Dad & Grandpa

This was first given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on December 28, 2003, and again, after a Very Minor rewrite, at the Hartford (IL) East Maple Street Chapel on June 15, 2008.

The Scripture is from the 2nd chapter of Luke, verses 41-52…

(NOTE: The ‘link’ is the ‘LIVE’ reading of it!! 🙂

(4) Sunday after Christmas 2020 Dad & Grandpa – YouTube

        Being born in 1900, my grandpa grew up at a time when a man was expected to be able to make or repair just about anything they needed on the farm or around the house and he certainly could… though sometimes whatever it was might wind up having a distinctively ‘Luebbert’ flair to it! And all four of his kids… especially the three boys… picked up this same ability… mainly because back then you had to! In all of the years of my youth, the Luebbert family almost never had to take something into a repair shop to be worked on. Generally, if something was too far gone, or too complicated, for one of them to get going again it was either scrapped out or shoved into a fencerow to quietly die in peace.

        My dad was the oldest, and I grew up thinking he must know everything that there was to know about fixing machinery. In addition to the shop we had on the farm itself, dad had built a snug little garage at our house in Hartford. With a pot-bellied stove for heat and a massive wood workbench he had built… complete with sliding drawers and shelves underneath, a big vice mounted on one end of it, and tools neatly hanging on the wall above… we tackled what I thought was some of the most serious mechanical problems known to man. My brother and I were tool ‘gophers’… that is, dad would tell us to get such-and-such wrench and one of us would ‘gopher’ it. I would then get as close as I could to watch… I was just fascinated by it all and wanted to see and learn everything that I could.

        When I was around 8-or-9 years old, and my brother three years younger, dad bought an old Chevy half-ton pickup for him to drive back-and-forth to work each day. The old girl was at least ten years old and definitely showing its age, and the first thing on the agenda was to paint it. This was a brand-new experience for everybody, and as best I recall consisted of hand-sanding the entire body and bed, patching a few rust spots, then spraying the whole thing with spray cans of green paint. It was something to see! Not too many months after all of that, dad had to go to the junk-yard and buy a used rear axle for it. This was really a project! I don’t recall how many days of intense concentration it took us to handle such a major undertaking, but we changed that axle right there in that garage, and soon was ready to take it out for a test drive.

        The three of us climbed up into the cab and headed out of town. All I really remember about that trip is that we were test-driving it on the highway out east of Wood River when, at about 50 mph, the left rear of the truck dropped to the ground and the rear wheel passed us down the road! With the rear-end dragging, dad got it stopped and off to the side. “All right,” he said (more-or-less…). “Which one of you were supposed to have tightened-up the lug-nuts?!” (Neither of us ever admitted to it!)

        Thinking for only a minute, he retrieved the wheel and tire from where it had finally come to a stop further down the road while my brother and I got out the jack and lug-wrench. After jacking up the truck and setting the wheel back on, there was the problem of what to use to hold in on with… after all, all of the lug-nuts had disappeared! Without missing a beat, dad took the wrench and took one nut off of each of the other three wheels, then used those three nuts to hold on the fourth! I have never forgotten that astoundingly simple but profound bit of logic!

        Yes, it is very true that I learned an awful lot from my dad about using my hands… and about how to reason things out… which is also a real good example of how one generation learns from the previous one and then adds to that knowledge and experience.

I always said that grandpa could fix anything with a piece of baling wire, but as long as it worked he would just keep replacing the baling wire as needed, whereas dad could use the same baling wire to patch it up, but would make it a point to do a more permanent repair as soon as circumstances allowed. I, on the other hand, could patch it up if I had to, but I would far rather take the time to fix it right and be done with it. And as it turned out, that was how I earned a living for many years.

        Indeed, time was that I was considered one the best ag-mechanics in several counties, especially on Case equipment! And my skills were not limited to just tractors and such… when I had my own shop in Jacksonville, I specialized in complete rebuilding of any vehicle. And yes, over time dad got to where he would always bring his more complicated repairs to me to take care of… admittedly, something that took me awhile to get used to! But, just as he had learned how to do a lot of those things from his father and had then improved on them, I had taken what I had learned from him and ran with it, surpassing the knowledge and skills of each of them… which is how it should be!

