Sermon for the Lord’s Day

January 3, 2010

Rev. Lorelei Hillman

Luke 2:41-52

⁴¹ Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. ⁴² And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. ⁴³ When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. ⁴⁴ Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. ⁴⁵ When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. ⁴⁶ After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷ And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. ⁴⁸ When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” ⁴⁹ He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”   ⁵⁰ But they did not understand what he said to them. ⁵¹ Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

⁵² And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in divine and human favor.

The day had gone so well.  Everything was packed the night before – you had to in such a large group.  They had all gotten up before dawn to get a good start, and that turned out to be wise, for the road was choked with pilgrims.  No one seemed to mind, though.  It had been a good festival.  Mary and Joseph knew they were blessed that they were able to go every year; many poorer people only made it a few times in their lives to the great Feast of Unleavened Bread in Jerusalem.  For Mary, it was especially sweet – most women never got to make the journey at all.

It was hard to explain how much it affected them, to be with all those people (some said more than 100,000!) who came from all parts of the earth with their fascinating clothes and exotic accents – each one a faithful Jew.  In a world guarded by Roman soldiers and controlled by Roman will, it made you feel like the hand of God was still at work.

Mary’s heart was full with love for all those people.  In Jerusalem, she had seen caring, acts of kindness by strangers, for strangers.  Wasn’t that the way the Creator had meant all people to live?  Joseph had said the priest was especially kind when he and Jesus took the Passover lamb to the Temple, to be sacrificed on the first night.  He had taken the time to explain to her son that the poor creature would be killed quickly, and its blood drained to mark the great altar in remembrance of the night long, long ago when the Hebrew people had heard God’s command to mark the doors of their slave quarters in Egypt, so that their children would be spared in the awful, final plague.  That had been a festival night, too, but God had made it into the eve of their salvation.

Mary silently gave thanks again for the lamb.  And for the priest!  Knowing Jesus, his questions probably went on and on.  Mary smiled.  At twelve, Jesus was quickly exhausting her and Joseph with questions – about life, about faith, about politics.  It was a good thing he would begin working with Joseph full-time now, learning carpentry.  Joseph was such a good teacher, gentle and patient; perhaps busy hands would help quiet Jesus’ busy mind.

Mary quickly checked on her youngest, her sweet little girl napping on the rug as Mary prepared the evening meal.  Finally, she thought, a girl!  Mary loved her boys, with their energy and rough-and-tumble play, but a mother’s heart, well, it did long for a daughter, too.

Dinner was ready, time to call everyone in.  Joseph would have to go get Jesus – no doubt he had had a fine time, traveling with his cousins all day…

We know the rest of the story – it’s the stuff of parents’ nightmares: a long journey, the chaos of the holidays, car packed, goodbyes said, on the road, and then that moment of sickening discovery – where on earth is Frankie?!

The situation for Mary and Joseph was magnified.  No cars, no phones, especially no cellphones!  The road back to Jerusalem was clogged with Passover pilgrims headed home after the week-long festival.  With the faithful on their way out, the city would still have been full of merchants and vendors, money-changers, and even the  more unsavory types attracted to such events.  Lots of horrible things to scare the parents of a precocious 12-year-old boy.

A long and sleepless night may have given them time to arrange for the other children to go on with relatives.  It would have been important for them to stay calm – no need to frighten the younger ones.

Even traveling alone, as they could not the evening before, it took them a whole day to return to Jerusalem.  Joseph had the added worry of finding a place for them to stay; he could sleep anywhere, but Mary needed safe shelter.  Together, they must have prayed, “Lord, help us find our son.  Keep him from harm.  Protect him.”

Who knows what was going through the mind of young Jesus?  According to the story, he seems to have been completely absorbed in what he was learning at the Temple.  It’s a bit hard for me to relate to – at 12, I still wanted to BE a pony!  But for a young man whose family had raised him with a deep faith, and whose heart spoke the language of God, the opportunity to be in the Temple, the center of Judaism, the place where God dwelled, must have been irresistible.

The festival was over.  All the priests and Levites who had come to the city for the great celebration probably stayed a bit to “talk shop.”  The important issues of their faith would have been on the table: their history as a people, beginning with God’s miraculous salvation of the Hebrews; their escape from Egyptian slavery; the greater-than-life leadership of Moses; the long and difficult journey to the Land of Promise.

There may even have been talk about the Messiah.  Some would say it was just a fantasy, others would speak with fervor about their expectation that now was the time God’s savior would appear to lead them out from under their oppressor’s crushing presence.  Heady stuff for adults, not to mention a youth of Jesus’ age.

But Jesus was holding his own.  For a young man, he knew enough to ask important questions, to give solid answers when the adults tested him.  Unusual.  The men were probably delighted – it gives adults such hope to find faith in children, and this one had knowledge, too.

Then his parents arrived.  They did said what all parents say in this situation: “Where have you been!  You scared us to death!!”  The parents of a Messiah are still parents…

They collected Jesus and set out for home.  We can imagine their conversations along the way.  We know what happened when they got back – the story passed into family lore, “The day that Jesus missed the bus!”  They all had a good laugh about it later, but not without a bit of embarrassment on the part of Mary and Joseph, the parents who forgot their child.  And not without a bit of pride on their part either, that their son had chosen the house of God as the place he most wanted to be.

It’s a wonderful story.  It’s a normal story.  A story told by a family who loves their child, and is exasperated by their child, and is proud of their child, too.  It’s a story that affirms history, the deep connection of the Jews  to their identity as a people saved by God, and their hope that God would come again to save them from Rome.  And the story affirms Jesus’ place in that hope: he cannot be found anywhere but in his Father’s house, the dwelling place of God; he can only be found in the heart of the Jewish salvation story, the great Exodus out of slavery and into the homeland they sought for so long.

For Jesus, his sojourn in the Temple set the stage for his life’s purpose.  From this moment forward, his growth is toward the cross.  Our author, Luke, writes to Christian Jews.  They understand the hidden images of this story.  They already know the story, just as we do – Jesus will become for all of humanity, for all of creation, the Passover lamb.  His death will protect believers as they pass from a life of slavery and suffering into a new life of freedom and promise.  The gospel was most likely written after the Temple had been destroyed and the people scattered.  For them, the question, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” was bitter, it hit to the very heart.  Where was their Father’s house now?  And the story is meant to reassure – Christ is your Father’s house.

Twelve for us is childhood.  It seems a cruel thing that Jesus would already be on his way to a life of such suffering.  But the people who heard this message were suffering, too.  For them, the question would come round to them as, “Have you, also, chosen to be in your Father’s house with Christ?”  And how about you, believers?  Where do you choose to be?