Sermon Texts - Luke 2: 41-52 & Mark 1:4-11
In our texts, we have stories about Jesus' young life and start to ministry.Luke tells of how the young Jesus was with his family on a trip to Jerusalem for a festival, and in the packing up to head back home, his parents somehow forgot…him.
Back before we were parents of children, we were parents to our beloved dogs. Jasper and Howie. Jasper never wandered more than 10 feet from me or 5 from Eb, unless she tossed the ball farther than that, but Howie, he was an escape artist and a traveler. When we first moved to Mt. Tirzah, Howie loved to explore the fields and the wood behind the house, so we only took him out on a leash. On a particularly Sunny afternoon, I took the boys on a nice stroll down the road next to the house and through the woods behind our yard just to let us all stretch our legs a bit. Eb would be coming in from Asheboro that evening for the weekend and I knew they would be excited to see her, so I thought a bit of exercise would keep them calm when she got home.
They were asleep when she came in the door and went right to bed as we did so I was surprised when I was woken up by my bride in a panic. “Wake up Josh, wake up now, I can’t find Howie.” Eb was worked up into a fit that I didn’t really understand having been fast asleep and suddenly woken. I said, “The door has been shut all night, how could he have escaped?”, but she was gone. So I looked under the beds, his preferred sleeping space, and in my confusion searched the house to find the pup I had watched go to sleep just a few short hours before. In a moment, Eb was back in the house in tears wondering why I was not helping her look. More cognitively aware at this point I asked how he got out and she explained that she had let him out and while she was watching Jasper, at this point “your dog”, Howie had r-u-n-n-o-f-t.
Well not really, he was just in the backyard and trying to find all of his new territory when I found him, but he had worked his mother into a real tizzy.
I can only imagine the panic Mary and Joseph must have felt when they realized their teenager had decided not to join them on their return trip to Nazareth. I have seen the panic in my own mother’s eyes when she thought she had lost me in the mall or at wal-mart, but I was just a few steps away. Mary and Joseph had traveled a day without realizing Jesus was missing, Jesus was an entire day’s journey away, then it would take another to find him, He was missing for 3 days!
If you didn't know this was scripture, if you were just reading this story in Chicken Soup for the Soul, I wager you'd say, "What terrible parents". But we know this is Luke's Gospel account of Jesus' childhood and we sit and wonder what the prayers must have been when Mary and Joseph were wandering around the city in search of Jesus, whom they knew as God's child too. "Hey God, sorry to report, we lost him! Wanna send us another messenger to tell us where he may have went?"
Russel Rathbun, in his blog “The Hardest Question”, points out “Here is the problem: We are in worship and in society and it is after Christmas. God has come into the world. Jesus the Christ has been born into our midst. God is among us, but maybe there is a little bit of a feeling that when we started to look for him, we could not find him. We anticipated his coming for four weeks and we celebrated his arrival and now we just want to see him and hold him or be held by him, but we don’t see him among our party of travelers."
Jesus has r – u – n – n – o – f – t!
It is easy to identify with the panic that they feel searching and not finding him, but the fact is Jesus did not stay a tiny babe wrapped in cloth, time is flying as Jesus goes from infancy to twelve in just a few verses. We are no longer in Bethlehem but in Jerusalem. Jesus’ parents are not gathered around the manger in silent adoration but are vexed, frustrated and, truth be told, probably just a little bit upset at having had to journey back three days to search for their missing son only to find him in the Temple. Mary asks him why he would stay behind and leave them anxiously looking for him and the scripture says that Jesus’ answer is one they don’t really understand. Is it one that we understand? “didn’t you know I must be about my Father’s business?”
What does he mean? The Rev C. H. Spurgeon explains it this way, “ how great an interest God the Father takes in the work of salvation. It is called "his business;"… See how he stoops to become a child, subject to his mother; and mark how he stoops to become a man, subject to God his Father. He took upon himself the nature of man, and though he was the Son, equal in power with God, he "did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited," and "took upon himself the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."”
We see in Jesus' answer a shift from his being a child, subject to his earthy parent’s rules and household, to the man he was becoming. He begins here what we see him doing all through the Gospels, answering a question with another question. To make us think, to make us wonder, and to lead us to the realization that he is indeed Emmanuel.
Unlike our Howie, who did come home some 30 minutes after he wandered off and was as stubborn as they come to his last day, Jesus goes home with his parents and is obedient to them. Scripture says he continues to grow in wisdom and favor with God, to think how much God already loved him and yet each day God’s love grew for him. And he continued to be about the Father’s business, the work and ministry of salvation, the work and ministry of grace and love for all people.
This story, in fact, all of Luke 2 I would say, is a foreshadowing to the purpose and the people Jesus came to save, indeed the business He, his Father, and the Holy Spirit are in. From the angel’s announcement to the manger, “He came into the world that was his own, but the world didn’t recognize him.” From the manger to the temple, “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” From the Temple to calling the disciples, to his baptism, his teaching, and his suffering on the cross, “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” From the Cross to the resurrection which serves as our promise of salvation and grace given freely to everyone who believes, “to all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gives power to become children of God.”
We are the children of God and Christmas is not over. It is not just a one-day or even a twelve-day event. Christmas is the beginning of something that we as Christians get to celebrate throughout our lives. What other king would give up his thrown for you and for me? What other god laid down their life for you and for me? There are none and it is our call to be about our Father’s business, it is our job to go and tell the world the good news of the stable, the good news of the cross and the empty tomb, the good news of love and grace that extends to every person, that is big enough for the entire world, that sees beyond skin color, age, and gender, that calls each of us children of the Most High.
This day will we commit to follow Jesus passionately? Will we choose to be shining stars that point others to Christ who is at work in our lives, in our homes, our church, and indeed the world so that we too may be about our Father’s business.
