Jesus knows what it means to learn over time. Jesus knows what it means to grow through community. For the church, this shatters the idea that learning is somehow confined to the Sunday school class or the catechism class. Those things are good as far as they go, but they're only part of the learning experience. The learning, the gaining of wisdom is not only for the young or only for the old.

Everyone in the body of Christ is both a learner and a teacher in the body of Christ. In Luke's account the 12 year old Jesus is seated among the teachers and the leaders of Israel. He's not isolated. He's not segregated. He's not sent away.

He's seated among the teachers in the temple courts. And the wisdom that He gains there flows from across the generations. Luke says Jesus grew in stature, which means to say Jesus also grew physically, which means God values our bodies, adolescence matters, teenagers matter, growth spurts are ordained by God. What I want to say is that any spiritual way of thinking that ignores physical growth and physical development requiring adequate nutrition, rest, exercise and play, thinking that those things are not part of your spiritual existence has no place in the way God has ordained that our body should grow. Physical development and growth belong here in the community, in the generations of God's people, in church. It's true to say that we all notice the growth, the physical growth in our children.

I know every time I see my grandkids it's the same refrain. Look how big you are. You're starting to lose another tooth, or more recently, you know, Opa can't carry you anymore. And these are the same qualities that other people would have seen in the boy Jesus. He grew bodily.

His parents and Israel's teachers allowed that, in fact encouraged it. The whole idea of Jesus reaching the threshold age of a 12 year old and becoming a son of the law confirmed that. And it was a much celebrated event in Judaism. Jesus was growing physically, maturing in years, in stature says the text, and that matters. It matters today because we live in a culture that idolises the body or ignores it completely.

But with Jesus, bodily growth gets real. He can be tired. He can be hungry. And I don't doubt sometimes feel awkward. He hits puberty, His voice changes.

And Luke tells us Jesus grew bodily. Many families have a growth chart at home. You stand upright against the wall and someone marks the height, how tall you are on the wall, and then they write the date and record how tall you were on that particular date. Usually there are big gaps between growth. You don't grow overnight, you grow slowly.

Sometimes so slowly you don't even notice yourself. And that's how Jesus grew as well. Slowly, not only with wisdom, but bodily, physically as well. The two go together. And so, kids, if you still feel you're learning, that's good.

Teenagers, if you're feeling unsure, that's normal. Adults, if you feel like you still have some growing up to do, then that's right. God affirms something obvious. God values the slow process of ordinary human development. For an intergenerational church, this means children are not spiritual adults in training, and the elderly are never past their use by date.

Every stage of life reflects something of the wonder of human growth and development. The church should be one of the few places in society where ageing is honoured and childhood is treasured. Now Luke also makes the observation that Jesus grew in favour with God. Measuring physical growth or even wisdom is one thing, but how could Luke say this, well Jesus grew in favour with God. When Luke says that the 12 year old Jesus grew in favour with God, it doesn't mean that God loved Him more and more over time, that Jesus moved from being an unacceptable child to being more acceptable.

Rather it speaks how Jesus lived out His humanity before God. To grow in favour with God means Jesus increasingly lived in faithful obedient dependence on His Father in heaven as a human being. The Greek word for favour there is 'charis' or grace, means delight or approval. This is not about salvation or earning God's love, it's about a life increasingly aligned with God's will. It was not until the beginning of His public ministry in the very next chapter that Jesus heard the voice of His Father saying, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.

Jesus growing in wisdom and stature brought ongoing pleasure to His Father. In much the same way a child's growth would delight the parents when the parents start seeing signs of maturity and wisdom. It's like what we see happening when we haven't seen the grandkids for a while and we delight over them. And we say, where's time gone? You've grown up too fast.

Look how big you are. And that is to compliment them, to treasure them as they win the favour of their parents and grandparents. Luke also says that Jesus increased in favour with people. Jesus actually learns how to live with others. No doubt through all the things that are a normal part of growing up, dealing with conflict, authority, family dynamics, community expectations.

You see the life of faith is never just vertical. Jesus learns how to navigate His way through relationships with others. More than that, He has the favour of others, which is to say He's likable, He's respectable, and people are appreciating Him. He has authority figures in His life, not the least of which are His earthly parents. You could argue that according to today's story, they did not always favour Him.

Kids, let me ask a question of you this morning. Silas, are you listening? Have you ever been to the shops and been there with your parents and suddenly realised my parents are not here anymore? I can't find them anywhere. And parents, have you ever turned around and realised that your child wasn't where you left him or her right next to you?

For children it's pretty scary. Mum and dad have gone missing and for parents it's absolutely terrifying. For children it's usually about five seconds of panic before something else grabs their attention, but for parents it can feel like five years and about three lifetimes in those moments when the kids are gone. Now remember what happens in this story in Luke? Mary and Joseph, I can't find Jesus.

