Christmas Sunday: I wasn't lost but they found me anyway!

God in Christ!  Fully Human, Fully Divine … this is the official theological belief of many Christians, myself included as a minister of the United Methodist Church.  Now I can’t truly fathom what this means but I do sense the echoes of both humanity and divinity in Jesus as I read Scripture.  This week we jump from the Manger to the Temple and we find the boy Jesus is twelve years old.   Yes, we’ll go back next week to find him lying in that manger, Emmanuel (God with Us) and his parents entertaining wise men in the stable (or is it a cave?) on Epiphany.  But in this reading … in this week, just a few shorts days after Christmas, we are faced with a Jesus who is very human – learning, debating, growing, and in the mind of his parents (ok I confess, me too with a mother’s knowing smile in my heart) – a precocious flash of disobedience emerges in the story before  Jesus returns home to live "obediently."   He may have lived at home with his parents for as many as 20 years more before beginning his ministry as an itinerant healer, teacher, and preacher.   As much as we celebrate the divinity of Christ during Christmas, and acknowledge that in Jesus … Emmanuel … God has become flesh, the focus this week is on how the humanity of Jesus enabled him to understand and experience life as we do.

Cudowny obraz w sanktuarium św. Józefa w Kaliszu. Zdjęcie wykonane osobiście w marcu 2005 r. (located in Kalisz, Poland at the Church of the Assumption) Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported  

We wonder (ok, I wonder) how Mary and Joseph could have forgotten about Jesus, forgotten who Jesus was, hadn’t they been visited by Golden Angels who clearly (we think) told them?   And yet it illustrates beautifully one of the toughest questions we will face in our own journey of faith.  We, too, must fully embrace both the humanity and the divinity of Jesus if we take him as seriously as God compels us to.  We are confronted with a special challenge as we embrace the humanity of Jesus on this first Sunday after Christmas.  And as we pray through the Scripture, we are invited to accept ourselves and embrace our own humanity!

And ... so we must breathe ...
In the gentle presence of God, we breathe and know that we are loved!
Come and read the text with the "ear of your heart" using Lectio Divina ...

1.    Read the text slowly.  Breathe and listen deeply to the words.  Focus your attention on the sense of the passage.   What word or phrase is most full of meaning for you?  Repeat your word or phrase several times, don’t project meaning now.  Chew on it and let it sink into your soul.   Take a deep breath and move on when you are ready ... Movement 1 (Read)

Luke 2:41-52 The Message (MSG)
They Found Him in the Temple

Every year Jesus’ parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up as they always did for the Feast. When it was over and they left for home, the child Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents didn’t know it. Thinking he was somewhere in the company of pilgrims, they journeyed for a whole day and then began looking for him among relatives and neighbors. When they didn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem looking for him.  The next day they found him in the Temple seated among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions. The teachers were all quite taken with him, impressed with the sharpness of his answers. But his parents were not impressed; they were upset and hurt.  His mother said, “Young man, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been half out of our minds looking for you.”   He said, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be here, dealing with the things of my Father?” But they had no idea what he was talking about.  So he went back to Nazareth with them, and lived obediently with them. His mother held these things dearly, deep within herself. And Jesus matured, growing up in both body and spirit, blessed by both God and people.


After your first reading ... What word or phrase is most full of meaning for you?

2.    Read the text slowly again ... Reflect on your word or phrase as you pay attention to the still small voice of the text whispering to you, “Here I am, where are you?”  How does this “meaning-full” word touch your life today?   Take a deep breath and move on when you are ready ...

Movement 2 (Reflect)  How does this “meaning-full” word touch your life today?

3.    Read the text slowly again.  How do you offer your prayers and your life to God today?  Respond to God with prayers of ... praise, confession, gratitude, discernment, commitment ... whatever emerges from within you as you consider your desires and your needs.   Take a deep breath and move on when you are ready …

Movement 3 (Respond)  How do you offer your prayers and your life to God today?

4.    Rest in the gentle silence of God's presence.  Breathe in the love of God.  As you move on, breathe out the love of God upon the world!

Movement 4 (Rest) Breathe … Breathe … Breathe … Amen


If sacred art is a pathway to God for you, contemplate the art work at the top of this post and consider the holy family.  How can you welcome the life that is unfolding before you, accepting both the humanity and the divinity of Christ?



As you seek the incarnate God in Christ this week, may you also also encounter the human Jesus!
 

Deep Deep Peace and a Happy New Year!  Cindy