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The Time Is Now
Luke 2: 41 – 52 |
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Summary
The Time Is Now It’s almost New Year’s — the time for looking back and for looking forward. Already the newspapers are filled with retrospectives of the year gone by and prognostications of the year to come. One of the great things about New Year’s is that it affords us an opportunity to get a fresh start. January 1 is just another box on the calendar, after all, but, to get to it, we have to hang a brand-new calendar on the wall and open it to a blank page. The scrawlings and scribblings and cross-outs of the past year are no more. A year of endless possibility beckons. Christian preacher and writer John Ortberg has something good to say on this subject. In his book, God Is Closer than You Think, he reflects on all those moments in a typical life that could be labeled “the greatest moment.” What’s the greatest moment in your life? He lists a few possibilities: the moment you fell in love, the moment a child was born, the moment you found God. Yet, he has another suggestion:
This moment is God’s irreplaceable gift to you. Most of all, this is the moment that matters because this moment is where God is. If you are going to be with God at all, you must be with God now — in this moment. The spiritual genius of Jesus Christ — or at least a large part of it — is that he seems, always, to dwell in God’s presence, wholly and completely. “The Father and I are one,” he says, in John 10:30 — and he means it. Focused on God’s will In today’s New Testament lesson, we read about a time in Jesus’ life when he seems so focused on God’s will that he loses track of everything else. What’s even more extraordinary is, he seems to have pulled off this spiritual feat at the tender age of 12. Surely you know the story: Jesus and his parents are in Jerusalem for Passover. It’s the biggest holiday of the Jewish year. The city’s packed with people. Mary, Joseph and Jesus are traveling in the company of fellow pilgrims, neighbors from Nazareth. Think back to the last time you attended a stadium concert or sporting event. If you drove there, you know what it was like when you left: absolute gridlock. Mary and Joseph are traveling on foot, of course, but it would have felt much the same: more people than they could possibly imagine, both in the narrow, winding streets of the city and on the broad Roman road outside of it. Their little band has a hard time staying together. Fighting their way back along the line to count heads is impossible. Surely, Jesus is back there somewhere, with the other kids his age. Or is he? Mary and Joseph have traveled the better part of a day before it occurs to them to make sure. They look for Jesus, then look again. They ask everyone if they’ve seen him. No one has, not since they left Jerusalem. The feeling of dread that enters a parent’s heart, in a moment like that, is something only another parent can understand. Mary and Joseph fall out of the procession and pick their way back. The crowds just keep coming. As every boy of Jesus’ age passes, they look anxiously into his face, to see if it’s him. With each mile, they grow more anxious. Passing back through the city gate, they begin to retrace their steps more carefully. “Good shopkeeper, have you seen him? Our son, 12 years old. Dark hair, average height. A Galilean accent, like ours. Yes, we know there are many who answer that description. If you see him, please tell him to wait here.” Three days pass. Three days — can you imagine how beside themselves Mary and Joseph must have felt? Jerusalem’s a big city, but in the first century, you could have covered most all the streets with three days of walking — visiting all the strange sights and amusements that could distract a boy of 12. In the end, they find him in the temple, “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” In the Jewish tradition, the most learned rabbis sit down to teach, while their followers stand around them. The fact that Jesus is sitting amongst these distinguished scholars shows they’re treating him as a peer. “Child, why have you treated us like this?” asks Mary, in consternation. It’s the sort of thing a mother says to a wayward child. Mary may talk to Jesus like he’s still a child, but his reply is that of a man (he’s at the age of the bar mitzvah, that passage into adulthood): “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” His Father’s house — no longer the house of Joseph, the carpenter, but the house of another, greater Father. Surely those words stung his parents’ ears. Being incarnational Anne Lamott takes a rather offbeat look at this story in her book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. She examines this story just after she’s had a terrible argument with her 13-year-old son, Sam. On that occasion, she had asked a minister friend for some parenting advice. Her friend quips, “In biblical times, they used to stone a few 13-year-olds with some regularity, which helped keep the others quiet and at home. The mothers were usually in the first row of stone throwers, and had to be restrained.” This leads Anne to wonder how Mary coped, when Jesus was 13: “Here’s what I think: She occasionally started gathering rocks.” Anne’s not being sacrilegious. She has every respect for Mary as a mother, and as a person. She’s simply being incarnational. If we really believe in the Incarnation, this doctrine of Jesus becoming human, we have to admit Jesus was an adolescent once. Speaking as the mother of an adolescent, Anne recalls how young people of that age can present a very different picture to their parents than they do to other adults. Sometimes those other adults have no conception how that polite, well-spoken child can be such a trial at home. In her own words:
And what is Mary doing this whole time? Mary’s got a rock in her hand. Be that as it may, the reason Jesus is in the temple in the first place is because he’s so focused on living with God in the present moment, he’s got no room in his life for anything else. Completely present That’s not to say Jesus is all work and no play. On the contrary, he was criticized, in his day, for spending too much time at parties, for drinking too much wine, for hanging out with the sorts of people whose presence wasn’t exactly edifying. Yet the scriptures demonstrate that, when Jesus was with that sort of person — the tax collector, the tavern-keeper, the transient — he was so completely present to that person, the encounter was life changing for them. You can see this in the story of Zacchaeus, that diminutive tax collector who not only becomes a disciple of Jesus, but also pledges to pay back, fourfold, all the people he’s cheated. You can see it in the story of Mary and Martha — how Mary sits at his feet, in rapt attention, neglecting her household chores. You can see it, also, in the story Matthew and Luke tell, about a certain shady woman who comes up to Jesus at a banquet, pouring a jar of costly perfume on his head. Some of the disciples are enraged at the waste of money, but Jesus — living, as always, in the present — commends her for the single-minded focus with which this anonymous woman has blessed the moment. Even on the cross, Jesus is so focused on God, he sets aside his own suffering to minister to that thief beside him: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Not tomorrow, but today. In the present. The past is truly past. It’s over and done with — there’s nothing to do but let it go. As for the future, it’s shrouded in mystery. Yet, we do have a certain measure of control over the future. That instrument of control is known as the present, and it is wholly ours. So, take this day you have before you. Why not spend these last days of the year seeking to be truly present to God, and to your fellow human beings? You needn’t wait for a new year to begin. God is here, in each tick of the clock and through all our circling years. |
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