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    Jan 26, 2020

    Tell Me the Stories of Jesus: Jesus the Boy

    Tell Me the Stories of Jesus: Jesus the Boy

    Passage: Luke 2:39-52

    Speaker: Rev. Vivian McCarthy, Pastor

    In the temple, in the temple stood a little boy one day, And the doctors wondered greatly at the words they heard Him say. It was Jesus! It was Jesus! He was but a little child, But the light of heav'n was shining in His face so pure and mild. ~Kirkland & Smith

    How do you imagine this story?  What do you imagine happened?  What do you think the teachers were talking about when Jesus entered the temple that day?  What do you imagine Jesus saying?

    To be a little more specific, remember that it was the end of the Feast of Passover which took the Holy Family to Jerusalem at that time.  Tradition dictated the celebration this way: “from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening,” according to Exodus 12:18. 

    To get into what Mary, Joseph and Jesus were celebrating, let’s review the story of Passover. 

    • Israel in bondage – life kept getting worse and worse
    • Moses demanded release of people
    • Pharaoh refuses – 10 plagues: water to blood; frogs; lice; wild animals; livestock; boils; hail and fire storm; locusts; 3 days’ darkness; death of firstborn
    • Lets them go – Why called Passover???

    Seder plate symbols:  

    1. Lamb bone – sacrifice made on Passover night
    2. Roasted egg – Food usually becomes soft and digestible when cooked, but eggs become harder. So the egg symbolises the Jews' determination not to abandon their beliefs under oppression by the Egyptians.
    3. Maror (bitter herb) – recalls bitterness of slavery
    4. Haroset – sweet concoction of apples, nuts, wine and cinnamon – represents mortar
    5. Karpas – green vegetable freshness of spring
    6. Chazeret – second bitter herb – same symbol as Maror
    7. Salt Water – tears
    8. Matzoh
    9. Wine – 4 cups = 4 biblical promises of redemption: “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you from their slavery, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments. And I will take you to me for a people . . .” Others say the four cups represent the four letters in the unspeakable Name of God.

    The story begins with Mary and Joseph heading home, presumably with family and friends in a sort of caravan, and it takes them a whole day before they realize Jesus not with them.

    Let’s take a few moments and share our thoughts on the questions I asked at the very beginning of this meditation.  There are no wrong answers.  The Bible doesn’t fill in any of these blanks, so let your imagination loose a little bit.  The questions are on the screen.  

    Gather in a group of no more than 5 people and imagine the story together.  Read the story again from Luke 2, but just concentrate on verses 46 & 47.  Read them a couple of times.  Then, as you chat, please make at least a mental note of the insights that emerge – not the story you tell but insights that help you engage the story.

    What came out of your conversations?

    When I was thinking about how to address this story today, I was surprised by those words in verses 46 and 47.  It was the teachers – the rabbis – teaching, according to the NRSV and CEB translations of the scriptures.  Jesus was asking questions which seem to have caused the rabbis to question him.

    A lot of you are teachers, and a lot of you are parents.  When we teach, how often are we privileged to work with a student whose understanding is insightful – one that asks great questions – seeking fresh/new insight rather than simply accepting what they’ve always KNOWN or showing that they’ve had the correct answer?  There have been several times in my work life when a student asked the kind of questions that indicated that they are truly digging in to the material, and when those students were Bible students it gave my heart a thrill.

    Too often we want to show off our knowledge of the Bible or read it to confirm what we already think.  Friends, when a disciple is seeking deeper insight and longing to discern God’s direction, -- well, it just doesn’t get any better than that for a pastor!

    It isn’t often when someone reads the scriptures from a totally open perspective, questioning how it truly applies to how we engage the world as Christians.  When that happens, well, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

    One more thing I want to mention about Jesus being in the Temple.  I think I’ve always had the mental image that Jesus was teaching them.  Probably a long-ago Sunday school lesson.  It made me wonder:  How much was that image fostered by our American pride in our children?

    I mention that to demonstrate how easy it is for us to read the scripture through our cultural lenses.  It is very easy to read things into the stories.

    So, while we’re at it, I want to engage our imaginations again.  Jesus was a kid in this story.  Twelve years old.  Imagine yourself as a 12-year-old.  Remember your own kids at 12.  How do 12 year-olds begin to engage the world?  What tweaks their interest – aside from video games?  How do they think?

    Now imagine what drew Jesus into the temple that day.

    Do you imagine that he went to teach the rabbis?  Maybe.  Or, what questions do you think he may have had?  Again, there are no right or wrong answers. 

    Once more thing.  What is our usual focus when we talk about Mary and Joseph in this story?  Yes – how they could have lost their child.

    What if we think beyond that?  Could this incident have changed their focus as parents?  What might have changed in how they parented Jesus?  After all, they were living their everyday lives – Mary caring for their household and Joseph working in his carpentry shop.  Twelve years after all that hubbub in Bethlehem and then Egypt, were they still worried that their boy wasn’t safe?  Had they been lulled into a sense of security?

    On that day in the temple, were Mary and Joseph reawakened to Jesus’ potential?  Were they jolted into a new awareness of his purpose – his focus?  Did they actually begin to see his role?  We don’t really know.

    What we do know is that the Bible says this – one sentence that covers the next 21 years of Jesus’ life:  And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

    We know he grew up.  We know from that sentence that Jesus matured – he increased in wisdom.  His understanding at 12, while amazing, was not complete.  He had growing to do – just as we did and hopefully continue to do – just as our own children have done and continue to do.

    Flora Kirkland wrote the Sunday School song In the Temple, and she clearly concluded that Jesus went to teach the rabbis – and then in at least one version of the other verses of her song, she draws the further conclusion that we should be as intent on listening to Jesus’ teaching as the rabbis were.  She wrote:  Let us ever then be eager to sit down at Jesus' feet, To be learning from our Saviour, and His lessons to repeat.  Hmmmm.  Not a bad wrap to our meditations for today!