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The Second Sunday After Christmas
January 3,
2010 The Rev. William Van Oss, Rector
Readings
Where’s Jesus? There once was a woman who had two sons, Billy, who was 12 and Jimmy, who as 8. One Sunday morning after services had ended and the people departed, the pastor found the woman sitting in the back pew, looking troubled. He asked her what was wrong. “Oh it’s my boys, Reverend,” the woman replied, “they are into everything, they won’t listen to me and they are in trouble all the time.”
“You bring them in to see me tomorrow after school, “ the pastor told her, “I know just what to do with boys like them.” And so the next day, the mother brought the two boys to the pastor’s office. While 8 year old Jimmy waited outside, the pastor had 12 year old Billy sit in a chair across from him. Looking Billy right in the eyes, the pastor asked; “Where is Jesus?” Billy blinked and shifted in his chair, but said nothing. The pastor pressed, “Where is Jesus?” Billy was visibly uncomfortable now, looking around the room, beads of sweat forming on his brow. A third time the pastor asked, this time even more forcefully, “Where is Jesus?” And Billy could stand it no longer, he shot up from the chair, out the door, down the hall, grabbed his brother by the hand and ran outside and down the block.
A Bewildered Jimmy finally got his brother to slow down and asked him what was going on and Billy replied. “Jesus is missing, and he thinks we had something to do with it!”
Jesus was missing, when he was 12 years old and visiting Jerusalem. And for Mary and Joseph and his family, I’m sure there was nothing funny about it. A 12 year old missing for three days, it must have been 72 hours of pure agony for Mary and Joseph. This is the only thing any of the Gospels tell us about Jesus from his birth to the time he enters his public ministry at about the age of 30. The only thing the Gospels tell us is that when he was 12, he was lost for 3 days only to be found in the temple.
He was 12, that’s important, 12 was the age when Jewish boys began to assume adult religious responsibilities. According to the law adult Jewish men were to attend 3 pilgrimage festivals each year: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacle.
Jesus was now at the age when we would assume responsibility for his own spiritual formation, attending these rituals and keeping the law. And so he stays behind when his family departs to return to Nazareth, and after their three days frantic search, they find him in the Temple, with the teachers.
I’ve seen a number of famous paintings of this “Finding in the Temple” scene, and in them Jesus is pictured in the teaching posture. He is standing, with the wise teachers of the Law, the Rabbis sitting at his feet.
These paintings are attempting to convey that Jesus had wisdom beyond his years and indeed we are told “all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” He was, indeed, wise. But I find the line just before that one more compelling, it says, “they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” Listening to them and asking them questions, important aspects of spiritual development more important, perhaps, then having answers. Sitting at the feet of wisdom, listening and asking questions, event eh Son of God engaged in these disciplines as He began to take on responsibility for His spiritual development; listening and asking questions.
We all search for answers, in our lives, in our lives of faith, we look for answers when a loved one dies, when a marriage hits the rocks, when parenting becomes a real challenge, when we lose a job or a friend, when we are betrayed by someone we trusted, when our health fails us.
We turn to God looking for answers. But sometimes we might expect the answer to be simple or easy, like when we were in Sunday school and it seemed there was a logical answer for every question. But as we grow, and age, and mature, I believe we need to rely more on the disciplines Jesus engaged in when he was 12 and in the temple, namely; listening and asking questions.
The more difficult issues we face as we grow older seldom have easy, Sunday school answers. They require that we listen to wise elders, to the insights of Scripture and the teachings of the church, to our conscience that guiding voice inside of us. And to not be afraid to ask questions, especially of God, questions like why and why me and to be prepared to wait, sometimes for a while, even a long time, for answers, at times answers that can be hard to hear.
Jesus sat among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. He is a model for us of mature spiritual development. Not looking for easy answers, but having the discipline to listen carefully and the courage to ask questions. Epiphanies, manifestations of God, are all around us. Sometimes we find them in answers to life’s ultimate questions, but often these manifestations are found in patient listening and asking the right questions.