Luke 2:41Have You Lost Jesus?

Sermon preached Feb. 21, 2016

Opening
Many of us have treasured stories about our children or nieces and nephews that we tell
long after theyve grown into adulthood - but oddly enough, we have only one - one and
only one - story about Jesus childhood. And without this story, wed go straight from the
birth narratives at the beginning of Matthew and Luke, to Jesus public ministry that began
when he was 30.
This omission has bothered people for a long time. And so, some imaginative people who
wrote long after the gospels were written came up with some stories about Jesus as a boy.
Theres the one about Jesus when he was five years old and he was playing by the
side of a stream on the Sabbath and decided to play with the clay by the stream
bank and he made twelve clay sparrows out of the clay. But a legalistic killjoy
type saw this and went and complained to Joseph, Jesus adoptive father, that
Jesus was breaking the Sabbath and so Joseph went down to the stream and yelled
at Jesus for breaking the Sabbath so to show him who was boss, Jesus clapped his
hands and the twelve clay sparrows came to life and flew away chirping. In your
face, dad!
Then when Jesus was a little older a child running down the street of their village,
Nazareth, bumped into Jesus and knocked him down. And Jesus was provoked
and struck him dead and the boy died on the spot. Understandably, this upset the
dead childs parents and they along with some other villagers went to Joseph and
said, you and that boy and your family need to moved away from here, hes killing
our children. So Joseph called Jesus and said youve got to stop doing this, its
making our neighbors hate us, but that made Jesus even madder so those people
who went to Joseph to complain, Jesus struck them with blindness, and this made
Joseph even madder so he grabbed the boy Jesus by the ear and Jesus got even
angrier and said, Dont provoke me any further.
Well, those stories date from at least the late second century and you can see how the
church rejected them, they dont really mesh with anything else we know about Jesus - so
all we have about Jesus childhood is this one story.
But its a good one!
Cultural background

So...what was Jesus doing in Jerusalem? The scripture says that every year Joseph and
Mary made a journey, a pilgrimage from Nazareth to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.
It worked like this: faithful Jews had a tradition of celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem.
And whole extended families and others from the same and surrounding villages would set
out together and make the trek to Jerusalem. Road trip! For Joseph and Mary and Joseph
and their party, it was about 70 miles.
Along the way, as they walked towards Jerusalem, the pilgrims would sing together. Not
a hundred bottles of beer on the wall; no, they would sing psalms, specifically, the psalms
of ascent - psalms 120 through 134.1 These fifteen psalms were sort of a songbook - a
songbook that retold God's saving acts, when he brought the Israelites out of slavery in
Egypt, and out of exile in Babylon; and a songbook that prompted the pilgrims to sing out
about the character of God - the God who saves, the God whom can be trusted; and to
sing out in praise of God's law, God's ways. By singing those songs, the pilgrims
worshiped and remembered.
Once in Jerusalem, the pilgrims would stay with a relative, or find an inn, and as families
theyd celebrate the Passover - the holiday that celebrated God's rescue of the people from
slavery in Egypt.
So every year Joseph and Mary and Jesus' and his brothers and sisters would make the trip
to Jerusalem. But one year, when Jesus was twelve, Joseph and Mary and their children
and relatives and fellow villagers set out to return to Nazareth. It was customary for the
men to travel in one group and talk about manly things, and for the women to travel in
another group and talk about womanly things. At some point on the walk home Mary and
Joseph came together and each asked where Jesus was. "Where's Jesus?" "I don't know I thought he was with you!" "He's not with me, I thought he was with you!"
Back to Jerusalem
So Joseph and Mary hurry back to Jerusalem, takes a day to get there. Then they spend
three days - three days - looking for the boy. Where would you look for a 12-year-old
boy? Today the skateboard park or video arcade or the mall - maybe Joseph and Mary
start looking in the first century equivalent of the mall - the bazaar - an open-air market
with lots of energy and excitement.
But hes not there. Hes not anywhere they looked. Can you imagine the panic, the
dread, the fear they felt?
On the third day they decide to look in the temple. And there he is.
Hes a typical adolescent

