A Kinda Mild Adolescent Rebellion

What a prayer meeting!

My parents would have understood how Joseph and Mary felt when they could not find Jesus. After my conversion I became enamored with a Christian rock band that I first heard in concert at Malone College and later at our church. After their performance at church we all went to the pastor’s house to have refreshments. I am really not sure how the time progress but we ended up in a prayer. It was my first prayer mtg. It was not one of those orderly prayer mtgs. We did recite written prayers nor did we offer our petitions silently. Everyone except me took a turn praying. Some even spoke in tongues and others offered a prophecy. The lead singer of the rock band broke out into song. The pastor’s son came over to me and laid his hands on me and prayed.

We eventually moved to the kitchen table to have communion. That’s when the phone rang. My dad wanted to talk to me.

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?????” said a very stern voice on the other end. It was my Dad.

“No,” I said.

“IT’S 1 O’CLOCK I N MORNING, COME HOME RIGHT NOW!!”

I convinced him to let me stay for communion and i finally got home sometime before 2:00 am. He was mad but also embarrassed. How do you yell at your formerly delinquent son who was at the pastor’s house till 2:00 am praying????

Where is Jesus?

The Jewish people assigned instructing a boy in the religious norms, mores and law to the age of twelve. (Personally I thinks this is too young for today’s youth to rationally reflect on their religious beliefs. I believe in the age of video games, MTV and other distractions mature later. If I had my way I would not allow any young person under the age of 18 into my confirmation class.) Anyway, Luke mentions Jesus’ age so the reader will know that he is at the age of instruction, therefore this would be an important visit to Jerusalem.

Jewish families were required to keep three annual festivals—Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles—by offering a sacrifice in the Temple. However, only Passover was strictly observed. The entire country it seemed and Jews living in other countries would invade Jerusalem swelling the population anywhere from 60,000 - 100,000, according to some scholars. People would travel in large groups for both protection from marauders and also for and companionship so Mary and Joseph probably assumed that Jesus was with some relatives.

The return journey from Jerusalem to Nazareth was almost 90 miles. The trip would be divided spread over 3 days. The caravan would only cover a few miles the first day. This would allow people who forgot something to return to Jerusalem. Mary and Joseph would have looked for Jesus when the pilgrims stopped for the night.

Every parent can imagine the panic that the parents of Jesus felt when they could not find their oldest son. I would imagine their terror would have turned to relief and maybe a tad bit of anger when they saw Jesus sitting among the religious leaders listening to them and asking questions.

Mary rebukes Jesus but he will not accept the reprimand. He does not belong to Joseph or Mary. Nazareth holds no attachment for him. He belongs in his Father’s house. This mysterious response flies right over Mary’s and Joseph’s head. He may have given them a detailed description of how to build a nuclear bomb. But that didn’t matter he was obeyed them and grew in wisdom and stature.

Dan Clendenin who created and still writes on the website Journey with Jesus helped me to see two important lessons from this story. First that Jesus lived as a normal boy, with an emphasis on the word normal.

Normality

Dan Clendenin who created and still writes on the website Journey with Jesus helped me to see two important lessons from this story. First that Jesus lived as a normal boy, with an emphasis on the word normal. That fact was not always assumed in the life of the church. Luke provides us with one story from his childhood. Matthew does not have any and Mark and John give us the impression that Jesus was never born, did not have a childhood, some how avoided puberty and burst on the religious at 30 years old.

The Gospel writers have so many missing years. To fill the void many “infancy narrative” emerged. They were very creative but were based on speculation not fact. In the Infancy Gospel of Thomas Jesus takes out a playground bully with one curse. The boy subsequently dies. But have no fear Jesus is here. Jesus then raises the former bully with a spontaneous prayer. Why not? Didn’t he do this to the son of the widow of Nain?

Jesus does a wide assortment of miracles in these fallacious infancy narratives. He turns clay pots in flying birds, his diaper heals people, and his sweat cures leprosy. One account has him sitting by a stream on the Sabbath making 12 birds out of the clay. A Pharisee sees him and accuses him to Joseph of breaking the Sabbath. Joseph came to Jesus and asked him why he was doing these unlawful things. Jesus clapped his hands together and shouted “Go, take flight, and remember me living ones.” The birds took flight and went away squawking. Phil Whitehead, “Jesus in the Qur’an and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” [online: December 29, 2018, posted February 26, 2010, https://agyapw.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/jesus-in-the-quran-and-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas/]

Another narrative gives an account of Jesus sailing to England with Joseph of Arimathea and building a church to honor his mother. They also suggest that he studies in India, Persia and Tibet.

