‘Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?’ Luke 2:49
Friends, does this Sunday in the church calendar seem special to you? It’s good that you are here, but is there anything special about this Sunday after Christmas? Let’s face it, Christmas Day, the big day has come and gone. Today, the first Sunday after Christmas reminds me of the first Sunday after Easter, (what we call Low Sunday), because it seems such an anti-climax after the glorious Resurrection story, and so traditionally the turnout at churches is low. And so how can this day compete with Christmas - the story of the Incarnation? It’s easy to relax and take our eye off the ball, as it were, or in this case, Jesus Christ. In fact that is just what his parents did after their trip to Jerusalem during the Passover festival. They had been so involved and concentrating on the rituals and festivities, that on their way home with numerous relatives and friends; they just took it for granted that their son Jesus would be amongst the many children being chaperoned for the trip home. Of course, they eventually realise he isn’t with the party and return to Jerusalem and after three days, find him in the temple. Imagine losing your child for three days!? They must have been going out of their minds. But Jesus wasn’t. I’ll tell you this, if any of my children lost sight of their mum and dad in a store or on the beach, even for one minute, you would hear them scream for miles!
Mary and Joseph found Jesus that day sitting in the temple courtyard speaking with the masters of the Law and scolded Him for making them worry. Listen to what He said to them. “Why were you worrying? You know I was born for this.” While He grew and developed an awareness and understanding of the cross as a boy, there was never a choice to be a Saviour, only that increasing awareness. His birth, life, death and resurrection were preordained, all planned out, with you and I in mind long before He would take this walk with His parents. If there is anything that strikes us in this passage; it is that Jesus appears to have disrespected His parents - both by staying in Jerusalem and then again by what He says to them when they found Him. Did Jesus disobey? If He did then He sinned. Was Jesus disrespectful? If He was then He sinned. I don’t think that there was a hint of disrespect or disobedience in Jesus’ heart toward His parents. His decision to stay behind was not made out of these things, but rather by His purpose. Jesus was on His way to the cross, but He was still growing in His awareness of this purpose as a young boy. It is traditional at age 12 for Jewish boys to be made a Son of the Law. We hear about Jewish boys having their “Bar Mitzvah.” That is when they are officially made a Son of the Law. They become responsible for their own obedience to the Law. This does not mean that Jesus was no longer under the authority of His parents, but simply that He was now personally accountable to keep the Law of God for Himself. When Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple, what was He doing? He was asking questions. He was not teaching. He was not usurping a role of authority in the temple with the learned men. He was simply asking questions. He had come under the Law and was now responsible to keep the Law Himself. He had reached a time when He was in the temple doing everything He could to comprehend what that responsibility really meant. In His humanity He was asking the questions that pertained to the matters that were at hand in His own life, because that same text says that Jesus Himself grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and men. There was development in Jesus. He didn’t go from imperfection to perfection, nor did He go from sin to righteousness – He just had an expanding awareness, and this was part of it.
When His parents said, “Why have you done this?” He gave the right answer. He didn’t say, “You’re not important,” but He said this, “I must be about my Father’s business.” They had to recognize that the aim of his life had to do with that which was from God, and that their authority would not be ignored by Him, but it would always be under the authority of His Father, and that’s all He was saying. In a general sense He was saying, “Look, I have been made a son of the Law, and I must understand the fullness of what this means.” There was no rebellion there; it was just a priority – the ultimate priority. If Jesus saying, “Why were you seeking me?” sounds disrespectful; it is not. Jesus is however telling them that they had forgotten who He was. They had no reason to worry, no reason to fear. God had marvellously shown them that He was the Messiah; so they should have figured out that God would also protect Him until the proper time came for Him to fulfil His purpose. Jesus spent His life moving toward the cross, but it was no accident that He ended up there. He was given for that purpose and He lived for that purpose. I cannot imagine Jesus going through life with the knowledge that the men and women with whom He interacted would be men and women for whom He would lay down His life. Every step from the cradle to the cross was defined by God’s plan of redemption: His desire to be in relation with you and me.
Today is not an anticlimax Sunday after Christmas; today is for putting into perspective the story of the Incarnation and the Cross. Today is about understanding the journey Jesus took from his birth and through his childhood to his death. For me, his journey started here, not at his baptism. Most Christians would say that Jesus’ ministry began when he was baptized by John at the age of thirty, but looking at this reading, we begin to understand that his training for that ministry began much, much earlier that that – at the age of twelve in the temple in Jerusalem. And for me that is what makes this Sunday after Christmas every bit as special as any other Sunday or any service in the church’s calendar. When Jesus comes into your life, he’s in it for the long haul, for the bad days, for the boring days, for the long uneventful frustrating days every bit as much as he is for the days of wine, song and celebration.
Finally, when we look around in our busy self-centred lives and discover Jesus is not there , then like Mary & Joseph -it is us that have left him behind, not him that has left us. Every Sunday is a celebration of Christ meeting us through his body and blood.Many people go out of church thinking “That’s it until next Sunday.” However, this morning’s story reminds us that, like Mary and Joseph, without thinking, we leave Jesus behind. Take Jesus with you and be with him every day, because He is still doing his Father’s business in our hearts, if we would just stop a while to listen, to pray and that way, we make sure he is always with us. Amen (from Fr Peter).