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Worship on December  28th, 2009

   Rev. Shannon Johnson Kershner
 

This little vignette is a gift from our Gospel writer Luke.  Luke is the only canonical gospel that contains anything about Jesus’ childhood or adolescence.  And you just heard all that we know!  This story from the 2^nd chapter in Luke is all we have in our Scriptures about the time in between Jesus’ dedication as a baby and Jesus’ baptism as an adult.  The entirety of what we know of that time is this one little vignette recorded by Luke. 

 So, I wonder why Luke recorded this story?  None of the other gospel writers thought this in between time of Jesus’ young life needed to be written down.  Why did Luke?  Did Luke include it because it is just a great story to which we can all relate?  Rev. John Buchanan claims this is a story where everybody finds a place to stand[i].  Parents in the congregation immediately identify with Mary and Joseph.  They relate to their fear and panic when they realize Jesus is not with friends as they previously thought.  Parents identify with their joy over discovering their son safe in the Temple. 

 And then they completely connect with Mary and Joseph’s anger over Jesus’ rebelliousness and flippant response to their fear.  It is almost impossible for parents not to immediately put themselves in Mary and Joseph’s shoes.  How dare Jesus not leave with his group and put his parents through such fear and panic!

 But adults are not the only ones who read themselves into this passage.  Children can also relate to this story.  Kids can enjoy this story because it shows a boy-Jesus who holds his own with the adults of the temple.  Sure—he was listening to the instruction of his elders, but he was also asking many questions and offering his own thoughts on the various subjects.  And the text reports that the adults were stunned by the boy’s answers.  For kids, the boy-Jesus’ wisdom and the adults’ reaction to it validates their own feelings of wisdom that too often get blown off as being childish or naïve. 

 And finally, teenagers can get a kick out of this story.  They are delighted that Jesus challenges his parents’ authority over him and asserts his own individuality.  “Why were you even searching for me?  You should have known where I would be.”  “What do you mean I was lost?  I knew where I was.”  His rebellion offers secret hope for teenagers everywhere who find themselves in between childhood and adulthood—trying to forge their way.  I can just hear it now-- “Mother—Get over it.  Even Jesus made his parents mad.” 

 Everyone—adults, children, teens-- can find a place to stand in Luke’s short vignette about the boy Jesus.  And, we are all hungry to find a place to stand in the story.  It is the only mention in any of the Gospels of Jesus’ life as a teenager.  And we want to know anything and everything we can know about the young life of Jesus.  We want to know what he was like, what he did, if he always knew who he was. 

How was this boy-Jesus the Christ?  What, if anything, did he know about his creation to be Messiah?  Did he have to grow into his calling as Messiah, like we have to grow into our calling as disciples? 

 We have so many blanks in this part of Jesus’ life story that we are hungry to fill them in.  So Luke’s short vignette captures our imagination and we read all kinds of things into it about this boy-Jesus.  So you wonder if that why Luke wrote it down.  Because he knew it would capture our imaginations and give all ages a place to stand in the biblical story.

 But what if Luke included it because he wanted to ground the story of Jesus as our Messiah in Jesus’ deep Jewishness?  After all, when you read the Gospel of Luke, you can’t help but notice that just like parents mark the time of their kids’ growth by marking lines on a doorframe, Luke marks Jesus’ time by moments in the Temple—the home of Jesus’ Jewish tradition[ii].  It is at the temple in Jerusalem where Jesus is dedicated as a baby.  It is at the Temple in Jerusalem where Jesus and his family annually celebrate the Passover. 

 It is at the Temple in Jerusalem when today’s story takes place—when Jesus is 12-- about the time of a bar mitzvah—the Jewish celebration that marks the moment when adults stop speaking for the child and the child starts speaking for himself—an experience very similar to our own confirmation process.  And like our confirmands receive a grounding in Christian tradition here at the church, Jesus would receive a grounding in the Torah, the Jewish law, at the Temple.  And then, of course, near the end of Luke’s record of Jesus’ public ministry, Jesus again returns to the Temple in Jerusalem on another Passover, this time on the back of a colt, signaling another growth into his mission. 

