What Do You Treasure In Your Heart?
Good Morning Friends,
Today is a good day to honor our parents.
Sure, families can be dysfunctional but their love can cover a multiple of potential sins. We see such a growing up interaction between Jesus, the Father, Mary and Joseph. But everything seems to be a bit out of time, with the past and the future and the present trying to converge in the hope of something special but still out of sync. Luke writes about a time of Jesus growing up, but it is also an example of a time when parents need to quickly take a deep breath and exhale very slowly and contemplate how to go the distance successfully. You see, traveling with family and adolescent youth can be exhilarating or exhausting. If we move too fast we can leave our soul behind in the experience. What Do You Treasure In Your Heart?
Scripture: In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully. As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
2 Timothy 4:1-8 (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.
Luke 2:41-51 (NRSV)
But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?
Romans 10:14 (NRSV)
Message: The Rabbis understood the age of twelve to be the threshold between childhood and adulthood. It is a time for inquiring minds to prepare the young to leave the nest. Yet Jesus was not asking questions of those in the Temple as one who does not know, but rather as one who had a certain perspective. It was His answers, not His questions, which caused the astonishment. But the Bible does not record exactly what Jesus said but hints that Mary might have known. The first recorded words of Jesus in the Bible come in response to the frustration of Mary and Joseph not knowing where Jesus was. Sometimes we lose sight of Jesus, and imagine that He must be ‘lost’ to us. Jesus’ response to Mary and Joseph appear stern, but not without tenderness to His mother. It is not surprising that they find Jesus in the Temple. He had something to share and this was the place to do it. Oh, he was there for the Jewish religious obligation too, and had likely been to the Passover activities before, but what happens here is only a precurser to what would come twenty years later. The insight comes in the reality that Mary treasured all this in her heart. The insight come in the reality that Jesus was “lost” for three days as a hint of what would come, and yet the experience holds a simple beauty and joy that needs no exaggeration. It is here to help us as we shape our whole picture of Jesus…the joyous boy…the man of sorrows…the Son of God and the son of Mary.
Pray we do not lose sight of Jesus the boy who submits to the experience of being human and Jesus our Savior who submits to being in the will of the Father. Pray, we do lose sight of Jesus or the treasure placed in our hearts. Pray we not lose faith or love but seek and find the embodiment and incarnation of this way in Jesus. Pray we are prepared to share in the story and finish well. Pray we too learn to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with perseverance. Pray we have an inward discipline expressed in our religious faith but not divorce this from the true beauty and joy of Christ. Pray we realize we all have been given treasures but need to choose our expressions of them wisely. Pray we treasure in our hearts the experience of God being passed on from one generation to another.
Blessings,
Daily Devotionals 