Date: 1^st November 2009 (Christmas 1)

Preacher: Chris Green

Churches: Draycott & Rodney Stoke

Readings:

Samuel 2: 18 - 20

Luke 2: 41-52

I hope you have been enjoying Christmas.

I wonder how many of you have had the joy of sharing it with children? Young children do give us something special on this festival in particular. We adults may have got a little tired with the decorations, the presents and the carols- but through their eyes, we can recapture a little of its enchantment again.

It sometimes seems as if Christmas has become ‘for the children’, or at least a kind of celebration of childhood. And for Christians too this may seem natural. This is the season in which we welcome Christ as Child. Our Christmas songs, carols and of course Christmas cards are full of images of the baby Jesus.

But if we want detail of his childhood, we are only given glimpses in the Bible. He appears as a baby a few times, but then the record is silent. Was he a normal child, throwing tantrums, stealing other children’s toys? Or was he ‘good’ all the time- ‘little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes’? We have frustratingly little to go on, although our carols try hard to make up for it.

But we do have this final story of him at the end of his childhood, from St. Luke.

We are told it was the Passover – the great festival when Jerusalem filled with several million extra people. Everyone who possibly could, travelled to the city. All normal work ceased for days- a bit like Christmas perhaps (I’m sure that the Roman governor complained about the loss of productivity over the Passover period). We can imagine it was a jolly crowd who walked the seventy odd miles from Nazareth.

And we are told that Jesus was twelve. This is a significant age in the Jewish tradition, even today. At this age a boy child is called ‘bar mitzvah’ (and a girl ‘bat mitzvah’). Literally this is ‘son (or daughter)’ of the Law”, although confusingly this is nowadays applied to the party itself. The child now has responsibility for his actions, and is expected to understand and discuss the books of the Jewish Law.

But what must have started as a celebration of their firstborn’s son’s coming of age turns into a nightmare for Joseph and Mary, when they realise Jesus is missing on the way back from the city. It hardly seems credible to us that this only happens after a day- although people lived much less as nuclear families then. And of course... no mobile phones! But he is missed, and his parents go straight back to Jerusalem. Anyone who has lost a child for even a short time may imagine their anguish. And after three days of frantic search for him in those lawless times, they must have believed he was dead. Imagine their joy, when they finally see him alive and well!

But then follows one of those strange realisations, which happen some time to all parents. As they catch sight of their son in the temple, in earnest discussion with learned men, Joseph and Mary realise with a shock that he is not longer that child they were looking for and thought that they knew. He really has become bar mitzvah, son of the Law. They see him through new eyes- he is transformed.

It’s a good linking story to go between the birth and the later ministry. But it is more than this. To get its full significance, we should remind ourselves of how the first Christians approached the story of Jesus. They began at the end. It was the crucifixion and the resurrection of the Messiah that drew them in to the Gospel story- that was the Gospel. Later, they explored the healings and the teachings of Jesus. Last of all, they began to wonder about his origin. And this is the real reason for the lack of detail over Jesus’ childhood. For these early Christians, the significance of the childhood was to prefigure the ministry.

Well, Nikki said something about the significance of the birth stories on Christmas Eve. But equally here, there is a strong connection between our Gospel story and the ministry of Jesus.

To see this, cast your mind to the events which begin the some twenty years later, which we commemorate in Holy Week. Here, Jesus once more goes to the Passover celebrations at the Temple, on what we call Palm Sunday. Once more he goes with a crowd full of expectations- many think he is going to lead them in an overthrow of Roman rule. When he gets to Jerusalem, Jesus debates with teachers of the Law, and people are amazed by his authority.

Then it all goes horribly wrong. He is handed over to the Romans, executed, buried. For three days, his disciples believe that he is dead.

Then two of his disciples travel a day’s walk from Jerusalem, towards Emmaus. They meet someone on the way who explains how they have misunderstood the signs for the Messiah. Mysteriously, they only recognise him as Jesus at the end of the day- and they hurry straight back to Jerusalem. And Jesus meets them again, in the company of the disciples.

So our Gospel story today, about the beginning of Jesus’ adult life, turns out to be also a preview of its end. It is a story of a Jesus lost and found- of people who have been looking for him in the wrong place. It is about the parents who lose the child who they thought was obediently following them, and find instead a man, going about his Father’s business. It is about the disciples who lose a man they were counting on as a leader, and find instead their true saviour and messiah, in their midst.

And it is our story. Jesus does not stay where we put him. He does not stay in the manger- after a while, this seems empty and meaningless, only for the children- we must look for him elsewhere. We look for Jesus as an ally on our pet cause, to lead us and to change the world in ways that suit us, or in ways we think he ought to. And he is not there. We, too, look for Jesus in the wrong place. Perhaps we will not find him, until we are prepared to let him find us.

Amen