Who Is 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 at Christmas time, is wondering what Jesus was like as a boy. Probably God chose not to tell us much about Jesus’ childhood for a reason and we are to just trust that nothing occurred which we need to know about. But maybe this itch to know more than the Christmas story needs to be scratched. Knowing more about God is a great endeavor, for the more we know about the great I AM the more we learn how to love. Still, I must think that much of the childhood of Jesus is left out of the Gospels for a purpose. Maybe we need to honor the Gospel writers even as we explore the possibilities. So, Who Is This Boy Jesus?

 
 

Scripture: 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)

 
 

But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 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 2:19, 51 (NRSV)

 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

 

1 John 3:1-2, 21-24 (NRSV)

 

In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, “I have asked him of the Lord.” The man Elkanah and all his household went up to offer to the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and to pay his vow. But Hannah did not go up, for she said to her husband, “As soon as the child is weaned, I will bring him, that he may appear in the presence of the Lord, and remain there forever; I will offer him as a nazirite for all time.” When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. She brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh; and the child was young. Then they slaughtered the bull, and they brought the child to Eli. And she said, “Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord. For this child I prayed; and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.” She left him there for the Lord.

1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28 (NRSV)

 

Message: Other than today’s scripture the Bible does not tell us much about Jesus’ youth. Still we desire to know more. There are some extra-Biblical writings which contain stories of Jesus’ youth (the Gospel of Thomas, for example). But we have no way of knowing whether any of these stories are true and reliable. God chose not to tell us much about Jesus’ childhood – so we must just trust that nothing occurred which we need to know about for our salvation. But that does not mean we are to avoid pondering the young person of Jesus. Certainly, Mary must have pondered the details. Even from the incident noted in today’s scripture 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 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 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. Here we learn that Jesus 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. 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, 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 each of us. 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. Undoubtedly the young Jesus did things that could fill more than a hundred books, but we need to be careful when we indulge in dreams related thereto. We need to be careful if we think that spirituality is really improved by fantasies created to support a specific agenda that is not connected to the authentic teachings of Christ. Be careful therefor of following followers of what Christianity is and has been. Be respectful but never lose sight of Jesus leading us to what Christianity might become in our grafting to our Jewish heritage. Always lean on scripture to interpret scripture while you treasure in your heart, like Mary, the child of Jesus. Appreciate that Jesus used a child’s loaves and fishes to feed the five thousand. Appreciate that Jesus healed a child from death and calls us to become like children, so we might enter the Kingdom of God.

 

And So, all this musing has a purpose for if we are children of God, it follows that it is necessary for us to love one another. And to love one another we must get to know not only each other but also how our stories intertwine with the whole Jesus. That is how people will know we are Christian, not the knowing but the loving becoming a demonstration of our passage into the abundant life God intents for us. And here it is perhaps the brotherly love the Bible describes that is a sign of how we grow out of spiritual death into spiritual life. Friends, if we are not loving each other and teaching our children do to the same we cannot impact the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The thing is that while we will always be children of God, we need to grow up out of our worldly childhood and embrace and be transformed by a more mature spiritual relationship with Jesus.

 

Pray we are received in the arms of Jesus as a little child. Pray we do not try to add to Cannon but still stimulate new ways for people to experience a bond with the Spirit of the child of Jesus in each of us. Pray when we ponder Jesus in our hearts that we might reflect a relationship with the divine. Pray we meditate on the humanity and divinity in each of us as we meditate on the humanity and divinity of Jesus and the incarnation. Pray we realize that our spirituality and our belief in Jesus, need one another. Pray for people who want a spirituality without Jesus. Pray when we grapple with both the divinity and humanity of Jesus that we realize that the paradox of Jesus’ youth was so designed so that we might share in the mystery of it. Pray we too like Jesus grow physically, mentally, spiritually, and socially. Pray we learn from Jesus how to love and be loved.

 
 

Blessings,

 
 

John Lawson