Sermon Preached on the Second Sunday of Christmas 2026 at St. John's in the Village in the City of New York.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Some years ago, when I was serving as a pastoral assistant, our Diocese took us on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. One day we visited the Dead Sea, the fortress of Masada, and the oasis of Ein Gedi. It was a full day, carefully planned, and we were on a very tight schedule, as pilgrimages often are when there is much to see and little time to linger.

As we moved from place to place, people naturally drifted, as pilgrims always do. But at Ein Gedi something happened to me that I had not expected. I was struck by the beauty of the place: the sound of water moving through rock, the sudden greenness of the plants, the sheer abundance of life in such a dry landscape. It felt like a place set apart, a place where creation quietly spoke of God’s faithfulness. I wandered a little farther than I should have. I lingered. I prayed. It was one of those rare moments when God seems to speak not through words or ideas, but through stillness, beauty, and presence.

Eventually, I realized I had stayed far too long. I hurried back, heart full, spirit stirred, and very late. When I finally rejoined the group there was relief, but also frustration and real concern. And ever since reading today’s Gospel, I have wondered whether that experience gives me a small glimpse into how Mary and Joseph must have felt.

Saint Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph go up to Jerusalem every year for the feast of the Passover. This is not a dramatic detail; it is a faithful one. Jesus is raised within the steady, disciplined worship of Israel. He is shaped by prayer, pilgrimage, and the keeping of holy days. Grace does not replace practice. Even the Son of God is formed by the ordinary patterns of a faithful life.

When the feast ends, they begin the journey home, assuming, quite reasonably, that Jesus is with the group. Children travelled freely among relatives and neighbors, and there was no reason to think anything was wrong.

But he is not with them.

At first there is likely confusion. Then worry. Then fear. They search among friends and relatives, expecting to find him quickly. When they do not, they return to Jerusalem. Saint Luke tells us it takes three days, three days of anxious searching, three days of unanswered questions, three days of not knowing. Scripture does not rush past this moment. It allows us to stay with the anxiety, the uncertainty, the ache of absence.

Those three days quietly echo the days between the Passion and the Resurrection, when Christ is absent and faith must wait without seeing.

Then they find him.

He is not lost. He is not hurt. He is not afraid. They find him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening and asking questions. He is exactly where he should be, though not where his parents expected him to be.

This is not how we often picture the Son of God. There is no display of power here, no public correction, no miracle. Jesus listens. The Word through whom all things were made enters fully into the slow process of human growth. He allows himself to learn. 

He receives wisdom rather than showing it. Saint Luke makes clear that Jesus does not merely seem human; he truly is human.

When Mary speaks, her words are shaped by love and fear together: “Your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” These are not words of anger, but of relief mixed with pain. Jesus answers simply, but clearly: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

These are the first recorded words of Jesus in Saint Luke’s Gospel. They show us who he is and where he belongs. He speaks of God as his Father with a confidence that reaches beyond ordinary family ties. Already, quietly, the Gospel points us toward a deeper truth: that even the closest human relationships will one day be asked to make room for something greater.

And yet Saint Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph do not understand.

That matters. Scripture does not idealize faith. Even those closest to Jesus do not immediately grasp what God is doing. Even the faithful can be confused by God’s ways. Often faith means carrying questions rather than answers, holding trust and uncertainty together, and continuing to walk without clarity.

Then comes the sentence at the heart of this Gospel: “He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them.”

After speaking of his divine identity, Jesus returns to ordinary life. He submits himself to family, to routine, to hiddenness. He goes back to Nazareth, to a small place, to familiar days. This is not a break from God’s work. This is how God’s work unfolds.

Nazareth is where holiness is formed slowly. Nazareth is where obedience takes shape. Nazareth is where glory remains hidden. The long, quiet years of Jesus’ life are not empty space between important moments; they are part of God’s saving work. The Cross is prepared not only on Calvary, but in the daily faithfulness of ordinary life offered to God, through patience learned, humility practiced, love given without applause.

The obedience of the child in Nazareth and the obedience of the man on the Cross belong to the same mystery of love. True glory is never separated from sacrifice. Love bears fruit through patience, humility, and self-giving, long before it is ever revealed in triumph.

(Here the Church’s music today gives us a deeper way of hearing this truth. In Tchaikovsky’s anthem The Crown of Roses, we are invited to contemplate Christ crowned not with gold, but with suffering, beauty intertwined with pain, love revealed through wounds. It is not a sentimental image. It is a demanding one.

Roses are beautiful, but they have thorns. A crown speaks of kingship, but this crown wounds even as it honors. Tchaikovsky’s music lingers in that tension. It does not rush past suffering on the way to glory. It asks us to listen, to wait, to feel the cost of love before we proclaim its victory.

That crown is not formed only on Good Friday. It is woven long before, petal by petal, thorn by thorn, in Nazareth. In obedience. In silence. In the daily offering of self to God when no one is watching. The child who obeys his parents and the man who gives himself on the Cross are offering the same yes to the Father. The crown of thorns is already taking shape in the quiet faithfulness of an ordinary life).

Saint Luke ends by telling us that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and with others. The Church has always treasured this verse because it protects the truth of the Incarnation. Jesus grows. Jesus waits. Jesus submits. He shows us that growth itself can be holy, that becoming is not a failure of faith, but often its deepest expression.

And that is good news for us.

Because many of us live in Nazareth seasons. We are faithful, but unnoticed. We pray, but do not yet understand. We obey but see little fruit. We carry out the quiet work of discipleship without recognition. This Gospel tells us that such seasons are not wasted. God is at work even when the work is hidden, even when it feels slow, even when it is costly.

The Christ who once sat in the Temple listening now comes to us in the Holy Eucharist, not in triumph, but in humility. He still chooses the quiet way. He still comes to us through ordinary things, bread, wine, gathered prayer. He still offers himself for the life of the world, asking not for admiration, but for trust.

So, if you find yourself waiting, growing slowly, faithful without recognition, do not lose heart. You are walking the way of Christ. And like Mary, we are invited to treasure these things in our hearts, trusting that what God is shaping now, often unseen and costly, will one day be made clear in glory.

Amen.