Today’s Gospel reading gives us a snapshot of Jesus’
parents, Mary and Joseph, experiencing every parent’s worst nightmare – being
separated from their child. I remember
two times when I was separated from my parents when I was very small. Once was when I got bored in Sunday school –
one of the teachers had a habit of showing us pictures from Weekly World News
about the bat boy or whatever, and even at that age I knew it was fake - and so
I decided to walk home without having a clear idea where “home” was or how to
get there from the church. The second
time time when my mom left me in the car while she went to pay for gasoline.
She had forgotten to put on the parking brake, and the parking lot was on a
slope, so the car started rolling away backwards, with me in it. Even though I was very small – and was
probably going “wheeeee” when the car started rolling - I still remember how
frantic my mom was on both occasions.
Likely all of our families have our stories of having gotten separated
from children in a crowd…..and so we can sympathize with Mary and Joseph’s
panic.
Today’s reading from Luke’s gospel also gives us the only
glimpse of Jesus between the time of his infancy and his baptism at the Jordan
by John the Baptist and the beginning of his adult ministry. Mark’s and John’s gospels have no infancy
narratives, and Matthew’s infancy narrative jumps directly from the visit of
the wise men and the flight of Jesus’ family to Egypt, as refugees from Herod,
to the baptism of Jesus and the beginning of his ministry. But Luke gives us not only the story of the
presentation of Jesus for circumcision, also not found in the other gospels,
but this glimpse of Jesus in the Temple at age 12.
Early Christians noted this gap and asked the question,
“What was Jesus like as a kid?” An early
Christian writer tried to answer the question by writing what is known as the
Infancy Gospel of Thomas [1]–
a piece of early Christian writing that’s not included in the Bible. Also, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is
different from another similarly named piece called the Gospel of Thomas[2],
which compiles a number of sayings of Jesus, some of which are similar to
what’s in our Bible and some of which are quite frankly bizarre. Neither were actually written by Thomas, and
neither are considered to be inspired on the level of the four Gospels in the
Bible. Both can be found using
Google. In the Infancy Gospel of Thomas,
Jesus is a small child with special powers, but a child’s temperament, which is
a dangerous combination – sort of like the old Twilight Zone episode with the
little boy who banishes people to the cornfield if they oppose him, never to
return. So in the Infancy Gospel of
Thomas, Jesus makes clay sparrows on the Sabbath, and when the elders object, he
claps his hands, says to the clay sparrows, “Off with you!” – and the clay
pigeons fly off. After this, Jesus has
collected some water into puddles – as children would do at a beach - and when another
boy drags a branch to let the water out of the puddles Jesus made, Jesus says
to the boy, “You will be dried up like a tree”, and the boy was dried up. Later another boy runs into Jesus, slamming
into his shoulder. Jesus tells that boy,
“You shall not go back the way you came,” and the boy dies. The people of the village come to Mary and
Joseph and tell them they either have to take Jesus and leave the village, or else teach Jesus to bless and not to curse,
because he’s killing our children.”
As you might guess, we might find the Infancy Gospel of
Thomas to be more than a little silly.
It tells us more about the writer than about Jesus. There are obvious reasons that the compilers
of the Bible decided that this writing didn’t make the cut, wasn’t considered
sufficiently inspired or reflective of the Christian message to be included in
our Bible. If you want to read the rest
of it, feel free to use the Google.[3] In any case, we are still left with a gap between the
infancy and adulthood of Jesus, except for today’s reading from Luke’s gospel.
So today’s reading tells us two stories of Jesus, one when
he was just eight days old and being brought up to the Temple to be circumcised
in accordance with Jewish custom, and the other when he was twelve years
old. When Mary and Joseph were bringing
Jesus to be circumcised, they meet two elderly, faithful people who have been
waiting all their lives for the coming of the Messiah. Even though Mary and Joseph would have been
just one more tired, bedraggled couple making their way to the Temple, somehow
the aged Simeon picks them out as the parents of the Messiah. We’re told it had been revealed to Simeon
that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. Taking the baby Jesus in his arms, he praised
God, saying, “Now let me go in peace, for my eyes have seen your
salvation.” After waiting all his life,
Simeon finally received what was promised by God. And then Simeon tells Mary, “This child is
destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign
that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed--and a
sword will pierce your own soul too." An elderly widow named Anna, who was
a prophet, also recognized who the child was and spoke to others about him.
Of course, we know the truth of Simeon’s words, and the pain
that Mary endured – the flight to Egypt as a refugee, the rumors that would
follow her all her days about the paternity of her son, watching her son leave
the family to carry out his traveling ministry – and at one point when Mary
thought that Jesus had gotten carried away with himself and tried to have him
committed to her care, Jesus literally left her out in the cold while he was
teaching. And then, of course, Jesus’
arrest, trial, and death on a cross. All
these were like stabs to Mary’s heart, and yet she was the model of
faithfulness to Jesus.
The second story about Jesus – the one about Jesus in the
Temple at age 12 – may have been like another stab in Mary’s heart. We’re told that the parents of Jesus went to
the Passover, as they had done every year.