Now remember, Jesus is twelve years old in this story. A middle-schooler today.
On the one hand, he behaves much like youd expect.
His mother lays into him - paintings always show Mary so serene - here she is a momma
who all at the same time is angry, relieved, and hurt. You may remember how that feels if
you raised a child and he or she didnt come home one night and you stayed up all night
praying and making phone calls and maybe even going out in the car looking and they
finally straggle in at 6 in the morning.
One writer put it like this:
Mary, upon whom generations of Christians have lavished all manner of exalted
titles except Typical Mother, becomes Typical Mother. Why, she says
confronting her son, did you do this to us?
Parents tend to take things altogether too personally where their children are
involved. When a kid does something, parents always feel it was done deliberately
to them, because they are the parents. Theres hardly any other reason. Kids, by
parental thinking, do things to parents to demoralize them, worry them, test them,
and cost them extra money, embarrassment, peace of mind, sleep at night, laundry,
gas in the car, or tread off the tires. Naturally, every parent has the right to ask,
Why did you do this to me?
And he replies kind of like a kid that age might - by dismissing their worry and
casually questioning their intelligence - didnt you know Id be in my fathers
house?
Didnt you know - well no, they didnt, thats why they spent three days
looking for him!
I am glad, even heartened, to find out that Jesus was a normal kid, perfectly
normal, pretty much more or less like my kids growing up. He was made like his
brothers in every respect is the point made by the Letter to the Hebrews.2
Isnt that a wonderful word of grace for us parents? You feel like you are hanging on by
your fingernails sometimes, frustrated with your children and angry with yourself for not
being a wiser, more competent parent? The holy family, Jesus parents, had their issues,
too.
And theres a word of grace for you middle schoolers here today - it can be a tough time
of life for you - one day you still feel like a kid and you just want to have fun, other days
you feel the weight of becoming a teenager and going to high school and the expectations
of grades and PSATs and getting into college, you may feel judged by your peers at
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school - well, in Jesus you have a Lord and friend who knows exactly what its like to be
your age and feel your feelings and deal with your struggles. I know you sometimes feel
like no one understands you - but he does and you can go to him with anything and
everything and hes always, always there.
But he is also his fathers son
Jesus is like us in every way - yet he was incomparably different, too.
We see that in what he tells Joseph and Mary when they finally found him in the temple.
Didnt you know that I would be in my Fathers house? And that phrase, contains
multitudes.
Jesus is referring to God as his Father. Doesnt really get our attention today, because
the idea of God as father, God being like a father, a parent, has worked its way into the
thinking of people in Western culture. But back in Jesus time, it was startling, strange,
even outrageous.
Because, there is almost no precedent in the Hebrew bible, the Old Testament. Only a few
times is God referred to as Father, and thats always in terms of God being the father of
the people of Israel. Nowhere, nohow, does an individual refer to God as father, like in
a personal oneon-one relationship.
But this twelve-year-old does. Young Jesus does not have a crisis of identity like many
young adolescents. He knows exactly who he is.
Those of us whove been parents, maybe youve had one of those moments when you go,
Who is this kid?
Sometimes, they come out with deep wisdom
Theres a story about a nursery school teacher who had her class on a field
trip, bunch of them in a van, and theyre driving down the road when a fire
truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a
Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog's duties. "They use
him to keep crowds back," said one youngster. No, said another, "he's just
for good luck." A third child brought the argument to a close. "They use
the dogs", she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrant."
Sometimes, you find they have these talents you didnt suspect and you dont have
yourself - you give your child piano lessons because you always wanted to learn
but you were so bad the piano teacher fired you from lessons when you were 10
and your child takes lessons and after three months theyre playing Mozart on the
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keyboard.
And sometimes, they seem to see things we cant.
Roberta Corson, of Campbell, California, tells about a family with a small
girl of perhaps 2 who visited her church. During the service, Rev. Corson
invited all the children present to come forward for a childrens sermon.
When Corson finished the story, she instructed the children to return to sit
with their parents. The visiting child remained in the front, standing alone