He's gone. They lose Him. They're the parents of the child. And after three days, that's a long time, three days, they find Him in the temple. When Mary says, son, talking to Jesus, why have you treated us so?

Well, let's just say she's not necessarily happy with the 12 year old Jesus. Jesus replies, did you not know that I must be in my Father's house? That phrase I must is crucial to understanding what's going on. The Greek word for must appears repeatedly in Luke's gospel. Jesus uses it often.

It means necessity or divine obligation. Jesus says, the Son of Man must suffer. I must preach the good news. So what's going on here is not teenage independence or arrogance. There's a sense of calling in His life, even messianic calling.

Jesus had the idea, mum, dad, this is where I really belong. And at 12 years old, Jesus is already beginning to know who His Father is in heaven. And yet, this is the key, knowing His divine identity does not make Him despise human authority. Let me say that again. Knowing His divine identity does not make Him despise human authority.

Because Luke immediately tells us, and He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. The eternal Son of God submits to Mary and Joseph. Why? Because the salvation that you and I enjoy comes through Jesus, not escaping humanity, but suffering humanity and all that it involves. He fulfilled the human condition perfectly.

He grew in favour with man, and that included His parents, first and foremost. You see, Jesus knows what it means to be misunderstood by His parents, out of sync with their expectations, but He was submissive to them. And that's amazing. Which also leads us to some implications for the intergenerational church today. Here's a dangerous question and they say you should preach every sermon as if it's going to be your last.

So here's the question. Where would a 12 year old Jesus be today in our church here at Open House? Now you can be quick to rubbish the question. I know it's a hypothetical question. It could never be.

But indulge me just for a moment if you will. Where would the 12 year old Jesus be at Open House? Would He be welcomed in theological conversations? Would He be trusted to ask hard questions? Would He be allowed to sit among the elders and the leaders and the teachers and the church?

Or would we quietly usher Him away? Not yet, too young, you belong in children's church out the back, adults in the main service only, thank you very much. Maybe we'd send Him up into the loft to work with Arnold and do something useful behind the computers. Luke shows us something radical, doesn't he? Think about it.

Jesus grows up among the generations, not apart from them. And here's something you may have never thought about before. When we do church, that is to say, worship and live in community, we can be and we should aim to be the intergenerational church. The concept is not new. And I want to suggest that with an ageing demographic within our own ranks and young families beginning to make an impact on the church, now is a good time to consider truly being the intergenerational church.

The intergenerational church is not everyone in the same room doing the same thing, and neither is it about abolishing age specific ministry. It's the conviction that spiritual formation requires the whole body. Children need spiritual grandparents. Teenagers need models of faith that have endured trial and temptation. Adults need questions and honesty from the young.

And the elderly need to be honoured as the people who have attained wisdom and have the benefit of life experience. Why? Well, because that's the way Jesus grew. Think about a family dinner for a moment. At one end of the table, there might be a grandparent telling the same story they've been telling for years and years.

It could be a knock knock or a kind of a lame dad joke. At the other end of the table, there might be a child interrupting, spilling water and asking questions. And in the middle of the table, there are parents trying to keep everyone fed and happy. But here's the point. The table might be noisy, a little messy, a bit slow, but that's what an intergenerational family looks like.

It's a microcosm of the church. They're creating memories from among themselves, and it can be messy. It can be very untidy. I know I'm speaking from experience. Would you like to hear a knock knock?

No. In another place, in another time, Jesus says, unless you become like little children. Not unless you teach the children, but unless you become like them. That is to say you learn from them. You become like them. An intergenerational church does not silence children.

Adults grow, don't they? Adults are discipled through children. You could say that at 12 years old Jesus disrupts polite temple orchestrated religion. Remember where He is, He's asking the questions of the temple teachers and the leaders of Israel and potentially those questions are unsettling, questions that perhaps don't fit the expectations of the rulers and the teachers, questions that even challenge the status quo. A church that has no room for adolescent faith will have no room for the Jesus of Luke chapter two.

Now what about the older believers in church? How are they going to grow? Older believers have memories. They have resilience. They have hope that's been tried and tested.

They're a living witness to the grace of God over so many years, decades even, showing us that faith endures all the seasons of life. Jesus listens to those teachers, He honours them, their wisdom is formed over time. Their wisdom filters down into His life as well. One of the quiet heroes of this passage is Mary. She's been listening, a listening with a mother's heart. Remember the anxious Mary?

Maybe she was wagging her finger at Jesus and saying, son, why have you treated us this way? She doesn't fully understand Jesus' reply. Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house? But Luke says this about her. She treasured all these things in her heart.

She didn't snap back at Jesus. There's no talk of any consequences for what Jesus said, nor is there any record of Joseph saying anything. Instead, what we see here is humility. Parents being made humble. Intergenerational discipleship requires real humility.

