Loving God, in spite of the times when it seems like you are absent, you continue to show up alive and well and in unexpected places.  Help us to encounter you anew as we gather together today, strengthening us by the power of your Spirit for life as your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    Just out of curiosity, how much do you know about Mary and Joseph?  What can you tell me about them? [possible responses: from Nazareth; Joseph was a carpenter; Mary much younger; of modest means; pious & faithful Jews] In the gospel that we heard today, and in fact in all of the stories that follow the birth of Jesus in the gospel of Luke, the thing that is mentioned most often is their faithfulness to the Jewish Law.

    When Jesus is eight days old, they have him circumcised (Lk. 2:21).  They follow the proper procedure for purification following the birth of Jesus, offering a sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem as the law requires (Lk. 2:22-24).  And then in today’s gospel we discover that they faithfully make the trip to Jerusalem every year for the festival of the Passover.  Every Jewish male was required to do this under the Law, and we discover in the Hebrew Scriptures that faithful women made the trip as well (cf. 1 Sam. 2:19).  And so, Jesus is being brought up in a family that makes it a habit to worship and to bring offerings and to obey the commandments.

    It is important for us to know, too, that this yearly trip to the Passover (and to two other festivals) was quite the undertaking.  For one thing, travel was always dangerous in those days, and it was a four or five day journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem.  Of course, the Passover itself is a seven day festival, and so we’re talking almost 3 weeks of time away from work in order to worship God!  Because of the danger, as well, it was safer to travel in large groups of relatives and friends.  Thus, it is understandable that Jesus would not have been missed until they stopped for the night and could not find him.

    It is every parent’s nightmare to suddenly discover that your child is missing.  Surely we can understand the panic and the worry that set in as soon as Mary and Joseph realized that Jesus wasn’t with them.  Of course they would retrace their steps back to Jerusalem in order to look for him!  Of course they would leave the group, regardless of the danger!  What if he fell ill along the way?  What if he was abducted by slave traders and carried off?  What if he fell and broke his leg and had nobody to help him?  He might be twelve years old now, but he was still their boy!  And so they return to Jerusalem to look for him.

    So, for those of you who are parents or grandparents or aunts or uncles, if your 12 year old has gone missing, where would you be looking? [the mall / marketplace, the hospital, the police station, the missing persons unit, places you had stayed or been, friends’ houses, the church?] We don’t know where exactly Mary and Joseph looked, but three days had passed before they found Jesus in the temple.

    Can you imagine the mixture of relief and anger and tears and exasperation when they see Jesus sitting with the teachers in the temple – alive and well and perfectly calm – just listening and asking questions?  “Jesus!  How could you worry us like this?  We’ve been looking all over the place for you!  We thought we had lost you!”  As for Jesus, he seems genuinely surprised that they wouldn’t know where to find him.  “Why did you need to search?  Didn’t you know that I have to be in my Father’s house, about my Father’s business, concerned with my Father’s affairs?”

    No, they didn’t know.  They are faithful in their worship and in their observance of the law, but they do not understand everything.  Jesus is starting to have an understanding of who he is and what his mission is going to be, but Mary and Joseph are not yet ready to see it.  Undoubtedly Jesus has the same compassion at this age as he exhibits later on and takes at least some of his parents’ pain onto himself.  It is not time for him to stay in Jerusalem with the teachers.  It is time for him to return to Nazareth and to be obedient to his parents.  And so Jesus increases “in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour” (Lk. 2:52).

    When you read the four gospels, it soon becomes obvious that the gospel writers were not particularly concerned about Jesus’ childhood and young adulthood.  This was quite simply considered to be unimportant in telling the good news about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.  Yet, Luke considers it important to include this one incident from Jesus’ childhood.  How come?

    For one thing, it is part of Luke’s picture of how Jesus’ was brought up.  He was brought to the temple and to the synagogue.  He was brought up with the habit of prayer and worship.  He was brought up to keep the commandments and observe the festivals, giving both time and resources in the worship of God.

    At the same time, we get a clearer picture of Jesus in this brief story.  We discover that even at a young age he is interested in what the teachers of the law have to say.  We discover that he shows unusual wisdom and understanding.  We discover that, in spite of a growing awareness of his identity as Son of God, he is obedient to his parents and does not “lord it over” them.

    It seems to me that there are at least a couple of things that come out of this story for us.  For one thing, undoubtedly every parent can identify with Mary and Joseph in their anxiety as they search for their missing son.  Yes, they had great faith – but they still worried!  Yes, they had great faith – but they did not understand everything.  Isn’t this the experience of so many people of faith?  We worship and we pray and we study and we bring offerings – but we do not understand everything.  In this, we are so not alone!

    At the same time, this story invites us to think about the customs and habits that we adopt in our own lives.  It was a habit for Mary and Joseph to travel to Jerusalem for the Passover festival (Lk. 2:41).  It was a habit for Jesus to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath – a habit he undoubtedly learned from his parents (Lk. 4:16).  It was a habit for Jesus to go out to the Mount of Olives to pray (Lk. 22:39).  Even Jesus needed these regular practices in his life in order to maintain a life-giving and Spirit-filled relationship with God.  How much more do we need to cultivate customs and habits that will nurture our relationship with God?

    For Mary and Joseph, the good news was finding Jesus alive and well and in an unexpected place.  Isn’t it still good news when this happens today – when we discover that Jesus really is alive and well and present with us and with others in the most unexpected places?  In spite of the darkness of this world, the light continues to shine in the darkness, and the darkness has not and will not overcome it (Jn. 1:5).  Amen.

Christmas 1(C)                                Luke 2:41-52
December 30, 2012
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

© 2012 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved