(Luke 2.41-52) Christmas 1
30 December 2018 – © Neil Millar
Liturgical time can be a strange thing, and at this time of the year it almost plays tricks on us. Barely has the dust settle on our Christmas gatherings and here we are reading about Jesus as a twelve-year old. It’s a big jump and not easy to make when most of us still have lights twinkling in the tree and left-overs in the fridge. And yet, that’s what the lectionary is asking us to do today, to take a temporal leap forward in the story. In some ways, it’s understandable; each of the gospel writers seems keen to get to the heart of the Jesus story – his public ministry and passion. But Luke does take a few paragraphs to highlight three occurrences in Jesus’s early life. He’s the only one to record these details, so clearly, they’re important for his purpose.
Jesus growing up years were spent in the north of Israel in the region of Galilee, the town of Nazareth. I’ve been there, it’s an amazing place, but nothing of what happens in that place is included in the narrative. All we have are three incidents from Jerusalem, the holy city, in the south. The first two happen before Mary and Joseph have even returned home from Jesus’s birth – the circumcision and presentation in the temple. The third recounts an incident on the family’s annual trip to celebrate the festival of the Passover. Jesus is on the verge of adolescence and it’s one of those moments when family dynamics come a bit unstuck!!
On the surface, the incident is perplexing. It’s seems strange, almost unbelievable, that Jesus, a wise and responsible young man as Luke has just described him (40), would opt out of family plans to return to Nazareth without informing his parents. Surely, he knew what inconvenience and worry this would cause? At the same time, it’s strange, almost unbelievable, that his parents would leave without checking he was there. Luke explains their action but telling us that they assumed Jesus to be with others from their group, but he wasn’t. It’s a reminder of how assumptions affect perception, and of how inaccurate assumptions can create difficulty in our lives. Just because we assume something doesn’t make it so. It took Mary and Joseph a day to work out that their assumptions were inaccurate and another day to get back and start looking for Jesus.
The scene in the temple is such a contrast to what’s going on with the parents. Mary and Joseph are in ‘great anxiety’, Jesus is relaxed and engaged. He shows no sign of concern, which again is striking, given the distress of the parents. When they see him sitting there holding court, Luke says they were ‘astonished’. In my thesaurus associated words include: surprised, amazed, astounded, flabbergasted, gobsmacked. These kinds of words occur with regularity in this chapter; it’s one of Luke’s ways of alerting us that something profound is unfolding. It is strange, it’s exceptional, it defies our normal categories of understanding.
This contrast is reinforced in the reproach that now occurs between mother and son. ‘Child, why have you treated us like this?’ Mary says, seemingly inferring that he has an obligation to honour parents and not to bring embarrassment or shame upon them. ‘Why were you searching for me?’, Jesus replies, ‘Didn’t you know I must be in my Father’s house’ (or ‘about my Father’s business’, it could also be translated). In other words, I am honouring my parents, I’m honouring my heavenly Father, heeding his call on my life. ‘I must be in my Father’s house’, he says,it’s something I cannot not do. Vocational necessity is being communicated here – obedience to that which is deepest and truest within. ‘Vocation is knowing and staying true to the deep voice’, John Paul Lederach writes,
[it] stirs inside, calls out to be heard, to be followed. It beckons us home. When we live in a way that keeps vocation within eyesight and earshot, like the needle of a compass, vocation provides a sense of location, place and direction.
Jesus is living vocationally here; the needle of his internal compass has determined where he needs to be and what he needs to be doing: ‘I must be in my Father’s house’ – asking, listening, learning, responding.The fact that it’sthe right place and role is further reinforced by Luke’s summary of its effect: ‘and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers’ (v47). There’s that word again – amazed, astonished, flabbergasted…
In his reply to his mother, Jesus implies that she ought to have known that he would be there, but that’s the thing about the deepest sense of calling on our lives, others don’t necessarily get it, even those close to us. For all Mary’s ‘treasuring’ and ‘pondering’ of words (and events) to do with Jesus, her appreciation of what it all means is still deepening – she’s still learning. And, so it seems, is the youthful Jesus. I spoke earlier of the pitfalls of inaccurate assumptions and here his expectations of his mother appear too high – he too is learning. Luke resolves the story, at least in part, with a little summary reassuring us that Jesus went home with his parents and remained obedient to them, that Mary continued to ‘treasure’ these things in her heart, and that Jesus increased in wisdom as he aged.
So, here we are. We had four and a half weeks of Advent contemplating the coming of Christ, a moment to celebrate the Christmas feast, and now, five days later, with Jesus on the verge of adolescence, we’re being asked to contemplate, What?
In the Christmas sermon, I noted how Christ’s way of being with us dignifies the human condition and what we might call ‘the spiritual journey’. The fact that this ‘Saviour’ comes as a babe and matures into the fullness of his vocation, suggests that we too need to be on a journey of maturation and deepening understanding. In this story, both Jesus and Mary are depicted as growing in wisdom. This is a process that entails cooperation and intentionality – it doesn’t just happen by itself. It calls for humility, a willingness to listen and be open to what we don’t yet know. Jesus puts himself in his Father’s house, and while he’s there he’s: ‘sitting among the teachers, listening … and asking … questions’ (46) – he’s learning. Likewise, Mary relates to her experience as if there’s more to appreciate; she ‘treasured all these things in her heart’ (51). It’s the second time in the chapter that Luke mentions this (cf. 19). If we’re going to grow in wisdom, he’s suggesting, then certain experiences need to be held reverently (‘treasured’), and reflected upon (‘pondered’) – especially ‘spiritual’ type events, encounters that have a sense of strangeness and profoundness about them. If we simply let these experiences pass; never pausing humbly to dwell with the mystery, we’re unlikely to enter more fully into their depths.
I’ve said we may feel jolted out of Christmas revelry by this jump to Jesus as a twelve-year old. What this story does, I think, is remind us that Christmas isn’t simply about acknowledging Christ’s coming year after year, but also growing into the fullness of what it means. Christ came as a baby but did not remain childish; he ‘increased in wisdom’ and ‘in divine and human favour’. Mary too was on a journey of understanding. There’s an implicit invitation here, made more explicit in the reading from Colossians, that each of us needs to be on, and encouraging others on, this journey – ‘teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom’, is how Paul puts it.
In a very real sense every follower of Christ has this vocation to wisdom – to clothe ourselves in compassion, kindness, meekness, patience… to ‘let word of Christ dwell in [us] richly’ (Col 3.6). It is a jolt from the Christmas celebration, but as this chapter in Luke goes on to show, it’s very much in the spirit of Christmas and of what Christ’s coming makes possible. It’s also a good way to contemplate the new year, as an opportunity to learn and grow in wisdom, an opportunity that becomes a reality as we commit ourselves intentionally to practices of growth. More of that in the season of Epiphany…
References
Lederach, JP (2005) The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, Oxford University Press.
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