They did not go alone, but as part of a caravan – there was safety in
numbers, and we know that the road from Jericho to Jerusalem was notorious for
robbers. Having performed their
religious obligation, they started back to Nazareth with the caravan – but
Jesus decided to stay behind. Jesus
decided – he was now at an age where he was thinking for himself, though not
thinking with consideration for his parents.
We don’t know why Jesus decided to stay behind – maybe at age 12, the
Passover feast celebrating freedom from Egypt touched Jesus’ heart in some way
that it hadn’t in past years. We are told that Jesus went to the Temple, and
engaged the elders in conversation, listening to them and asking them
questions. We’re told that those who
listened were amazed with Jesus’ understanding; he showed wisdom beyond his
years. And that’s where, after three
days of frantic searching, Mary and Joseph found Jesus. Mary said to Jesus what any other frantic
mother would have said, “Why have you done this to us? Don’t you know we’ve been frantic looking for
you?” And Jesus talks back to them a
little, saying a little snarkily, “Where else did you expect to find me? Didn’t you know I must be in my Father’s
house.” Of course, as far as Mary and
Joseph were concerned, Jesus’ father’s house was in Nazareth, where they had
been going before they discovered Jesus’ absence and went on this long detour
back to Jerusalem. But Jesus at age 12
was already starting to experience God as Father. And
there was a shift in the relationship between Jesus and his parents. We’re not told “they took Jesus home to
Nazareth”, but instead Scripture reads, “He went with them to Nazareth.” There’s more of a sense of choice on Jesus’
part. Luke wraps up this section of our
Gospel by telling us that Jesus was obedient to his parents. And Mary treasured these things in her
heart. And Jesus increased in years and wisdom, and in divine
and human favor.
We love the stories of the baby Jesus – the angels, the
shepherds, the star, the manger. And
next Sunday, Epiphany Sunday, we’ll be back with the wise men. But the baby grows up. We can take some comfort that even Jesus
didn’t have a picture perfect family, that there were moments of
misunderstanding. Even Jesus’ parents
got separated from their son. I hope
this account can help our families raising children to be easier on themselves
when things in our families also aren’t picture perfect. It’s ok - Jesus’ parents didn’t always get it
right either.
We love the baby, but the baby grows up. Mary and Joseph brought Jesus up as a
faithful Jew – and from the words of Mary’s Magnificat, we can be sure she
passed on a passion for justice for the
poor and hungry that stayed with Jesus all the days of his life. But Jesus would develop a mind of his
own. At age 12, he was at an age where
he could begin to claim the traditions of
his faith for his own, and not just as something inherited from his
parents. Age 12 is when many traditions
hold confirmation classes – and someday we may have a confirmation class
too. Someday. And in the Temple, Jesus asked questions of
the learned elders – why do we do what we do? What does it mean? We know that while his mother’s teaching
stayed with him, as an adult Jesus would go on to reinterpret or in some cases even
reject many of the teachings of the elders at the Temple.
Jesus grew up – and Jesus also calls us to grow up, to mature
in our faith. And with growth comes change. St Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I talked
as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child, but when I became a
man, I put away childish things.” (I Corinthians 13:11) Many Christians never grow beyond a childish
faith, never grow beyond the lessons they learned in Sunday school or
confirmation class. For an example, when
I was very young, we put our offerings in church school into a little plastic box
shaped like a church, with a slot in the top for our coins. As a small child, I never questioned where
the money went. All I knew was that the
box was empty each Sunday, and so I assumed our offerings went up to God in
heaven somehow. I was scandalized when
one of the other kids told me, “I heard that the Sunday school teachers take
the money.” Of course, as an adult, I know it went to
support the Sunday school, buy the booklets and flannel graphs and everything
else used in a small town Sunday school, circa 1965. As
children, we may expect magic Jesus to solve all our problems – and some
Christians never get beyond that level of understanding. But as adults, we learn that life isn’t
always so simple. As adults, we can
bring our faith to bear in understanding our life experience, and our life
experience has a role in shaping our faith….those who have been through
difficult times and come out on the other side know what it is to walk with God
through the valley of the shadow of death, in a way that those who haven’t been
there can only imagine. The walks
through the valley of the shadow teach us lessons and enable us to develop a
durable, lasting faith. As children,
faith may be something just for Sunday morning.
But as adults, we try to connect our Sunday-morning faith to what we do
and what is done to us the rest of the week. For example, the story of Jesus’ family
fleeing as refugees to Egypt, which we’ll read next week, may prompt us to ask
questions about modern-day refugees – and, of course, one of our members,
Isaac, came here from war-torn Liberia as a refugee. These are the kinds of connections a maturing
faith makes.
We’re told that “Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and
in divine and human favor.” May we, too,
increase not only in years, but in wisdom.
May the hard-earned wisdom of our years bring maturity and resilience to
our faith. And, like Simeon and Anna,
may we pass on this hard-earned wisdom to our children, and to our children’s
children. Amen.
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