Loving God, you call people of all ages into your service, equipping each one for the work of ministry.  Help us to be mindful of your call in our lives, empowered by the Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

            Each year, on the First Sunday of Christmas, we hear one of the few stories that we have been given about Jesus’ life in between his birth and his adulthood.  This year, it is somewhat jarring to our sense of chronological order, as today, Jesus is twelve years old, and then next week, he is an infant again.  However, this is the only time in the three-year lectionary that we hear this particular story.

         It is Passover time, and as they do every year, Mary and Joseph make the journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem for the festival.  This particular year, Jesus is twelve years old – not quite old enough for his bar mitzvah, but old enough to begin moving from the concrete to the abstract in his thinking.  He is what we might refer to as a “tween” – an adolescent boy, but not quite a teenager.  He is just beginning his journey from childhood to adulthood.

         This year, as the festival comes to an end, Jesus stays behind in Jerusalem while Mary and Joseph begin the journey back to Nazareth.  Since they were traveling with a group of people, his parents just assume that Jesus is with the group.  However, after a full day of travel, they realize that Jesus is not with them, and hurry back to Jerusalem to look for him.  In spite of some of the experiences that Mary and Joseph have already had, they cannot bear the thought of losing their son.  This is not just missing for a few hours at an amusement park or a mall, but several days before they find Jesus in the Temple – three days of grief that will be repeated later in this same location.

         While most twelve-year-olds are said to have an attention span of between 25 and 40 minutes at the most, Jesus spends three days with the teachers of the law at the temple, listening to them and asking questions.  This is not your typical Home Alone scenario, and possibly not your typical twelve-year-old.  However, this is not to say that Jesus is weird.  Rather, he is already living into his calling, just like Samuel so many years earlier.

         While we don’t know exactly how old Samuel was when he started serving in the temple, we can guess that he was somewhere between the ages of 4 and 11 at the time of these yearly visits by his parents.  His mother, Hannah, had also experienced a miraculous conception, and Samuel had been set apart for God’s service even before he was born.  As he “continued to grow both in stature and in favour with the Lord and with the people” (1 Sa. 2:26), each year he was clothed with his mother’s prayers, woven into his robe.

         One of the things that we are invited to do in today’s readings is to pay attention to the children in our lives and what sort of calling God might have for them.  God, after all, has been known to call both the very old and the very young, and many who are somewhere in between!  Beyond the pages of Scripture, we can point to people like the 14th Dalai Lama, who was enthroned at the age of four, or activists like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai who were making headlines by the age of 15.  Some, like myself, are even called to be a pastor around the age of 12.

         At the same time, no matter what age we happen to be, all of us are called into ministry by virtue of our baptism.  You may have noticed in today’s reading from Colossians that clothing is mentioned several times.  We are to be clothed with things like love and compassion and humility – all things that are part of the new life in Christ that we have put on in baptism.  They are all – if you will – part of our baptismal garment that represents our new self that is raised up through Christ.

         While we will be called to many different vocations in our world, we are also called to reflect the life of Christ in all that we do.  Internally, we are instructed to “let the peace of Christ rule in [our] hearts” (Col. 3:15), which is also where the word of Christ, and gratitude, and singing are located.  This internal reality is then expressed outwardly by loving one another, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another.  In this way we also grow in wisdom and in stature – growing up into Christ (Eph. 4:15).

         While many of us might like to know more about what Jesus was like as a child, today’s gospel is the only glimpse we are given.  After throwing his parents into a fit of agony and grief, Jesus goes with them back to Nazareth and is obedient to them, as he continues to grow in wisdom and in years.  Thanks be to God for the gift of a Saviour, who came to live among us, full of grace and truth, bringing forgiveness and eternal life to all who call upon his name – Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Christmas 1(C)                                 Luke 2:41-52

December 29, 2024                        1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26

St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church  Colossians 3:12-17

Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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