In some matters at least, parents release control. Leaders listen. The church trusts God with growth. It cannot always manage and at times it can look messy. Now after this time in Jerusalem, Jesus goes back home with His parents to Nazareth.

No miracles, no preaching, no public speaking, no spotlight on Jesus. Nearly eighteen years of silence before Luke chapter three and the launch of His public ministry. You may have been thinking, even as you were listening to this message this morning, thinking that I'm advocating a return to a certain time and a certain culture that Jesus grew up in. I'm not saying that. You've misunderstood me if that's what you're thinking.

We could never do that. But what I am willing to put out there this morning is this, that we do have principles for growth here that are timeless, that are relevant for the church today and the church of tomorrow. Luke 2:52 is telling us something. It's about an intergenerational church that learns to appreciate slow growth, the impact of one generation upon another. Because that's how God worked in the life of Jesus.

Now let me offer some concrete implications for the Christian Reformed Church in Gaven. One of the priorities the church council will have this year will be the need to get its head around a mission statement. That is to say, a gospel vision for growth. We share our common theological convictions. We agree with that.

But out of that comes a sense of vision and a purpose about who God wants us to be. What we should look like as we grow and mature. And let me respectfully suggest to the brothers who serve on the council that we become an intergenerational church. And that can happen in at least five ways. Wherever faith is modelled, do our children see adults praying?

Do our teenagers hear testimonies about perseverance and God's sustaining grace? Do all the saints among us know the stories and the names of the young children among us? While honouring all the saints, are they celebrated because of God's grace over a lifetime? Many of you here this morning have followed Jesus much longer than some of the little children have even been alive. And you carry the stories of answered prayer, of endurance, of God's faithfulness even through pain and suffering and through loss.

Kids, one of the greatest gifts you have in the church is not just teachers, but storytellers. A church is a place where these stories are meant to be shared. Remember, faith is often caught before it's taught. Caught before it's taught. Secondly, we make space for questions.

Jesus grows by asking questions. Younger children or younger Christians don't say, ah, you'd never understand. You're too old. You're just a fuddy duddy. And then shut down and you never hear from them again.

No. Young people, younger Christians keep asking, they keep on searching, knowing this is the way to grow, the way to maturity. And the intergenerational church encourages this. We worship together regularly. In worship, children hear theology preached and sung.

Long before they understand it they've been singing it over and over. They need age appropriate ways to love God and to serve God more and more in worship. And adults hear faith through young voices and their hearts are made glad. The young can show us the beauty of faith and discovery. It's not our intelligence, neither is our Bible knowledge or mature age that draws us into the kingdom of God.

Remember what Jesus says, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of God. And whoever humbles himself like a little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. We tell stories to one another across the generations. Testimonies matter. Stories of God's grace are meant to be shared by all.

How do we get to this point? Even today when we can celebrate the first week that we have a full time pastor engaged in the beginnings of what looks like a church office at the back of the building. It's a story of God's goodness, it's a story of God's grace that needs to be told and retold for the generations to come and something I pray we'll hear when we attend to Ben's commissioning service in just two weeks time. Fifthly and lastly, we see Jesus in each other. Jesus has a human body.

He's growing up. But if we look closely enough, we see Jesus in each other because together we are His hands, His eyes, His feet in the world today. Sometimes those feet are really small, a size one or a size two. Sometimes they're bigger and more athletic and sometimes those feet are old and worn, but they are evidence of the journey or the walk of life that we're all taking together as an intergenerational community. So try if you can to imagine Jesus 12 years old sitting among us listening, asking, growing and through it all gaining the favour of God and the favour of everyone who knows Him.

What kind of church would help Him become the person God is calling Him to be? Luke gives the answer. A church where wisdom is shared, slow, steady growth is honoured in all of us at every stage, and relationships matter because God is trusted for the long journey. May we be that kind of a church. Open House, we've been saying it for a good number of years now and for at least as long as I've been here.

We are a church that wants to grow in and share the love of Christ. That's what's on the board out the front of the building. A church that wants to grow in and share the love of Christ. Remember the boy Jesus in the temple becomes the man on the cross. There were things about His childhood that would influence Him later in life. He was being prepared for a mission that saved you and me.

The cross is where all generations meet. The foot of the cross is a very level playing field and that's where the intergenerational church should be. Amen. Let's pray. Gracious Father, we thank You for the mystery of the Word made flesh, for Jesus.

Thank You that He did not rush past childhood, but that we know and understand that He grew slowly, faithfully among family, among teachers and among community. Forgive us, Lord, when we hurry growth, when we tend to separate generations, or silence the very questions that You intend to shape us. Teach us, Lord, to be a church where wisdom is shared, where children are welcome, where elders are honoured, and every season of life is treasured. Help us to trust You with the long journey of discipleship as we grow together in favour with You and with one another too. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, we pray. Amen.