First Sunday after Christmas                                                                1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
December 27, 2009                                                                                Colossians 3:12-17
                                                                                                                   Luke 2:41-52

Increasing in Wisdom

Christmas is over.  Our Advent time of waiting has ended.  Jesus is with us.  In the church calendar, we’re now in the twelve days of Christmas before Epiphany, with a pause here for the Sunday in between — the Sunday after Christmas. 

We’ve read the momentous events of the first two chapters of Luke, from the story of Zechariah, Elizabeth and their son John, the angel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary, the beautiful poetry of Mary’s Magnificat and Zechariah’s song, the baby in a manger because there was no room in the inn, with shepherds and angels heralding his birth.

The birth stories end with the first appearance in the Temple — Mary fulfilling the rites of purification for a woman who had given birth, and Jesus as a first-born male being “presented” to God.  There are the beautiful passages with the songs of two old prophets Simeon and Anna.  When Mary and Joseph had fulfilled these ritual obligations, they return home to Nazareth.  All we hear of the childhood of Jesus is that he “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.” 

After twelve years of no information in Luke (Matthew adds the Epiphany with the three seers from the East, the massacre of the innocents and the flight to Egypt), he then jumps to today’s story of a twelve-year old Jesus in the Temple during the Passover festival, sitting with the teachers of Torah, listening and discussing, as they are amazed at his understanding and his answers.  He returns to Nazareth with his parents, where once again he increases in wisdom and in divine and human favor. 

It has always been interesting to me that we know so little from the gospels about the life of Jesus from his birth until he bursts onto the public scene with his baptism, supposedly at age thirty.  Other than the story we heard today, there is nothing.   The eighteen years between the Temple story and the baptism have been called “the lost years of Jesus,” and have led to a lot of speculation.

One theory is that he spent those years in India and Tibet, learning at a Buddhist monastery.  These folks point to the significance of three seers from the East coming to see the baby, the similarities between Buddhist teaching and some of Jesus’ teaching.  Biblical scholar Marcus Borg has compiled a book, Jesus and Buddha, where similar sayings from the two are shown side-by-side.  There is a legend, supposedly contained in an ancient Buddhist scroll kept in a Tibet, of a “Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men.”  In Arabic, “Jesus” is “Isa,” the name used for him in the Quran.

Others maintain he spent time in the Essene settlement at Qumran, perhaps with his cousin John, learning from that particular school of Jewish apocalyptism.  There are also parallels between some of his teachings and those in the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls. The children’s story book version is a young boy with a hammer and saw in hand, serving as a carpenter’s apprentice to Joseph while learning Torah from the rabbis at the local Nazareth synagogue.  And there are the fanciful stories in some of the pseudo-gospels of a young Jesus healing wounded animals and a variety of other miracles.  Several of these stories are recounted in the Quran — his speaking while still in the cradle and breathing life into clay models of birds.

So why, in all four gospels, is this the only story of those years?  It seems to me there are several reasons Luke may have included it.   But let’s look at the story first.  As with many stories, I think we can often see new insights by unpacking the story.

The text begins by reminding us again that Jesus’ parents were observant Jews.  Passover was one of three annual festivals that Jews were commanded to observe at the Jerusalem temple.  Presumably being fairly poor and from Galilee, about a three-day journey in a caravan of pilgrims, it seems likely that Joseph and Mary actually didn’t make the trip that often, despite the text saying “as usual.”  Apparently very few Galileans did — it was a long journey from that rural province.  But this time, the text notes that Jesus was twelve years old.  It was during a Jewish boy's twelfth year he was prepared for his becoming a “son of the commandments,” in Hebrew, a “bar mitzvah,” when he turns thirteen.  It is the age when a boy becomes a man, taking on the duties and responsibilities of a full member of the community.  It is perhaps the first time Jesus had made the pilgrimage, in light of its significance for him.  And that is perhaps why Luke tells the story.

When his parents leave to go home, they travel a day’s journey before they realize Jesus is missing.  So, they take another day to return, and then three more days before they find him.   And when they do, he is sitting with the teachers of the Law, engaged in a discussion of Torah, listening to these learned men and asking them questions, with their being amazed at his understanding and his answers. It’s a practice he would continue during his later adult life, in the many discussions with Pharisees the gospels record.  They, as well, are frequently amazed at his answers to their questions. Can I imagine that perhaps some of the same teachers were still discussing with him then what they discussed eighteen years earlier in the Temple? Perhaps.

Luke then uses the story to make, it seems to me, a theological point.  Mary, like all mothers, has been worried sick about her son, she and Joseph have been very anxious, “in great anxiety.”  When he is found, she gently admonishes him, child, why have you treated us like this?  Don’t you care how worried we were? Jesus looks at her and replies, why were you worried?  Didn’t you know that I have to be in my Father’s house?  We are to assume that already at the age of twelve, Jesus knew who he was and what his mission would be, setting the stage for all that was to come. 

The story concludes with his returning home to Nazareth with them, where he was obedient to them, and as he grew older, he increased in wisdom and in divine and human favor.  It’s a conscious repetition of what is said about the boy Samuel — he continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and with the people.  Luke seems to be drawing a deliberate parallel to the story of the young Samuel, who would grow up to become a great prophet.

As I said, there are probably several reasons for Luke to include this story, and several lessons we could draw from it.  There is a point that Jesus grew up grounded in the basics of his Jewish family and community that emphasizes the importance of fulfilling our obligations to God and our community. There is a lesson about the importance of study and learning, a lesson about Jesus’ relationship to God, perhaps even a lesson about the importance of obeying our parents.  They are all valid and important lessons that could be explored.

But as I think about this community, and our beginning a new year together, the words in today’s reading from Paul to the Colossians seem to me to reflect in practical terms these lessons of living in a religious community, of the importance of study and teaching, of our relationship to God.  We already heard this, but it’s worth re-reading and pondering.  In a teaching to that church about some of the essentials of community, Paul tells them:

“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 also must 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 you 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.”

Being together in community, living under the rule of the peace of Christ, we are called individually and collectively, to the attributes that will lead to us also increasing in wisdom, and in divine and human favor.  And in everything we say and do, always giving thanks to God through Jesus, our Lord. 

May we keep those instructions in mind as we begin a new year together.

Amen

DShank