December 26, 2021
First Lesson: 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
18 Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a linen ephod. 19 His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. 20 Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, “May the Lord repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the Lord”; and then they would return to their home. 26 Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people.
Second Lesson: Luke 2:41-52
41 Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. 43 When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. 44 Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” 49 He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”[50 But they did not understand what he said to them. 51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.
Happy Boxing Day! A British holiday when people would give gifts to those who were in service. This custom is linked to an older British tradition where the servants of the wealthy were allowed the next day to visit their families since they would have had to serve their masters on Christmas Day. The employers would give each servant a box to take home containing gifts, bonuses, and sometimes leftover food. The church also played a role in Boxing Day. There was a tradition of having a donation box, much like our box, where collections were taken throughout the year to give to the poor at Christmas. Our giving a little something to the postal worker or paper boy has its roots in the Boxing Day tradition. A more modern practice on Boxing Day is shopping much like our Black Friday. I learned about Boxing Day when I lived in Scotland. I purchased a Royal Dalton set of three China cups intricately painted with festive scenes. Each one unique with Boxing Day on par with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day. Still one of my favorite holiday items. But the image I like is that of Boxing Day being the second day of Christmas, reminding us that Christmas is a season and not just one day.
Today I would like to think of Boxing Day a little differently. Think back to the boxes your filled and wrapped for Christmas. They all have four sides and space in the middle. Whether they are large or small boxes, each one has four sides and space in the middle. Now let’s consider a metaphorical box with four sides and space in the middle. Each side represents an aspect of Jesus’ life, and our story fills the middle. Let me explain.
We just celebrated Christmas, the birth of Jesus. God’s Son born in a manger. The inbreaking of God into human history is a big deal and it forms the first side of our box. This is the time when we meet Jesus, when we get a glimpse of God’s plan to redeem the world. Matthew and Luke share the birth narratives and all we know about Jesus being born to Mary. So Jesus’ birth is the first side of our box.
Now if you move across the box to the other side, we have Jesus’ baptism. At the River Jordan, John the Baptist immersed Jesus, marking the beginning of his public ministry. As you recall, the Spirit descended like a dove and a voice came from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased” (Lk. 3:22). Following this, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness before quoting Isaiah in the temple, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me (Lk. 4:18). So if we think of Jesus life in three dimensional form we have two sides of a box. One side is his birth the other side is his baptism and the beginning of his ministry. Are you with me so far?
There is a thirty-year gap between Jesus’ birth and his baptism. Thirty years of Jesus’ life and we have very little information. I was sharing about my sermon with Cooper, and he said he wanted more personal information about Jesus and his early years, as a way of relating to Jesus and to make for a better developed character. I hear his point. Our passage from Luke is the only account we have of those thirty years.
Here Jesus is hanging back after a family trip to Jerusalem. Please note he is in his tween years, when asserting independence often arises. We might wonder about Marry and Joseph and how they could have left their twelve-year-old son behind? But I would rather focus on the two things we learn from this account about Jesus and his family. Each one will create another side to our box.
First, Jesus came from a devoted Jewish family. We might assume this from what we learned about Mary and Joseph around his immaculate birth. But here we are told they make the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This was a 70-mile journey and expected of all Jews could make the trek. This affirms their religious beliefs and practices and establishes Jesus comes from a deeply rooted Jewish home. This is the third side of the box.
The fourth side is that Jesus takes this action as a child. As you know boys are Bar mitzvah at age 13, so this is the final year of Jesus’ childhood. The concluding verse reminds us of Jesus’ youth and harkens back to Samuel. Samuel was another devoted young man in the service of God. Both speak of growing in wisdom or stature and finding favor with God and people (26, 52) A side bar, the Magnificat which we talked about last week, was patterned after Hannah’s song, and she was Samuel’s mother who gave her son to God, where he served and lived in the temple.
So the four sides of this box are Jesus’ birth, baptism, Judaism and childhood. So now we get to look at what fills the space of this metaphorical box. And it is amazing! Our one and only account of Jesus as a boy and so much is happening. Here we have Jesus’ first words. If he had a baby book, we might write, “Why are you searching for me?” A little humor. But Jesus is where he feels at home. He is in the temple, and it sounds like he had been there for three days. He was sitting with the teachers learning all he could and sharing what he already knew. Jesus’ knowledge astounded the teachers, because of the wisdom he already had at twelve.
Jesus saying, “I must be in my Father’s house” can have several meanings. It could mean “to be in the [house] of my father” “to be among [the people] of my father,” (referring to the teachers with whom Jesus has been speaking), or “to be about the [things] of my father” (Working Preacher, O. Wesley Allen, Jr.). Jesus is certainly about the things of his Father, his Father’s purposes. Jesus is accepting his messianic mission to be about God’s things even as an adolescent with wisdom yet to gain.
We can relate to the dialog between mother and son. The fear and anxiety of parents who have lost their child. The why question as a youthful retort. But this is so much more than that. Jesus is claiming his role as God’s son. Luke has made that clear in the birth narratives, but this is the moment we see Jesus own his divine role. This is his coming-of-age time when he separates from his family and takes on the mantel for which he was born. He is not disobeying his parents, rather he is finding his place with his divine parent, God. The only place this could happen was in God’s temple. Our Old Testament passage took place in the temple at Shiloh where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. The Ark represented the presence of God. Jesus remaining in the temple in Jerusalem, is his being in the presence of God as he finds his identity as God’s Son. He finds his purpose.
Haven’t we all had a moment like that, when we knew the direction our life would take, or separated from our family to become our own person. Maybe it is when you decided what you would do with your life or gave your life over to God and became a Christian. Those moments when we step outside the parameters, move beyond the walls of the box, and claim who we are. I have defined this sermon in terms of a box, but I hope we all see that our faith transcends any box. That God loves us more than any three-dimensional shape. In this week between Christmas and the new year I hope we can take some time to ponder like Mary did, our faith, any boxes that are limiting us, and any space we would like to fill with new purpose as we seek to find our purpose in God, just like Jesus did at the ripe old age of twelve. Amen.
