Perfect Obedience.

After the resurrection the early church realized that who and what Jesus was revealed to be, he must always have been. As the gospels were written the moment of that revelation was seen to have reached back further and further into time. Mark begins with the adult Jesus and he is revealed as God’s Son at his baptism by John. Matthew traces that fact back, through his conception, to Abraham, the father of the Jewish race. Luke, in his genealogy, traces it further to Adam, the father of the human race. John goes all the way back to creation and even before that, into eternity, in his Prologue. The Son existed from all time and eternity. Like Matthew, Luke has noted Jesus was divine from his conception, and, in this story, has Jesus himself give witness as an adolescent to this special relationship with his Father. Thus, like Jesus himself did, the Church grew gradually in her awareness of his divinity.

The word that is written across this entire episode is “obedience.” St. Paul writes in Philippians that having taken on our humanity, Christ became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Even here, at the age of twelve. He is the obedient Son of His Father, and of His parents. His obedience took him to death on a cross, so that we who are disobedient might share in His perfect Sonship.

Amen.