        In this passage from Luke, we find a twelve-year-old Jesus traveling with His family to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. After staying for the full seven days of the feast, they headed back home. It was probably when the caravan had stopped for the evening meal that Joseph and Mary came to realize that Jesus was not among them. Now, some parents living in today’s’ over-protective society might wonder how it could take so long before he was missed… the Life Application Commentary points out that, “At age twelve, Jesus was considered almost an adult, so he probably didn’t spend a lot of time with his parents during the feast. Those who attended these feasts usually traveled in caravans for protection from robbers along the Palestine roads. It was customary for the women and children to travel at the front of the caravan, with the men bringing up the rear. A twelve-year-old boy conceivably could have been in either group, and both Mary and Joseph assumed Jesus was with the other one. Their caravan probably included a large number of people. So it was not until they had gone a day’s journey and were ready to strike camp that Mary and Joseph checked for Jesus among all their relatives and friends, only to discover that he was not in the crowd but had stayed behind in Jerusalem.”

        So they return to Jerusalem and, after three days of searching, find Him “in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, discussing deep questions with them. And all who heard him,” we’re told, “were amazed at his understanding and his answers.  His mother, of course, is upset and anxious about the whole thing and asks, “Why have you treated us like this?” And we all know His reply… paraphrasing the King James, He says, “Don’t you know I must be about my Father’s business?”  But they didn’t understand what he meant! After all, wasn’t His father a carpenter by trade? Still, in the last two verses we learn that, “…he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them; and his mother stored away all these things in her heart,” and that, “…Jesus grew both tall and wise, and was loved by God and man.”

        I’d like to point out three things about these few verses. The first is that there are a number of passages that tell us how Mary would take note of something odd and ‘store it away in her heart’. The Life Application Commentary notes that although, “she did not completely understand her son, …she remembered these events, thought them over, and sought to find their meaning. One day, it all would be clear. One day her son would become her Savior, and she would understand.”

        My second point is that even though this is the only glimpse we have of Jesus’ childhood, it is valuable to us to note that He was a child… that He did grow up day by day, year by year, just like each of us did. In fact, we’re told He was thirty before He actually began His ministry! Why do I think this is important to make note of? Because it proves to us that He was truly as real and as human as each one of us… and that means that we don’t have to be afraid to go to Him with our sins and our needs and our problems… because He has been here… He grew up and lived on this same earth that each of us do… and He well knows all that we have to deal with each and every day! He understands!

        The third lesson we can all learn from these verses is this bit about, ‘being about my Father’s business.’ What did He mean by that and how does it apply to us? Again quoting from the Life Application Commentary, “He surely felt bad that he had caused them distress, but it made perfect sense to him that he would be in his Father’s house, that is, in the temple. This is the first mention of Jesus’ awareness that he was God’s Son (he called God “my Father”) and that he had special work to do (he said I “must” be here). His relationship with his Father in heaven superseded his human family and even his human home. While he probably went to school and studied along with other boys in the synagogue in Nazareth, to be in the temple with many learned teachers was a great opportunity for Jesus. He took full advantage of his time there, and it seems that he thought his parents would know where he would be.

Yet, Jesus’ parents did not understand what he meant about his Father’s house. They didn’t realize that he was making a distinction between his earthly father and his heavenly Father. Jesus knew that he had a unique relationship with God. Although Mary and Joseph knew he was God’s Son, they didn’t understand what his mission would involve. Besides, they had to rear him, along with his brothers and sisters, as a normal child. They knew Jesus was unique, but they did not know what was going on in his mind. They had to learn and observe the complex out-workings of Jesus’ special identity and calling even as he lived in their family.”

        Jesus felt, even at the age of twelve, that He had to be taking care of the task that His father had set Him to. And He knew that His father was, indeed, God! And just as God’s business centered around trying to take care of mankind and keep them from the fires of damnation, Jesus took that very task to heart and began to ‘run with it’, even at the age of twelve! If His Father wanted to save mankind, Jesus was going to do whatever was necessary to accomplish His Father’s wishes… even at the ultimate cost of His own life on the cross!

Jesus… the promised Messiah, Savior of all humankind… our Lord… calls each of us ‘brother’ and ‘sister’! We are members of His family! And the father of this family is God! God is your father! God is my father! Therefore, we, too, must be about our Father’s business! And that ‘business’ has never changed… it is the saving of each and every man, woman and child that lives on this planet! That is the task charged to us… that is the job we are entrusted with! Are you ready to take over the family business and run with it?