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

Part 3 Christmas Sunday: Didn't you know?

Luke 2:41-52   Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. When Jesus was twelve years old, they attended the festival as usual.  After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn’t miss him at first, because they assumed he was among the other travelers. But when he didn’t show up that evening, they started looking for him among their relatives and friends.  When they couldn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem to search for him there. Three days later they finally discovered him in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.  His parents didn’t know what to think. “Son,” his mother said to him, “why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.”  “But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  But they didn’t understand what he meant.  Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart.   Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.

Context:  This is the sole Scriptural account of Jesus between his infancy and his adult life.  Luke situates this story at the time of passover and locates Jesus in the temple.  This serves to emphasize the ministry of Jesus the Christ firmly in a nuclear Jewish family with the Jewish Community.

Going Deeper:  Engage in the Latino Community's "action/reflection" model of See-Judge-Act.

Examine the Text ... SEE:  Read the passage again ... as if you were hearing the story told by frantic and frustrated parents who have been wearied by their teenage son.  Listen as if you were a parent who has lost touch with your child in the busyness of life.  Who is Luke addressing in the text?  What is the human condition that Luke seems to be addressing with this passage?  Why do Mary and Joseph find themselves in the situation described in the passage?  What problems or concerns arise in the midst of the situation?  What are the most vivid images that emerge from the text?  What emotions lay underneath the text?  What do you know about Jesus from this passage?  What do you know about God from the text?  What do you know about the relationship between Jesus and his parents, Mary and Joseph?  What do you know about the relationship between Jesus and the Heavenly Father? 

Look at your Life ... JUDGE:  Read the passage again and look deeper.  Read the passage for relevance to your own life?  How does this text speak to parents today?  How does this text speak to young people?  What challenges do you find in the text that keep you from digging deeper?  What gift do your find which may illuminate your own circumstances?

How does the text speak to our faith community?  What good news do you find in the text?  What bad news is there?  How do you reconcile the good news with the bad news?  In light of the biblical text, how might the community of faith enter more faithfully into dialogue with parents and teenagers?

Is there an invitation in the text for me as a person of faith or for our faith community?

Pondering:  Jesus asks his frantic parents:  "Didn't you know ... that I must be in my Father's House?"  This sounds like a typical teenage question ... a question with attitude!   Jesus has expectations of his parents.  He expects them to know more than they seem to know.  It leaves us to wonder about the angel's message to Mary and whether any dawning realization is beginning to emerge about her son, Jesus.

Mary and Joseph have expectations as well ... they expect their son to behave in the way a good Jewish boy should behave ... just as he always had.  And yet he doesn't!  How would you react if you were walking in their shoes?  How would your parents have reacted had you treated them in the way Jesus did? 

What expectations do you have of God?  What expectations does God have of you?  What is the connection between this passage and the reign of God?  Are we building the reign of God in our midst?  How is this happening?  Or not happening? 

Take action in light of your Faith ... ACT:    We are called to work so that the reign of God can be realized in the world today.   Read the passage a final time for ways to act.  What steps do I need to take to be responsive to the invitation I heard in the biblical text?  Who do I need to reach out to?  How can I work for change ... in my family?  in my faith community?  in my neighborhood?  in my word?    How will these changes affect others?  In what ways are we building the relationship between our community of faith and people in the world?  In what ways are we putting up obstacles for the community of faith to engage in reaching out to others? What is one change you can/will make in response to what you hear God saying to you through the gospel writer, John?

Praying:   It is said that the reign of God has come on earth whenever the will of God is done.  As you consider the will of God in your life and in your community ... Pray the Lord's Prayer, as a communal prayer, to end your time of study:

                 Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.
                 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.
                 On earth as it is in heaven.
                 Give us this day our daily bread
                 Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
                 Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil
                 For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.