Growing Up

Call to Worship & Opening Prayer:

God has come among us. Let us rejoice.

Praise the Lord, all creation.

For God’s name alone is exalted.

God’s glory is above heaven and earth.

Holy God, into a realm of clerics and kings, you sent your child to teach the wise and show the world what power there is in love. Keep us vigilant to hear the voices of those who speak your truth. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

Scripture

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 were unaware of this. 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[j] saw him they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.” 49 He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”[k] 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, and his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years[l] and in divine and human favor.

Luke 2: 41-52 NRSVUE

Prayer: Merciful God, in Christ you have come among us and we rejoice; yet still the world groans in hope of redemption. Open our hearts to hear you speaking today as we remember the childhood of Jesus, our savior.

Our reading this morning from the gospel of Luke takes us twelve years further than where we were on Christmas Eve, but still in the same chapter of Luke as the Christmas story. Luke really takes the phrase “they grow up so fast” to a whole different level! The reality is that we do not have much information about Jesus between his birth and his ministry. As I wondered what Jesus was up to while reading this passage, I realized that maybe we don’t have much information because Jesus’ life was pretty ordinary.

“Ordinary” is the word I would use to describe this week after Christmas that we are in, although it is technically the first week of Christmas. Most of us are done with our Christmas celebrations. The gifts have all been opened and returns/exchanges have also started. The food has all been eaten and the lingering sweets in our kitchens are slowly getting eaten as well. Our homes or our lives are a little more quiet than normal and everyone is slowly starting to return to the normal, ordinary routines of life. Some of us may be sad that Christmas is over, while others may be happy.

We have spent these past few weeks anticipating the advent or the coming of Christ- both as a baby in the manger and Christ in His second coming. We talk about hope, peace, joy and love and light the candles that remind us of these elements of our faith. The anticipation builds and build up.. and now we are here. What do we do in this time, in this in-between time?

This passage, although ordinary, teaches us so much about who Jesus is, what he is here to do, and what we are supposed to do about that.

You may read or hear this and feel as I did when reading it a few weeks ago- it seems quick to leave the manger already! Christmas is really just beginning. It seemed to me like Luke was moving a little too quickly through Jesus’ life. When Jesus is not a baby anymore, things get real- when Jesus starts saying things and giving us commands that challenge us towards growth and when we start thinking about the suffering that Jesus will eventually endure.

But this passage has a place in this famous second chapter of Luke and in our hearts this first Sunday of Christmas. Mary and Joseph heard the good news about who Jesus was as a baby. They heard the angels and the prophets Simeon and Anna proclaiming how this child would bring salvation and glory and redemption. But then, Jesus starts growing up. And when we get to this story, as a 12-year-old, it seems like this message has been somewhat forgotten or left behind. If Mary and Joseph really remembered and held on to these things that were said about Jesus, would they have been surprised that he stayed back at the temple? Jesus grew up, and this passage tells us about what that entailed for him- Jewish festivals, observances, piety, and teaching. It’s important to note that Jesus and his family were strict observing Jews, observing the commands in the Hebrew Scriptures, and as this passage tells us, observing the festival of the Passover by making the trip to Jerusalem every year. This was not a new thing for the holy family.

