Sunday Sermon - 29 December

Here we are, just a few days after celebrating the arrival of the Christ child, and our Gospel reading suddenly skips ahead 12 years. 

We’ve skipped over the naming and presentation of Jesus. I don’t think the writers of Luke would appreciate this very much. You see, The Gospel of Luke, more than all of the other synoptic Gospels, tries to report the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection historically in a linear timeline. In fact, the account of Jesus in the Temple is unique to Luke’s Gospel - none of the other synoptic Gospels have this account. Jesus as a boy in the temple is Luke’s story and Luke’s story alone. It is this Gospel’s way of tying together Jesus’ transition from a baby to an adult.

As a historian, Luke tries to thread the Jesus stories together and give, as best as he can, an accurate account of Jesus’ life from birth to death. I personally would have preferred that we read his Gospel this way throughout our lectionary, but I get why we jump around - to appropriately honour or spread out certain festivals, to read certain accounts during the time of year that the event may have happened, etc - but for me it makes Luke’s account of Jesus’ life disjointed. If you’ve not yet done so, I suggest giving the Gospel of Luke a read, from beginning to end as that’s the way it was written and the way it was meant to be read.

All that being said, we do need to ask ourselves: why are we reading the story of Jesus in the Temple today, so soon after Christmas?

If you’ll indulge me for a minute, I’d like to reread a paragraph of the Gospel again:

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 travellers, 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.

Luke is trying to be historically accurate in his Gospel. He goes into detail, as best he can, to fill in the blanks in Jesus' life - he is as specific as he can be in his accounts. Here we have Jesus, a 12 year old boy, who essentially gets left behind by his parents who don’t realize he’s missing for a full day. Then they quickly ask around and realize he’s not with the crowd so they go back to Jerusalem and don’t find him for another three full days.

Does this story sound a little familiar, especially this time of year?

Let me give you a hint…..  “Kevin!”

If you’ve seen the movie Home Alone, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Home Alone is a classic Christmas movie that I just could not get out of my mind when reading today’s Gospel and preparing this sermon. Home Alone is the story about a big family who is going on a vacation and, in all the rush of getting out the door and to the airport on time, they leave their youngest son, Kevin, behind. The mother doesn’t realize this until she is on the plane and in the air. The rest of the movie is about her trying to get back home to rescue her boy (who is doing quite well on his own, defending their property against a couple of bad guys). It’s a fun, Christmas comedy that’s become a seasonal classic.

Again, I could not get this movie out of my head when reading the Gospel and working on this sermon. I could just see Mary look up at Joseph and say, “I feel like I’m forgetting something” as they are walking out of Jerusalem with the crowd after the Passover festival. And Joseph saying to her, “Nah, you always feel that way when we travel.” Then, the sudden realization that they don’t have their son with them - “Jesus!” and the panic and sheer terror that wells up in them eventually shifts to a sense of failure as a mother. “How could I have left my child behind? How could I have forgotten my child? I’m a terrible mother.” Just like Kevin’s mother felt in Home Alone.

I don’t think that the organizers of the lectionary put this passage here, so soon after Christmas, willy nilly or just because they needed some young Jesus stories to fill the space before the upcoming feast of the Naming of Jesus. There’s a reason and purpose for their intentions.  

All through Advent we’ve been preparing for the arrival of Jesus and the return of the Messiah. We’ve been referring to Jesus as “our Emmanuel” which means God with us. Now that the Christmas season has arrived and we acknowledge and celebrate that God is with us, we are reminded to not leave him behind as we carry on with our busy lives.  

It was relatively easy for Mary and Joseph to lose track of Jesus. 12 years old, especially back in those days, was fairly old and a 12 year old person was quite independent. It would make sense that Jesus would be travelling with others, hanging out with friends, etc. As Luke says, there was a crowd leaving together after the big Passover festival in Jerusalem, but it’s a good reminder for us not to leave Jesus behind as we move through the busyness of our lives.  

I know there are days when I’ve forgotten Jesus, when I’ve left him behind and said and done things that would make it hard for others to see the Christ in me. I also know there are other days when I’ve left Jesus behind intentionally. Intentionally choosing to not be the Christian that God calls me to be. In those moments when I am angry or frustrated and I make a cognitive decision, an emotional choice, to be someone I’m not proud of and don’t even like very much. Fortunately these moments are relatively few and far between and I have a good friend, my best friend, who reminds me who I am and to not be that jerk. Don’t we all have these moments? When we either forget Jesus or choose to leave Jesus behind in our dealings with others - be it at work, our social lives, or sometimes even in our Church family. It’s never okay. As Christians we must never leave Jesus behind.  

I have to admit, for me, one of the most important things about this service that we share in every Sunday, is the confession. That’s why one of the first things I did when I arrived here was set up my prayer desk and get a kneeler, for God knows I need to make confession. I need to ask for God’s forgiveness for all of the moments over the course of the week that I’ve forgotten Jesus and said and did something I regret. I pray not just for forgiveness of my past but for the strength to never forget Jesus in the future. To always be reminded of who I am as a Christian and how I am to be as a Christian.  

I also love the moment of sharing the peace - maybe you can tell - I feel relieved and refreshed, ready to start anew. The peace is the outward and symbolic acknowledgement of reconciliation with those in the community and our restoration with God. It is the human to human moment that complements the communion, the human to divine moment, when we take God into ourselves. Receiving communion is the divine sacred time when we acknowledge that Jesus is back in us and we are together made whole again.

This passage - Jesus, The Boy in the Temple - tells us about Jesus talking with the Jewish faith leaders and elders. He’s teaching and learning, and it is full of important messages for us. Luke is pointing out to us that Jesus, even as a young boy, was special and seen to be special by those around him. Luke is also telling us that Jesus is in the temple where he is not only supposed to be, but is expected to be. Jesus admonishes his mother when she tries to chastise him for not keeping up with them and for getting lost, His point is that he wasn’t lost at all. He was where he should be and doing what he should be doing.  

Luke also adds another important aspect for us to acknowledge in this account - the three days took Mary and Joseph to find Jesus in the temple. Yes, this is likely intentionally written, foreshadowing the days between Jesus’ death and resurrection, but the number three also often signifies the completion of a trial or of divine fulfillment. Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days, Peter denied knowing Jesus three times and acknowledged and affirmed his love for Jesus three times. Jesus’ three-day absence and subsequent discovery in the temple marks a transition from him being a child to the beginning of his divine mission and purpose.  So, yes, there’s a lot here in this passage, but this isn’t what sticks for me this morning.

I can’t think of anything more devastating for a mother than losing her child. The mother in Home Alone did a great job portraying the depth of pain and profound sense of failure in losing her son. Mary must have felt similar pain and failure in that moment when she realized Jesus was missing. When we lose our saviour - when we forget to bring Christ along in our lives - how do we feel? In my regret, in those moments when I feel disappointed in myself for leaving Jesus behind, I am strengthened in this shared time together when we find forgiveness and reconciliation. Between Sundays, I also find strength in prayer and I urge you to do the same. A prayer poem that I turn to when I forget Jesus and leave him behind, goes like this:

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.

Scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each, I noticed footprints in the sand.

Sometimes there were two sets of footprints; other times there was only one.

During the low periods of my life I could see only one set of footprints, so I said, "You promised me, Lord, that you would walk with me always. Why, when I have needed you most, have you not been there for me?"

The Lord replied, "The times when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you."

I am then reminded, that no matter how many times we may forget Jesus and leave him behind, our Lord never forgets us.

Amen.