This Boy Jesus.
Good Morning Friends,
When I was born, the world came into being for me and I began to imagine all sorts of things. One thing we perhaps share in our musing is wondering what Jesus was like as a boy. Maybe God chose not to tell us much about Jesus’ childhood and we are to just trust Him that nothing occurred which we need to know about. But maybe this itch to know more needs to be scratched. Now I am going out on a limb here, but I have to think that much of the childhood of Jesus is left out of the Gospels for a reason. Maybe we need to honor the Gospel writers even as we explore the possibilities of This Boy Jesus.
Scripture: When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”
Luke 19:5 (NRSV)
Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.
Luke 2:41-52 (NRSV)
Message: Other than today’s scripture the Bible does not tell us anything about Jesus’ youth. From this incident we do know certain things about Jesus’ childhood. First, He was the son of parents who were devout in their religious observances. As required by their faith, Joseph and Mary made the yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. In addition, they brought their 12-year-old son to celebrate His first Feast in preparation for His bar mitzvah at age 13, when Jewish boys commemorate their passage into adulthood. Here we see a typical boy in a typical family of that day. We see also in this story that Jesus’ lingering in the temple was neither mischievous nor disobedient, but a natural result of His knowledge that He must be about His Father’s business. That He was astonishing the temple teachers with His wisdom and knowledge speaks to His extraordinary abilities, while His listening and asking questions of His elders shows that He was utterly respectful, taking the role of a student as was fitting for a child of His age. Still we wonder about the missing years. Novelist Anne Rice has wondered about it too, so she did a lot of research and wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (2005), imagining Jesus at the ages of 7-8. She was haunted by Jesus who I think wanted to heal her from writing and reflecting all of those Vampire Books that have become so popular. She said that, “Writing about vampires were no longer relevant in my life because they were stories about a person in a godless world. They were stories about me. That, however, is no longer the case. Now, I have to write for Him.” I admit that I have not read a one of them but I am interested in how God engaged her and why she still to this day is compelled to reject much of institutional religion. In the picking of an American film writer-director Cyrus Nowrasteh for the movie version the intentions are clear. Nowrasteh who has Iranian parents jokes that he is “Muslim by birth, Christian by marriage, and Jewish by inclination.” There is much to reconcile but I think we are naïve to think that this movie will ever avoid controversy. Maybe Jesus is using her and maybe not. The process of salvation uses sinners among us to give a voice of acting, healing and helping is certainly possible. Still perhaps Eugene Peterson was right when he wrote about the early church stopping people from writing new Jesus stories. He said, “The ban on inventing new Jesus stories and sayings was not, as some have suggested, repressive. Its effect was to release the imagination for doing what is proper to it, namely, like Mary the mother of Jesus, to ponder Jesus in our hearts (Luke 2:19, 51), meditating our way into the presence of Jesus as presented by the Gospel writers, meditating so that Jesus is met and either crucified again or believed in again by me. And we have been doing it ever since in sermons and Bible studies, in stories and poems, in hymns and prayers, in acts of obedience and service in Jesus’ name.” Friends, I have a reticence as did the Gospel writers to add an imaginative story here. Be careful friends when you indulge in dreams. Be careful if you think that spirituality is really improved by fantasies.
Pray when we ponder Jesus in our hearts that we gain an amazing view that even in our uniqueness we can bring home as a reflection of our relationship with the divine. Pray we keep an accurate understanding and practice of the Christian life. Pray we realize that our spirituality and our belief in Jesus, need one another. Pray for people who want a spirituality without Jesus. Pray our commitment to Jesus keeps spirituality relevant. Pray our concern for spirituality keeps God in touch with us and others who believe. Pray when we grapple with both the divinity and humanity of Jesus. Pray that we realize that the paradox of Jesus’ youth was so designed so that we might share in the mystery of it.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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