They Didn't understand

- First sunday After Christmas 2021

Old Testament: 1 Samuel 2.18–20, 26
Psalm: Psalm 148
New Testament: Colossians 3.12–17
Gospel: Luke 2.41–52

The panic of losing a child in a crowd cannot be overstated.

We were wrapping up our table at a community yard sale. Suddenly, our kid wasn’t where he should have been. “Ender! Ender!” we called and called, at the top of our lungs only to be answered with silence. My mind started swirling. Where could he be? Where could he have gone? Who had taken him? What was life going to be like without him?

Finally, after fifteen minutes of frantic searching and calling – trying to keep calm and not dissolve into puddles of panic and sorrow – some neighbors alerted us that our child was playing at another yardsale table. Some toy had fascinated him. We fell into each other’s arms and rested in loving our boy, hugging him, and telling him not to go off without us again.

I did the same thing to my dad when I was a youngster. Wrapt up in playing a video game in the electronics department, I failed to hear the page over the store speakers. My dad eventually found me, but (after my experience of losing my own child) I imagine the panic, dread, and worry he went through was harrowing.

The Holy Family experienced this same thing. Joseph and Mary lost Jesus at some point. They couldn’t find him. So, in desperate, frantic searching, they went all the way back to Jerusalem in search of their boy. They eventually found him, listening and asking questions in the temple.

I have to wonder how Jesus survived those three days alone in the city. Where did he find food? Where did he sleep? Did no one marvel and wonder at a child sitting alone in the temple, no parents, discussing with eh Pharisees and scribes, teachers and lawyers of the law. Was a stranger his refuge? Did family friends take him in, hoping to send a message to Joseph and Mary that their boy was safe?

Whatever happened, Jesus was found. But, it wasn’t an ordinary finding. Mary asks why this pre-pubescent child would do this to his father and her, and Jesus answers, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

What kind of smarmy response was this from their child.

They didn’t understand.

We don’t understand.

We look for Jesus when he seems to be absent, when he seems to be gone. We panic because the one whom we hope loves us unconditionally is nowhere to be found, So we search for him. We go to scripture, only to find nothing but dry dust in our mouths. We go to music, hearing only hollow, lifeless words and flat, lifeless notes. We seek him in sermons, books, practices that have connected us to the divine in weeks past, but everything is lifeless and dry.

Jesus, where are you?

Then, in the face of a friend, we might catch a glimpse of him. In a stranger at the grocery store who is kind to our weary soul, we find a fragrance of his nearness.

See, Jesus is in his Father’s house, in neighbor, friend, family, stranger – humanity screams of Jesus because we are the house of God. We are the ones who are Imago Dei, the image of God. And it is here that Jesus plays, in the ten thousand faces scattered across our lives. In our own eyes, cheeks, chins, and noses. Here Jesus is about his father’s business, in his Father’s house.

You, oh house of God, are where others who have lost Jesus can come to find him. They are your Christ-like mirror. We need each other to see Jesus because Jesus is found in the image of his father.

***

God never has the panic of losing a child, for he sent his son to us, to be one of us, to be with, in, and through us to each other. God knows where Jesus is; in you. Jesus, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of heaven, is found in each of us because each of us is the temple of God. We are where God dwells in this creation. We are where God chooses to reside. We are the house of God.

So, who will find Jesus in you today, tomorrow, this week? This is the season of Christ’s coming, Christmas. He is here, and we have the awesome responsibility and privilege to show Jesus to each other. Take on that vocation in all that we do. With compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bear with each other, forgiving and holding close each image of God that we come across.

Let it be known that Jesus is still in the house of God and that we don’t have to search for him anymore. Jesus can be found.