Christmas Eve and Christmas morning are over. The candles and music were beautiful on Christmas Eve, as we sang Silent Night together. As young and old joined and listened to the story we hear each year. As we focused on the shepherds. As we said “Welcome Home.” Technically, we still have another week of Christmas-tide even after today, but I’ve heard pastors are the main ones who focus on this. My neighbors across the street have taken down all of their festive yard decorations. Trees are being discarded. Valentine’s Day paraphernalia is already up in the stores while the Christmas candy and decorations are on clearance
And our gospel lesson doesn’t seem all that Christmas-sy. I mean, Jesus isn’t an adult yet, but it’s Passover time; he’s 12. Sure, it’s been a while since he was lying in that manger, when the angels sang and the shepherds got excited that the Savior of the world had been born, not as some rich prince in a palace, but to people like them in a home just like theirs.
Every year, Mary and Joseph went with Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem for the Passover. They are devout Jews, and have been going down to Jerusalem every year since Jesus was a babe in arms. So it’s not too surprising that they don’t realize Jesus isn’t with them on the way back. As Rev. Dr. Derek Weber notes, “They [would have] traveled in a group for safety and for fellowship and for shared responsibilities. And usually in large public groups like this, the family grouping was secondary to the community of faith. The men usually led the way, some distance in front of the women, and children lagging behind. …Jesus was twelve [here, so] not quite an adult, but not feeling like a child. Maybe on the way to Jerusalem, he [had] rotated who he traveled with, so that on the way home from Jerusalem, Joseph in the front assumed he was with Mary, who was traveling at the back of the group and assuming Jesus was up front with Joseph. It wasn’t until they stopped after the first day’s traveling and found each other and counted heads that they discovered they were both wrong. Jesus was nowhere to be found.”
The 12-year-old Jesus isn’t bothered that they didn’t realize he wasn’t them. He’s more bothered that they didn’t know where to look for him. There’s a verse in the Greek that is often translated a few different ways: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house” is also translated as “Didn’t you know that I had to be about my Father’s business.” The Greek doesn’t actually have a direct object: it literally says “Didn’t you know I must be in the of my Father.” About the things of my Father. But however it’s translated, it tells us that Jesus was focused on what he had always been focused on, and would always be focused on: the work of his Father. Doing God’s work. Being in God’s house; being about the things of God.
Sometimes, we get lost. Like Mary and Joseph, we search for Jesus, but “Why are we searching? What do we want from him? Do we want him to come and be where we are? Do we want him to come and do what we need done? …Or do we search for him so that we can be where he is? So that we can join him in his Father’s house? So that we can be about his Father’s business? Do we search for him so that we can be in the Father’s things? Whose things are we most concerned about this Christmastide? The many things around us and of us? Or God’s things?”
In one of my previous churches, the choir would sing an anthem by Mary Kay Beall every year in the first week or two after Christmas:
When the angel’s song is silent and the star is not so bright, When the stable door stands open in the cold mid-morning light, When the angels’ song is silent and the shepherds have gone home, Then the promise of Christmas begins.
…For the promise is more than a child in the hay, More than shepherds and kings and a glad Christmas Day. Yes, the promise is more than a bright star above. It’s a cross! and a tomb! and a Father’s great love!
When the angels’ song is silent and the kings have come and gone, all the world is changed forever for the echo lingers on. When the angels’ song is silent, God is nearer than before and the promise of Christmas, the wonder of Christmas, the glory of Christmas begins.
Maybe you’re a little lost after all of the Christmas hullabaloo. We’re in that in-between time between Christmas and New Year’s when it’s hard to know what day of the week it is (though I’m glad you realized it’s Sunday). Schedules are off. Normal life is around the corner, but it hasn’t started quite yet.
But this is the time when, as the song says, the promise of Christmas begins. We’ve been looking at home this season. “Part of what we realize is that home isn’t always easy. …But at the heart of any home can be that source of light and love and joy that is Jesus the Christ.” Even if we’re a little lost, we can look toward that light of Home: the kind of home that will complete us and will transform the world. The home of the coming kingdom, where we will study war no more, where people will walk in the light, where joy will be found, and where love will be the tie that binds us together. “As we head [in]to Epiphany [next week], we go with confidence, surrounded by the light of home behind us and around us and within us. [Surrounded by the light of home] coming from us. Let your light shine” in this season and long after. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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