This is the 2nd Sunday after Christmas, and our readings have to do with how Jesus was growing in wisdom as a young person and how we can be growing in true wisdom as well.
The Old Testament lesson is from 1 Kings 3:4-15. Solomon had become king of Israel at about the age of 20, and God said to him in a dream, “Ask what I shall give you.” Solomon praised God for His steadfast love and asked only that he be given “an understanding mind” (literally, in the Hebrew, “a hearing heart”) so that he would listen to God and know good from evil and be able properly to govern the people of Israel. God promised him that and much more, as he walked in God’s ways.
The Psalm is Psalm 119:97-104. The psalmist says that he will meditate on God’s Word and in that way be wiser than his enemies and have more understanding than his teachers and the aged, the elders. There are many smart people who know much about many things; but only through Lord and His precepts will one have true wisdom and understanding, the psalmist declares.
In the Epistle, Ephesians 1:3-14, Paul speaks of God’s eternal plans and purposes in Christ. This is wisdom and insight revealed only by God to people through “hearing the Word of truth, the Gospel of salvation,” and coming to “believe in Him, in Christ.” This is all by God’s grace and “to the praise of His glory,” as gifts from Him, in Christ.
The Gospel is Luke 2:40-52. We hear that Jesus, as a true human child, did not always use His power as the Son of God, but had to grow in wisdom and strength by the favor of God, just as we do. He knew that He needed to spend time in the temple in Jerusalem, His Father’s house, listening to God’s Word and asking questions, and showing His own understanding in the responses He gave, though His own parents, Mary and Joseph, did not understand what He was doing. Through it all, He was obedient and grew in the wisdom of God, which brings eternal blessings.
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