The majority of early churches branded these accounts heretical. They preferred to rely on the gospel writers accounts and accept the silence of the early years of Jesus. Clendian writes:

Their reticence and restraint about the hidden years of Jesus are remarkable, and reminders that the early believers were not gullible or naive when it came to sensationalist exaggerations about miracle stories.

Dan Clendenin, Journey with Jesus, "’Plunge Yourself Into Obscurity:’ The Hidden Years of the Boy Jesus,” https://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20091221JJ.shtml

The story also introduces the first signs of the tension that would continue and build through his ministry between his identity with God the Father and his voluntary obedience to his earthy parents. Eventually there would be a radical split when his mother and brothers tried to separate him from the crowd and take him home. They thought he was out of his mind.

Mark 3:21 NIV84

When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

John 7:5 NIV84

For even his own brothers did not believe in him.

His own brothers did not believe him during his early teaching ministry.

John 7:5 NIV84

For even his own brothers did not believe in him.

That is all we really know about the early years of Jesus. Anything you might have read or heard was label fallacious by the early church, even long before the Bishop of Rome rose to power.

His birth and his first theological discussion with the scribes at age 12 are all we know about Jesus’ early years. I wonder if those early years were so insignificant, so obscure that the gospel writers decided to ignore them. Surely Mary had stories to tell. Surely some would might even make us laugh but none would help us understand him any better.

The silent years speak volumes to our celebrity driven and self promoting culture. For 30 years Jesus lived in obscurity and was invisible to the world. He accomplished nothing. He did not know anyone of influence or power. Those years did not leave any footprint worth noting by historians.

Have you ever felt invisible to others, especially to our elected political leaders? Have you ever felt insignificant. Most of us live unheralded lives. We are born. We live. We retire. Then we die. Are children will remember us and maybe are grandchildren and one or two great grandchildren, if we are lucky. Jesus lived in seclusion and isolation for 30 years and no one remembers what he did.

Our society places a great deal of emphasis on the celebrity. People struggle today to live “unimportant,” “insignificant lives” isolated and secluded from the flashing cameras and cell phones. Maybe that is why the rate of suicide is one the rise. Even among celebrities.

Jon Paul Steuer-American actor and singer, Jon Paul Steuer was 33 when he was found dead at his home with a gunshot wound.

Stephenie Adams was a writer and model. After throwing her son from the 25th floor she followed him by jumping.

Fidel Angel Castro Diaz-Balart-This Cuban was a nuclear physicist and a government officer. He was the eldest son of Cuban leader Fidel Castro with his first wife. He was 68 and undergoing treatment for depression. On 1 February 2018, he was in Havana when he killed himself.

Kate Spade designed women’s fashions. She had a lucrative business but she hung herself at age 55.

In the fourth century the monastics fled the corruption of the city to seek Jesus in the solitude of the Egyptian desert. Thomas Merton spent 27 year cloistered in a monastery in KY. His voice was silent but his writing were prophetic. Henry Nouwen described in his short autobiography, The Road to Daybreak, why he choose to leave his prestigious position at Harvard and care for a developmentally-disabled young man named Adam. These men found their peace with God in their insignificance.

In the book of Genesis Hagar the slave was banished to the desert to die but she discovered that Yahweh is the God who sees me and she named her son Ishmael which means, “God hears.”

Colossians 3:3 NIV84

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Paul says our true life is hidden with Christ in God. However, we may feel God is present. He never requires us to be significant or important Just faithful. Jesus’ words to his mother were the extent of his adolescent rebellion. Instead he learned at a young age the important lesson of obedience to his earthly parents. He was then able to transfer this over to his obedience with his Heavenly Father

Paul says our true life is hidden with Christ in God.

Luke 2:51 NIV84

Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

My friends, God has not forgotten you. He does not require you to earn his love or his grace.