But I think the real model for “growing up” that we see in this passage is found in the examples of Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph were doing their best trying to raise the son of God in the flesh. Let us not forget that Jesus came to our world as a real human being. Jesus is God incarnate, in the flesh. He learned, grew, and matured. As verse 52 says, Jesus increased in wisdom and in years[l] and in divine and human favor. Yet, Jesus always knew who he was and what he was here to do. I think Mary and Joseph come to realize this in Jesus’ response- the first words we hear from Jesus in the Bible. When Mary comes up to him and says “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” Jesus replied “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” This term- Father’s house does not necessarily imply a physical place that Jesus must be at, but what Jesus is doing or attending to. This phrase is often translated as in my father’s business or in my father’s doing because the Greek can literally mean “in the plural somethings of my father.” Even as a pre-teen, Jesus’ only goal and only mission was to do what the father had told him to do. So when Mary and Joseph and Jesus leave from Jerusalem and go back home where Jesus spent many more of his years, he is “obedient to them and grows in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and with other people.” So Jesus grows in this passage and in the following years, but imagine the growth happening in Mary and Joseph as well during this time. When Jesus responds to them after they find him in the temple, it’s as if they have been reminded of the fact that Jesus doesn’t belong to them – he is really God’s child. That he is growing up and will eventually leave them. We get an image of this future leaving in this passage. Jesus stays back in Jerusalem having conversations with religious leaders, which is far from the last time this will happen. He is there for three days, just like the three days he will spend in the tomb. Although they don’t know it, Jesus’ leaving will result in suffering, hardship, but eventually glory.

As we move from Advent to Christmas, our focus is no longer on waiting on Christ’s birth but on rejoicing in it. It’s about recognizing that God chose to reveal himself in a humble dwelling, born in a manger to parents with a normal background, to be obedient to those parents ,and to the teachings of the Jewish scriptures. It’s about remembering that God wilfullly chose, not out of necessity but purely out of grace to come into our broken world. To desire to have a place in our hearts. But most importantly, the celebration and reminder of Christmas should change us.

Like Mary and Joseph did in this passage and throughout Jesus’s early life, how can we grow up? How can the celebration of Christmas, change us and allow our faith to grow?

Mary and Joseph were the earthly parents of Jesus, who helped raise him. I’m sure they encouraged and supported him. They taught him about God and prioritized being a part of their religious community. But perhaps after this interaction, they realized that they are the ones who had to grow up and grow in faith. They couldn’t run away from the mystery of who their son was, but they remained faithful to God’s plan even in the mysterious, scary parts of parenting the Son of God.

Christmas can teach us to realize that we have a part to play in this mystery too. That even in the mystery of why God chose to reveal himself in this, we can trust and grow in our faith as well. Like Mary and Joseph here, we often find ourselves separated from Jesus. There are times when in our journeys of life, we look over and realize that Jesus is missing. However, notice in this passage that Jesus isn’t the one who left them. They left, assuming that Jesus was in the group of travelers. In the same way, Jesus never leaves us but we can stray away from him, even when we assume that he is walking with us. Maybe we, like Mary and Joseph go anxiously looking for him. But these passages remind us where Jesus remains, where Jesus dwells, and where we can find Jesus. In the father’s house. Doing the father’s business.

Just like the Holy Family in this story, we have started returning “home.” While we have been celebrating Christmas and they were celebrating Passover, there are some parallels in our story. We have started leaving the excitement and crowds of Christmas behind, returning to our normal lives. In these coming weeks, let us not just leave Jesus in the manger and forget about him. Instead, let us remember where we can find Jesus every day. Even when we leave him behind in our lives, when he doesn’t seem as present as he did in the celebrations of Christmas, we always find Jesus with the Father.

When we anxiously look for Jesus and wonder where he is, remember that he is not far. That he has come into our world to make a place for us and to dwell in our hearts, now and forever. He has come to walk alongside us as we do our own growing up in faith.

Christ the Savior is born, Christ is alive and Christ is here with us. This reality constantly changes us, leading us closer to him and reminding us that we are to never stop growing up in faith. Through the grace of God, the gift of his incarnation in Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, let us never stop growing up.

Prayer:

Merciful God, whose rule extends to the farthest stars, come to rule within us on this glorious day when the Word becomes flesh once more to dwell among us. We open ourselves to the light and long to offer our lives as a dwelling place for your truth. Speak to us again through the Child of Bethlehem. Reach out to the child in each of us, and hold us in the warmth of love’s embrace. Amen.

Benediction

Beloved, may God bless you with transformation, because together we have encountered the incarnate Christ who makes a home among us and sends us home never to be the same again. Let us go from this place to continue to grow up, remembering that we always know where to find you. Amen.