Sermon 12/28/03
The Wonder Years - Luke 2:41-52
Out of four gospels, four separate, overlapping, but in parts unique, differing perspectives of the life of Jesus, this story, of Jesus, at twelve, is the only canonical account we have of what happened to him between the time he was born and the time he was baptized by John at thirty and started his ministry. We don't know if he went through the terrible twos. We have no idea what Jesus was like as a teenager. We don't know if he worried in his twenties about the direction that God was leading his life. We don't know if he played with other boys, if he got in trouble with Mary and Joseph, or seemed to be perfect, even as a young boy. All we have if this snapshot, this short account of one day in his life between infant and man. We have a story about a day in Jesus' life at age twelve. For perspective, Jesus was about the age of the students in our confirmation class right now.
Given that we have just this little snippet from Jesus' growing up, what can we learn about how we must live from the way his young life was taking shape at that point?
For added consideration, our Old Testament lesson today cannot be overlooked, because of some striking similarities between what we read about Samuel and what we read about Jesus. We find Samuel, who will eventually rise to a great leadership role in Israel, still as just a boy, probably about 12, like Jesus in today's text. Samuel, like Jesus, was especially connected to his mother. His mother had been barren for many years, and prayed fervently to God to be blessed with a child. She promised to commit the child to God's house and God's work if she could only bear a son. True to her word, Samuel was dedicated to work ministering before the Lord, and his mother continued to serve God through serving her son. Our text from Samuel closes with the words, "Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people." Similarly, our text from Luke ends with the statement, "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor."
One thing is sure, we read that these two young lives are lives that have God at work in them, God's blessings abounding in them, God's plans working all through them. But where we are less sure is in determining what these passages can mean for us. Reading the passage from Luke, we understand that Jesus was special, marked for God's purpose even as a 12 year old. We believe that, we know, still in the midst of the Christmas celebration, that even at birth, God's plan was already surrounding and breathing into Jesus, the anointed one. But it's hard to see what else we can take from this passage.
Mary, however, seems to take something more important from this whole scene, if only we could have a window into her thoughts. "His mother treasured all these things in her heart," we read, just as in our Christmas reading we find that Mary treasured the words of the angels and the shepherds and pondered them in her heart. It's strange to think of Mary treasuring this incident with young Jesus at all. Can you imagine discovering your child to be missing? Probably a parent's deepest fear. And then to find Jesus, sitting in the temple, acting as if nothing was the matter at all. I can picture the mixture of fear, relief, joy, anger, and frustration, all mixed into one package. Then Jesus asks, with an air of authority that probably shocked and upset them, coming from a 12 year old - "why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" Then, we read, that certainly, and not surprisingly, Mary and Joseph didn't understand what Jesus was saying to them. And yet, even still, Mary treasured all these things in her heart.
Why? What did Mary see in these events? Mary saw with a mother's loving eyes all that Jesus would and could be. Sure, she probably didn't envision the way he would suffer, the way he would die, the effect he would have for the rest of the history of the world. If she did, she probably would not be able to bear such knowledge. But she knew, had been told by an angel that God had a plan for Jesus, for him to be the promised one. I wonder, if Mary only heard that message from the angel that one time, did she continue to believe - did she wonder if she had been crazy, if she had ever heard the voice at all? No doubt, a scene like this at the temple would remind Mary that her son was something special, that in him, great things could happen. Mary saw that even through a 12 year old boy, God could work in amazing ways!
Having just come from Christmas, we're willing and able to believe that God can exist in a tiny baby. And of course, we know that God dwelled in the adult Jesus, busy with his ministry in Galilee. But what about the in-between? Can we, like Mary, treasure the way God works in a twelve year old? This passage in Luke, and the text from 1 Samuel both remind us that God works in the most mysterious ways.
And that's good news for us, good news, because it means that even in our own lives, God can be at work. And it's also challenging news, because it means that in our own lives, God will work in us, have plans for us, have expectations of us.
But there's also encouragement for us. In today's gospel, we see Jesus on the physical journey to the temple, but also in a spiritual journey of growth and development. Jesus, we gather, wasn't born with all the wisdom he would need to undertake his adult ministry. He grew in wisdom over the years, learning how to become human and come into the role that God had placed him in. Samuel grew up too, gradually learning about the ways he could serve God, until he was prepared for great responsibility and leadership.
In the same way, we don't have to get it right all at once. Our spiritual life is as much of a journey as our physical life is. We have to find the course that God is leading us to take. Theologians Jeff Krantz and Michael Hardin (1) suggest that perhaps the gospel writers didn't share other stories of Jesus' childhood because it would make us try to hard to follow Christ's exact path. They write, "except for a fleeting window in Luke, we are given no details of [Jesus'] journey, we are given the end result. Why is this so? If, prior to his ministry, Jesus' story had been told, Christians forever would have tried to 'mimic' what he did. By giving us just the end result, the gospels invite us to take the same journey, to discover God as Jesus did. Now we must ask questions, make mistakes and learn from them, have our ups and downs and grow a little each day. But each day we become more and more conformed to the image of Jesus on our journey." This is our task, our mission - to follow Christ, and seek to live in the ways he called us to live. But each of us has our own unique way to go, each of us has our own struggles and challenges, each of us has our own gifts and talents that God will use in us. Each of us surely has growing to do, whether one is 12, 24, 42, or 88. We have gifts to offer, and ways to grow in God's eyes.
So, like Samuel, and like Jesus, we must daily strive to become spiritually mature, so that we can handle the exciting challenges God has in mind for us.But we can't forget the mothers in this story either. Like Samuel's mother Hannah, and Jesus' mother Mary, sometimes our role is to recognize the gifts in others, to affirm them, to encourage them even when they seem like unlikely candidates. For our confirmands this year, each one has a mentor who can tell them that even in junior high, they have the gifts from God that make them essential to the life of this church. Whose life can you impact by showing them how God is already working in their midst? Who can you encourage by telling them the growth you have seen in them? Who can you challenge by asking them if God is not calling them into a ministry beyond their wildest imagination?
"Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and favor." "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years." And the people of St. Paul's grew in their spiritual journeys, and sought to travel the path that God had set. Amen.
(1) http://www.preachingpeace.org/christmasa.htm