in the chancel area facing the stained glass window, oblivious to other
people and activity. She simply stood in silence, having caught a glimpse of
something the rest of us had failed to see. Was it the light coming through
the stained glass? Was it the high-vaulted ceiling? Was it the holy mystery
of God? After a long time, she quietly turned and went back to be with her
parents.
Carson writes, I never came to know that child, but I also have never
forgotten her. She is you and me, our children, and the children of our
neighborhood and world. She is every child, open to the holy. She has not
yet been conditioned to miss it. --As referenced by Bob Olmstead, 11 April
1993, Reno, Nev.
Jesus saw a lot of things we did not, Jesus had a relationship with God the Father that was
unique and incomparable. And what he said to his parents - I had to be in my fathers
house - this had to be hurtful to Joseph especially, but to Mary too. Because Jesus is
saying, my real Father, is God. My most important relationship, is to him. Because of
how Jesus was conceived and the shepherds and wise men and all that, Joseph and Mary
knew that their child was unusual but here - the separation begins - Jesus goes home and is
obedient to his parents and Luke tells us that Mary treasured all these things in heart - but
Jesus says in effect God is my parent, God is my most important relationship.
But there is grace in here too, for us.
One point of grace is that God the Father, sent his son to us. I know of some married
couples who will not have children because they dont want to bring children into this
world so full of pain, suffering and horrors. God did not make that choice, but sent his
Son into this world to save the world.
And God the Son, opened the way for you and me to have a relationship with God where
we get to call him Father, too.
In fact the book of Hebrews says that Christ consider us his brothers and sisters
because we share with him a relationship to the Father.
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This is why Jesus taught us to begin the Lords Prayer by saying, Our Father we, I, usually say it without much thought but we can call God Father because
Jesus opened the way for us to know God, personally, intimately. Every. Single.
One of us.
Dale Brunner points out the Our in Our Father means belonging, mercy, home.
It is a possessive pronoun meaning that God the Father is ours and we are his. In
the our is contained the joy of the whole gospel.
Its kind of dated a bit but Tony Campolo tries to get this across with this illustration. He
says he thinks God is like a grandparent and he has a wallet with your picture in it. Dated,
right? Today God would have an iPhone. Anyway, Gods with the archangels around his
throne and the Almighty, like a grandparent, always manages to direct the conversation
towards his children - us - and pulls out his wallet and shows the archangels our pictures
and says, Isnt my child beautiful? Isnt my child wonderful? Isnt my child going to do
great things?
There is plenty in this life that tells us that were not good enough, that we dont measure
up, that were ugly and stupid, that were not successful, that weve failed. There are lots
of times in life when were caught in a storm like those cruise ship passengers a few weeks
ago and were afraid were going under.
And our fear at the storms, our despair over ourselves, our belief that the cruel judgments
imposed on us are true, all stem from a failure to believe, to have faith, that through Jesus
Christ God has become our father, our heavenly father and his love for us is forever and
life is going to be hard, terrible things may happen, but nothing can snatch us out of his
hand and he is going to bring good into our lives through the worst that happens, the
worst thats been done to us.
More than anything else, I think, God wants us simply to believe this and trust him. This
is where just about all our problems come from - that we dont find our worth in God our
father, that we dont trust him to provide for us, that we dont trust that hes there and
means us good. God wants for us simply to trust him. In everything.
It was necessary...
And we can do that because, again, of Jesus.
The twelve-year-old Jesus says to Joseph and Mary, Why were you looking for me? Did
you not know that I must be in my Father's house? Must be. That same grammar is
found later on in Luke, when Jesus says to his disciples that he MUST endure much
suffering and be rejected (Luke 17:25).

It would get much worse for Mary than this day in the temple - as Simeon prophesied
early in chapter 2 of Luke, a sword will pierce your heart as she watched her son be
pierced on the cross to free us from the powers of sin and death.
And for the first time, on that cross, Jesus really was lost and bereft as the weight of the
sin of the whole world fell on him. And God the Father, lost a son; Mary his mother, lost
a son, that we could become sisters and brothers of our heavenly Father. Amen.
Endnotes
1. Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p. 14ff. Downer's Grove, Ill:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1980.
2. Russell Saltzman, The Holy Family, in First Things, Dec. 31, 2015.