Have you ever lost something that was extremely important or special to you?
I’m not talking about losing your keys, or your glasses, or your phone, which I do every day. I’m talking about losing something or someone that is irreplaceable.
Or maybe you’ve been lost yourself and can still remember that feeling of emptiness that welled up from within the pit of your stomach.
When I was six years old, I got separated from my parents at Disney World. There I was standing before the Dumbo ride, transfixed, watching the little Dumbo carts filled with people flying around and around in circles
And as I turned around to share this joyous moment with my parents, the magic kingdom quickly turned into a nightmare, for I realized, I was lost.
I can still remember to this day what it felt like to have my Dumbo sized joy replaced so rapidly by the crippling fear and anxiety that comes from knowing you are lost.
Do you know that feeling?
Now I’ve never lost my children, (knock on wood) but I can only imagine the paralyzing fear and crippling anxiety that Mary and Joseph must have felt at the moment they realized they had lost Jesus while making their way home from the Passover.
Do you see the irony of our Gospel lesson this morning?
The holy parents lost God.
Every adult child who lived within fifteen miles of Jerusalem was required by law to attend the Passover Festival. We are told here that Jesus was twelve, the age at which a boy becomes a man in Jewish culture.
It was through this rite of passage that Jesus became a son of the law and had to take the obligation of the law upon him. So, at twelve, Jesus was required for the first time to make the Passover pilgrimage.
Now let’s not be too hard on poor Joseph and Mary for losing the Son of God. Think of this scene like a massive family reunion with cousins and aunts and uncles and nephews and second cousins and third aunts all traveling, all talking and teasing and playing and walking in a massive exodus together. It would have been nothing short of organized chaos.
Also, the women and children in the caravan making the trip back to their neighboring villages would have left earlier in the day because they travelled slower.
The men, who travelled faster, would leave later in the day. The two groups would then meet up in the evening once they reached their encampment. It was probably at that moment the holy parents realized Jesus was not with them.
I imagine the conversation went something like this:
Joseph: I thought he was with you!
Mary: Well, I thought he was with you!
So, they returned to the Holy City to search for him.
Now during the Passover, it was the custom of the Sanhedrin (the religious elite of Israel) to meet publicly in the temple court to discuss openly religious and theological topics with anyone who wanted to listen.
In describing this scene with Jesus and the Jewish scholars, theologian William Barclay notes:
“We must not think of it as a scene where a precocious boy was dominating a crowd of his seniors. Hearing and asking questions were the regular Jewish phrase for a student learning from his teachers. Jesus was listening to the discussions and eagerly searching for knowledge like an avid student.”
Luke adds to the story by stating, “And all who heard him (Jesus) were amazed at his understanding and his answers.”
And now comes one of the key passages in the life of Jesus. Upon discovering Jesus in the temple, Mary asks him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.”
Twelve year old Jesus looks to his parents and replies, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Do you see what has happened here in the text? Jesus gently but definitively takes the name father from Joseph and gives it to God.
Perhaps this was a conclusion Jesus came to after years of searching for his own unique relationship with God. I find it hard to believe that Jesus came into this world as an infant baby, fully aware of his divine identity.
As the years went on, he must have had thoughts about his purpose. Perhaps it was at this moment, here at his first Passover, there came a sudden blaze of realization that he was, in a unique sense, the Son of God.
“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
So, what does this ironic story of lost and found mean to us today?
It means that Jesus has, in both an earthly and spiritual sense, come home.
He is no longer a boy, but a man. And here, in his Father’s house, he has made his first steps into a much larger world. A new world in which he would later describe as, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions, and I am going there to prepare a place for you.”
And in this larger theological framework, we too have in a sense come home in Jesus to dwell in his Father’s house. This is why the compilers of the Book of Common Prayer included our passage this morning from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
You can practically feel the living word jumping off the page: the Father has blessed us (you, we, them) with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Not just two or three or ten spiritual blessings, but every spiritual blessing in an infinite kingdom of joy.
The Apostle Paul’s mind has been blown by the Good News of the Father, Son, and HS, and he now wants to share with us who we are in Christ. He is about to peel back the thin veneer of the physical world to introduce us to a brave new world of the now, but the not yet.
A world in which God chose us in Christ before the foundations of creation to be holy and blameless before him in love. A world in which God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ. A world that looks forward with great anticipation to the second coming of Christ and to the full realization of our inheritance as sons and daughters in the kingdom of light.
And so, we now circle back to six year old Thomas, lost in a sea of strangers at the Dumbo ride in Orlando, Florida. You didn’t think I was going to leave precious me lost forever at Disney!
So, there I was, lost in the magic kingdom that quickly turned into my worst nightmare. And as the lump in my throat turned to tears running down my cheeks, I heard the most beautiful sound in the human language coming from my Dad. He was calling my name.
I ran toward the sound of my daddy’s voice and practically leapt into his arms. Through my sobs I tried explaining to my parents how I’d been lost, but dad just smiled at me and said, “Son, our eyes never left your sight.”
You see they’d been watching me the whole time from about fifteen feet away, and the moment they saw me in distress, dad called my name.
For me, this story is a powerful parable for what we experience in our day-to-day lives with God. We too often succumb to the false belief that we are lost. And so we give into those lost feelings, the crippling fear and anxiety that comes from such a false belief.
Or like mother Mary and father Joseph, we do not understand what Jesus is saying to us.
“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” is the declaration of Jesus finding us (the human race) lost in our sin and separation.
The irony of this story is that Jesus was never lost. Joseph and Mary are lost. The Sanhedrin are lost. We are lost. But Jesus is exactly where he’s supposed to be (where he must be) in his Father’s house.
And like my dad calling my name at Disney, Jesus (has called, is calling, and will continue) calling us each by name. Calling us out of our own darkness and into his light to share in the divine life of his Father.
Or to put it in the words of the old hymn as of course sung by the great Johnny Cash,
Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling
Calling for you and for me
See on the portals, he's waiting and watching
Watching for you and for me
Come home, come home
Yee who are weary come home
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling
Calling, oh, sinner come home.
May we too catch a glimpse of our chosen-nish, our adoption, and our inheritance as expressed in the simple language of Jesus on this Second Sunday of Christmas:
“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Amen.
References
Barclay, William. The Gospel of Luke. Saint Andrew Press. 2001
Kruger, Baxter. God is For Us. Perichoresis Inc. 2008.
Johnny Cash. Softly and Tenderly. My Mother’s Hymn Book. 2003.
The Book of Common Prayer. Church Publishing Inc. 1979.