Business as usual?

1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26

Samuel was ministering before the LORD, a boy wearing a linen ephod. His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, “May the LORD repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the LORD”; and then they would return to their home. Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and with the people

Psalm 148

Hallelujah! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise God in the heights. Praise the LORD all you angels; sing praise, all you hosts of heaven. Praise the LORD, sun and moon; sing praise, all you shining stars. Praise the LORD, heaven of heavens, and you waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD who commanded and they were created, who made them stand fast forever and ever, giving them a law that shall not pass away. Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps; fire and hail, now and fog, tempestuous wind, doing God’s will; mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars; wild beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds; sovereigns of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the world; young men and maidens, old and young together. Let them praise the name of the LORD, whose name only is exalted, whose splendor is over earth and heaven. The LORD has raised up strength for the people and praise for all faithful servants, the children of Israel, a people who are near the LORD. Hallelujah!

Colossians 3:13-17

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the LORD has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in your richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Luke 2:41-52

Now every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.  Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teaches, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

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My great aunt told me once about watching my father try to protect me as a child. She said I was like any other child who like to explore the world and put everything in my mouth, stick my fingers into every opening, and nearly electrocuted myself, as you do when you stick a finger into an electrical outlet. Or I would have done, if Dad hadn’t slapped my hand away from the outlet. Great Aunt Audrey was quick to tell him that now I would be more afraid of getting my hand slapped than I would of sticking my finger in an outlet. She said I’d have to learn myself, the hard way, the difference between fear of danger and fear of punishment.

Most kids know the fear of punishment more than they understand the fear of actual danger. Usually if an adult tells you not to do something, it’s because it’s too much fun for kids, right? I mean, those movies rated “R” or those funny smelling drinks in beer cans make all the grownups happy, so why can’t the kids have them? Until we find out for ourselves what our parents are trying to protect us from, we just don’t get it. Or we tend to think we know better and can handle ourselves better than we can. War is hell, or it was for others, but we’ll be heroes for it this time and there won’t need to be any more wars if we are the generation that gets it right. Drunk driving gets other people in trouble, texting while driving is something other kids can’t handle, we’re so much better, so completely above those dangers, we ignore the warnings. If we’re lucky, we survive these stupid decisions we stumble into while growing up, and warn our children against them even though they won’t listen, either.

I wonder how Mary and Joseph worried for Jesus when he went missing. It seemed Jesus was just too naïve to understand what they were afraid of. I mean, he was in the holy city of Jerusalem, for goodness’ sake. This was where the temple was, the closest home to God. The religious leaders would have taken good care of him had they found him wandering alone, that was their job, to take care of the lost. Then again, he might have been snatched up by a Roman guard who just felt like asserting some authority over the Jews during their holy holidays. There are videos and stories of African-American parents giving their kids solid beatings for discipline because they’d rather the kids be beaten by their parents than by the police. The fear of authority is strong when you’ve been on the losing side of it more than once. Of course Mary and Joseph would have been anxious.

On the other hand, the first word the angel said to Mary before she conceived was ‘do not be afraid!’ That’s usually the first word an angel has to declare, or else we’d fall down in terror and never hear anything else they had to say. It wasn’t a word just for that particular encounter, either, but for the rest of her life. “Do not be afraid!” Easier said than done, especially when your child goes missing in a crowd for more than a couple of hours, let alone three days.

But there he was, pre-teen Jesus, sitting with the elders in the temple, asking and answering questions, the first story we have of how human he was. Can you picture it? Mary and Joseph: “Do you have ANY IDEA how WORRIED we were?!” Jesus: (innocently) “But, mother dearest, of course I’m alright, I’m just where I should be.” What a growing up that must have been. God as an adolescent could be all kinds of trouble. Telling Joseph “You’re not my real dad!” must have been a real temptation.

Raising children, your own biological kids or those in our own community, can be intense, and joyful, and heartbreaking. We fear for what sort of world we’ve made for them, we expect great things of them and for them, we worry about them and try our best to teach them well, but they are their own people. Some say that adults are just larger, older, children. We all need love and compassion and patience and gratitude and safety… all those things written on behalf of Paul to the Colossians, those gifts which are vital to raising healthy kids, are vital to healthy community. Why should adults stop being gentle with one another just because we’re not in grade school any more?

But we’ve become so afraid. We’ve grown anxious. We’ve gotten caught up in the crowds and lost sight of Jesus. We thought he was on our side, with us every step of the way, right there next to us, until the rush and the chaos and the exhaustion catches up and we notice we’ve lost sight of him. Could he be with our neighbors? Didn’t we think the church down the street was taking care of him for us? Maybe he wandered off to care for somebody else because we took him for granted. Did we leave him behind again? Or maybe… maybe this time he left us behind on his way to Jerusalem.

We don’t want to face Jerusalem just yet, though. We’ve gown afraid even of God and the punishment the world justly deserves. So we bury ourselves in more stuff and more noise and more activities, lest we stop in silence and look around at where we are and find the old discomfort still there. We stick our fingers in the socket, almost daring that great hand from heaven to slap us.

Anxious that we’ve misplaced Jesus, we forget who it is we are dealing with. Even if we’ve gotten too busy to think about him, he’s not the sort to yell at us when we turn back to him. He hasn’t left us, he’s just doing what he always does, living life and going about his Father’s business of reconciliation. Just as kids do, he’s testing the boundaries we’ve set up between us, knocking down the barriers of fear we’ve built. 

It's only Christmas, but Easter is everywhere. Mary and Joseph search in Jerusalem for Jesus, and they search for three days before they find him. Remind you of anything? Three days he goes missing, just like when he will die and three days later rise from the dead. We have this detail as a foreshadowing of what is yet to come, when the thing we fear as worst case scenario actually does happen, when it is the end of the world, and yet we will continue on, to resurrection, to a new kingdom. As happens with any trip through adolescence, this new reality might be a bit awkward, a bit stumbling at first, reestablishing God’s reign of peace and forgiveness. It takes some growing into, and Jesus is already bringing healing even while we are anxiously searching for any sign that he hasn’t left us.

The child Jesus was about his Father’s business from the start, and continues it in us still to this day. Asking questions, building relationship with us, calming our anxieties and removing our fears, Jesus has a lot of hard work ahead of him, but he’s committed to it because he’s got skin in the game, he’s committed to us, he’s faithful even when we are faithless. Faithfulness, forgiveness, after all, these are our Father’s business.