 Like the pencil marks made on a kitchen doorway indicating growth and maturity, Luke marks Jesus’ growth into his call as our Messiah with episodes at the temple—the home of Jesus’ Jewish tradition.  So perhaps that was the reason Luke included this story—to remind us of Jesus’ Jewishness and the importance of that claim on his life.  To remind us, Gentile readers far removed, of the central significance of Jesus’ religion, the temple, and the city of Jerusalem in Jesus’ call as Messiah.    

 Or, Luke might have had something else in mind.  What if Luke included this story because he knew we would need to be pushed out of the manger back into the everyday world?  I know I always have had trouble moving from the peace and joy of Christmas Eve night back out into the regular, everyday world.  I would much rather linger with the animals and the shepherds and the sweet baby Jesus in the stable, than get back out into the chaos and pressure of everyday life.  I would much rather stay with the candlelight or the jingle bells of our two Christmas Eve services than plunge back into “regular” Sunday worship.  And I have now done this long enough to know what fuels my hesitation.  I am hesitant because I realize what is coming next.  As a matter of fact, it is written in red ink at the top of my Presbyterian planning calendar for the month of January.  “Plan for Lent” my note says. 

 The next church season for which we all must plan is the season of Lent—the season when we journey to the cross and to Jesus’ crucifixion.  And I don’t know how you feel, but when I peek out of the stable and look down the road a bit to see that cross looming on the horizon, I have a deep desire to turn right back around, bar the door, and stay hunkered down with all the animals and the shepherds and the baby Jesus nursing in Mary’s arms. 

 And my instinct to stay locked in the stable makes me wonder if Luke and his community felt that way too.  This gospel was written years after the cross and the empty tomb.  So perhaps knowing what was coming, Luke and his church also wanted to bar the door and stay hunkered down with the baby Jesus.  And given that temptation, Luke knew he needed to write down one of the stories about the boy-Jesus that would help us, the community of faith, make that transition away from the manger. 

 For with this one story, we are forced to move Jesus out of the manger, out of Mary’s arms, and into the world, to Jerusalem, where this Gospel also ends.  With this one story, we are forced to see that Jesus, even as an adolescent, is already starting to realize that the ultimate claim on his life does not belong even to Mary or to Joseph, but to his Heavenly Parent—the one from whom he came.  And, with this one short and concise story, Luke also forces us to come face to face with God’s claim on us and God’s call for us to start growing up with Jesus into a more mature understanding of who he is and what difference he can make in our lives. 

 The more I think about it, the more I wonder if Luke included this story not just because we would all find it interesting, and not just because it holds up the importance of Jesus’ Jewishness; but primarily because Luke knew it was always going to be easier for us to just keep the baby Jesus forever in the manger--sweet, innocent, harmless. 

 But Luke knew that was not why Jesus came into this world as God’s Love made Flesh.  And so perhaps Luke recorded this one story in order to force us to move with Jesus out from the safe embrace of his parents, out from the peace and joy of Christmas Eve, out from the shelter of the stable, into our world filled with chaos and deep need, with powerful people who would oppose the claims of the gospel, and with desperate people who would cling to the good news for life. 

 As Kristine Chakoian has written, “Just as this story moves us from Nazareth to Jerusalem, so we will have to move with Jesus on the long road to Jerusalem again, to the Temple again on another Passover, where he will upset the money-tables and upset the authorities and upset, ultimately, all the powers and dominions of this world that try to keep us in the stranglehold of death.  This one short passage, with its humor and its humanness, carries us relentlessly toward the cross.[iii]” 

 I don’t know about you, but that realization almost makes me wish that Luke had forgotten to record this story.  And yet, just as we testified on Christmas Eve, the shock of God’s incarnation, God’s becoming flesh, proclaims that as we make that move from the stable back into the everyday world, we do not do it alone.  As we move from the peace and joy of Christmas Eve out into the uncertainty of a New Year, we do not do it alone.  We make every step on the way following the one who has already gone before us and who has promised to still go with us.  We make every step on the way with the one who is our Way, our Truth, our very Life. 

 No, I suppose it is good that Luke gave us the gift of this little vignette.  For Jesus is indeed growing up into being fully who he was sent to be for our sake.  And it is time for us to follow.