Inspired by Luke 2:41-52
Depending on the day of the week that Christmas falls we
don’t always get two Sundays during the twelve days of Christmas but this year
we do, and we get this wonderful little story from Jesus’ childhood! I really
love this story, for a few reasons. We don’t get much from his childhood in the
Bible. In fact, unless you count the visit of the magi, as Jesus may have
already past his second birthday by the time of their visit, this is the only
story that we get from his childhood. Which is kind of odd if you think about
it. For such an important biblical character, you’d think more stories from his
early years would have made it into the Bible. Notice I said, “made it into the
Bible.” We actually have lots of stories from Jesus’ childhood, they just
didn’t make the final cut of the big book, which makes this story all the more
important! If you ever get a chance to look up some of those stories, I highly
recommend it! They make for some entertaining reading!
My favorite stories from this group of writings, involve
Jesus and birds. Maybe because, like me, Jesus really liked birds! There’s one
story of him accidentally killing a bird and when he picked it up it came back to
life. And there’s another one of him making birds out of mud, which he then
made come alive. These are real stories that people were passing around after
he died! Then there’s some more, let’s say, unsettling stories from his
childhood, like when one day he was playing in a creek and built a damn out of
mud to make a pool and one of his friends broke the damn, which led the child
Jesus to kill him. Ok, I can see why that didn’t make it into the Bible. But
what I like about these stories is how human they make Jesus, which is also
probably why they dismissed them. The early church, especially during the time
when they were putting the finishing touches on the collection we now know as
the New Testament, was still wrestling with who, or more precisely, what Jesus
was. Was he a God? Was he a man? Was he both and if so, how does that even
work? And since they were wrestling with these questions, they had to be very
careful of what they allowed into the Bible. Hence, this one lonely story from
his preteen days.
Which brings us back to why I love this and even those other
stories from Jesus’ childhood so much. They humanize Jesus. They ground Jesus.
They bring him down to earth, where we dwell. Once they find the brat child
Jesus, they begin to scold him, telling him how worried they’ve been. His
response? He says, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know I’d by in my
Father’s house?” Wait a sec, did he just pull a “didn’t you know” on his own
parents! I can’t stand it when I share something with someone and their
response is, “Didn’t you know that?” And it doesn’t matter the tone of voice used,
it always comes off snotty. Well, of course I didn’t know that! Otherwise I
wouldn’t have shared that! Or in Mary’s case, “..otherwise I wouldn’t have been
worried sick for three days you snot-nosed little brat!” If there was ever a
bratty preteen response, this is it!
But let’s get back to the point I’m trying to make here
before I get too worked up. One of my favorite bands is the Foo Fighters and
one of my favorite songs of theirs is called My Hero. It’s a song that speaks
to the heroes in our lives, but particularly the ones whose power does not come
from superhuman abilities, but rather, come from very ordinary humanness. Some
of the lyrics go like this:
There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He's ordinary
Don't the best of them bleed it out
While the rest of them peter out?...
There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He's ordinary
It’s a rock song but here’s a more mellow acoustic version
that I’d like to share with you.
The last time I used this song in a sermon was at my internship site in Birmingham, Alabama. I remember one member taking me out to lunch after that sermon and part of our conversation that day was about how much he didn’t think Jesus was ordinary. To his surprise, I totally agreed with him! That’s the beautiful mystery of it all! Some days I need a savior that is more like Superman. And other days I need someone who is more like me, even the bratty version of me. I find comfort in knowing that Jesus can relate to us on so many levels, even when we are found lacking. Jesus isn’t my hero just because he’s the ruler of the cosmos! But also because, especially because, he cared enough to experience all that makes a human human, and still loves us unconditionally. That’s a hero in my book. That’s the Jesus that Luke will present to us in this extraordinary Gospel. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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