Sunday 29/12/24
First Sunday of Christmas
Luke 2:41-end
1 Samuel 2:18-20; 26
The first Sunday of Christmas falls four days after Christmas this year and in terms of the story of Jesus we make a bit of a jump from when he is a baby to when he is twelve years old. The scene is actually the Passover festival and Mary and Joseph are taking him to Jerusalem for the festival. This must have been a very exciting time for Jesus. When the festival was ended and Mary and Joseph started on their return journey, Jesus stayed behind, but they didn’t know it. You know how it happens: assuming that he was in the group of travellers, they went a day’s journey. Then, when they looked for him among their relatives and friends, Jesus was not there… So, they went back immediately, to search for him. It took them a long time: three days in all, before they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking question. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. The worried parents were astonished and Mary asked him: ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ But Jesus said: ‘Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?’
I remember a time when I grew up and was so engrossed in my play outside – and outside her range of vision – that I missed my mother’s call to come in. She also looked for me and her emotions were quite mixed… As I came to understand fully when I had a similar moment later as a mother myself.
The passage in Luke chapter 2 ends saying: ‘And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour.’ In 1 Samuel, we find similar words about the boy Samuel when he grew up to be a servant of the Lord. He was a longed-for child to his parents, after his mother Hannah had prayed fervently for him and later ‘gave him up’, as it says, as God’s servant in the temple. The temple that we know as the very special place as God had designed, for festivals and sacrifices to him. Samuel was indeed to become an important figure, as the last of the judges and the prophet who anoints Saul and later David as king. They too, have a particular part to play in the run-up to the birth of Jesus, especially, of course, king David. But what about this particular part in Luke’s Gospel on the first Sunday after Christmas? We’ve only just celebrated Jesus’ birth and we haven’t even had the Epiphany yet, the arrival of the three wise men who came from the East to bring homage to the new-born king. So, we may feel a little bit at odds, going backwards and forwards in the account.
Well, it is not so strange as it seems, really, as it’s all about indications of who Jesus is. It was this event, when Jesus chose to spend more time in the temple after the festival of the Passover that already pointed in the direction he was to go as Saviour. For the temple would be important in the days leading up to his crucifixion and consequent rising from the dead. Already, Jesus knew about his Father, God, and possibly began at this time to learn and to teach about the calling and work of the Messiah. I think this little part of the story, when Jesus is only twelve years old, is actually very important. It could well have been a reminder to Mary and Joseph that this child that they were raising had God’s special task to perform, for the good of the whole world. It’s a reminder to us, too, that Jesus did not stay a cute little baby, nor did he simply ‘jump’ into a grown man and started his ministry then. Rather, his connection with God as his Father, began as a child and inspired and helped him grow. His earthly parents might have feared for him as being lost, but Jesus was never lost, not physically, nor spiritually, for he knew the Father. That is now a reality for us, too. We have been known by the Father and we can know him too, through Jesus and his obedience to his work of salvation. That is why we rejoice: we once were lost and now are found: glory and praise be to God forever and ever! Amen.