Have you ever read a book or watched a movie that was so
good, you couldn’t help but go back and experience it again and again? Jess makes fun of me because I have a
half-shelf of books that I read constantly. Usually once a year, I make my way
through all of them. Three of the books on it are a trilogy that I have read so
many times in the past five years that I’m about to have to replace them
because mine are falling apart. I also have a stack of movies that I love to
watch. I’ve seen the new Muppets movie so many times that I know not only all
of the songs but most of the dialogue too!
There are just some stories that are so good, you can’t help
but revisit them often. Something about them, be it the narrative or character
development or whatever else, is so complex and so rich that it makes you want
to come back time and again to see what jumps out at you next time.
For Christmas this year, my brother-in-law, Josiah, gave me
Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy on Bluray. Now, as many of you already know,
I am a big Batman fan, and I love these movies. Since Christmas, we’ve already
watched through all three of them, and I’ve had so much fun reliving these
stories. After we finished the third movie, The
Dark Knight Rises, Jessica and I had a discussion on how these stories are
so well-told that we actually enjoy watching them over and over again. We catch
new things every time, and there are even some plot sequences that we are
pretty sure only make sense the second or third time watching them.
These movies are definitely on my favorite movie stack.
Do you have a book or movie that does this for you? Maybe
it’s a short story or a poem or a printed copy of one of my old sermons :).
What wonderful work of literature has sunk its hooks into your brain and refused
to let go? What narrative keeps reeling you back in, always exciting and
surprising you with new twists and depths that had not been revealed to you
before?
Would you be at all surprised to learn that the Bible is
full of that same richness, complexity, and depth? There are literally
bookshelves and bookshelves filled with volumes and volumes of books written by
people trying to explain the subtle nuances, allusions, and symbols with which
Scripture is replete. Whether you are studying one book, one chapter, even one
verse of the Word of God or whether you are examining it as a whole, the Bible
contains more connections within itself than we might ever begin to realize.
Genres ranging from legal codes to letters to songs to prose all find a way to
weave their themes together to share the story of how God has worked in and
through God’s people in history.
Take the beginning and end of Scripture—Genesis and
Revelation. Our Bible starts and finishes with God’s creative acts first in the
creation of the heavens and the earth and then in the creation of the New
Heaven and New Earth. Or how, at the very moment when humanity felt the
crushing weight of sin for the first time as they were being cast from the
Garden of Eden, God announces the coming seed of Adam who will crush Satan
under his feet and set humanity free.
The Bible is an English teacher’s dream with all of its
symbolism, allusions, and foreshadowing.
Our Gospel text this morning from Luke is no exception.
Moreover, missing the symbolism and connection in this passage means missing
one of the ways Luke sets up the entirety of his Gospel account. Let’s jump
into the text and see if we can pull it out.
Our story opens with a reminder that Jesus is a good Jew,
raised in a good Jewish family. Each year, Mary and Joseph join their family
and friends on a pilgrimage from Nazareth in Galilee to Jerusalem for the
Passover celebration. For practicing Jews—which were the only kind of Jew at
the time—it was set out in Exodus 23:14 that they should make the pilgrimage to
the Temple three times a year: for Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of the
Tabernacles. For those living too far away to make the trek three times a year,
which would include Jesus’ family, you could squeak by with only going at Passover.
So Jesus had made this trip before—eleven times previous, to
be exact. But this time was special. You see, it was the Jewish tradition of
that time that at the age of twelve, upon completing his bar mitzvah, a boy
became a man. At this point, he started learning a trade—usually his
father’s—so that he could start helping provide for himself and his
soon-to-be-started family. This was the first time that the Son of God, the
Messiah, would come to the Temple as an adult. It should not be at all surprising
that something extraordinary happens.
Now, St. Luke does not give us any description of the
Passover feast itself, but instead jumps to the end of the trip. Joseph and
Mary, along with their caravan of friends, make their way home. Assuming that
Jesus is with them, they travel a full day without realizing that he’s missing.
Now, before you go convicting them of child neglect, you should know that this
was a very common practice at the time. All of the children would gather
together on the road, moving from family to family during meals and playing
games during the long trek to and from the Holy City. Jesus’ parents likely
thought that he would show up with his brothers and sisters and cousins and
friends sometime throughout the journey. When he didn’t though, they began to
panic, and made the day’s journey back to Jerusalem.
And where was Jesus? In the Temple, amongst the teacher’s of
the law, the scribes, and the priests. Let’s take a second and zoom into this
scene. Our evangelist tells us that Jesus was sitting amongst the teachers,
listening to them and asking them questions. Now, in this day and age, if you
were to walk into a children’s classroom, what are you most likely going to
see? A teacher, standing at the front of the room, lecturing a bunch of
children who are sitting down at their desks. The Jewish practice is almost the
exact opposite. When a rabbi prepares to speak a lesson, he sits down. This is
the way that the people know it is time to listen, so they sit or lounge around
the rabbi. The teacher then works to reveal Scriptural truths to them by asking
them questions and telling them stories.
Does this sound familiar?
In this narrative, Jesus is the one telling the stories and
asking the questions. Not only was Jesus putting questions to the gathered
teachers, but they were all amazed at his understanding and his answers. Jesus
shows that, even from an early age, he can teach and speak with authority that
impresses even the teachers of the law.
So this is where his parents find him after searching for
three days. And when they ask how he could make them worry so much, he seems
confused. Where else would you look to find Jesus, except in his Father’s
house? But, at the urging of his parents, he goes home with them, and continues
to grow in wisdom and favor.
I love his reaction to his parents’ searching. He was in his
father’s house doing his father’s work. Jesus was where he needed to be, doing
what he needed to be doing. No one expected him there, but that was the only
place he could have been.
This entire story should sound vaguely familiar to us—not
because we’ve read this before, but because of the obvious parallels present in
this text. At what other time do we read of Jesus entering Jerusalem at
Passover, teaching at the Temple, and disappearing for three days only to be
found exactly where he needed to be doing exactly what he needed to be doing?
Friends, this story parallels the passion and resurrection
narrative at the end of Luke. In this story—the first story we experience of
Jesus’ adult life—the evangelist is already working to set us up for what is to
come. After this story, Jesus will, one more time, enter Jerusalem for the
Passover. He will teach at the Temple with an authority unmatched by the
teachers of the law. He will die a criminal’s death at the hands of the very
people he came to save, and then when it seems that all hope is truly
lost—three days later, to be exact—he will be raised from the dead, and will be
seen exactly where he needs to be doing exactly what he needs to be doing by
those who will bear witness to the world. This is symbolism and foreshadowing
at its best, and it serves to bookend the story of Jesus’ adult life.
Already, even in the beginning of the story, Luke is setting
us up to anticipate the resurrection.
Now, we are still in the Christmas season. This is
technically what, the fifth day of Christmas? If this were the song, we’d be
exclaiming our love for our new, shiny set of “five golden rings!” So why are
already looking toward the end? Shouldn’t we enjoy the Christ child as long as
possible? Shouldn’t we sit away in the manger for just a few more days?
Well, yes. We can, and we should. But let us not forget even
for a minute why we celebrate the birth of Jesus. It is not simply because God
took on flesh and became like us. It is because God did not stop there. The
Word did not just become flesh and dwell among us—the Word gave himself up as a
ransom for our sins, that we might be saved from ourselves and live eternally
with God. So at the same time that we hear the Christmas angels with great glad
tidings tell, we also stand together as a resurrection people.
So let us do just that. Amen.
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