Christmas II

By The Rev. Martha Frances+

Year C Christmas II

3 January 2010

Text:  Luke 2: 41-52

Other Readings: Jeremiah 31: 7-14; Psalm 84; Ephesians 1: 3-6, 15-19a 

      Merry Christmas!  That's right; this is the 3^rd of January, & there are still 3 more of the 12 days of Christmas.  Unlike the marketing world which has moved on to advertising Valentine's Day, we Christians are still in the Christmas season until Wednesday when we celebrate the ancient holiday of Epiphany.  In fact, Epiphany has been celebrated longer even than Christmas itself, & we will observe the Feast of Epiphany at 6:30 on Wednesday evening here in our chapel.  So for those of you who wonder what happened to the Magi following the star from the East, come to our service on Wednesday where we'll relate that story again. 

      Today's gospel takes up the story of Jesus when he is 12 years old, traveling to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover, an obligatory pilgrimage for Jewish men.  Since Jewish males take on adult religious responsibilities when they are 13, Jesus is just on the cusp of being considered a grown-up.  After a week-long celebration, the crowd from Nazareth begins its journey home & travels one full day before Mary & Joseph discover that Jesus is not among the neighbors.  

      Can't you imagine the apprehension with which they return to Jerusalem to begin their search for him which ultimately takes 3 days?  Three days is forever when a child is missing, & of course, this is an allusion to the later story of Jesus' 3 days in the tomb after his crucifixion.  As a mother & grandmother, I am astonished at Mary's restraint as she comes upon Jesus conversing with the teachers in the temple!  She questions him in terms of what his absence has meant to his father & her—how worried they have been.  Jesus doesn't even apologize before responding that they should know where he would have been—in his Father's house or about his Father's business. 

      How must Joseph have felt, knowing Jesus spoke of a Heavenly Father?  Yet, even at 12 years old, Jesus is aware he has conflicting loyalties to God & to his family, & he is choosing to distance himself from his earthly family already.  Luke softens the edginess on his response by telling the reader that Jesus returned with Joseph & Mary to Nazareth where he was obedient to them.  And once again, we learn that Mary treasures these memories in her heart as Jesus continues to grow into maturity.

      The overall atmosphere of today's readings is celebratory, & we now turn our attention to today's Hebrew scripture.  It takes place centuries earlier in Jeremiah's celebration song to God for the Hebrew people's release after Babylonian captivity.  Look at the joyful tone of praise & the gratitude of the people for God's saving the remnant of Israel, those who have stayed faithful even when they were shipped off as slaves to Babylon.  It's certainly not by their own might that they are able to return.  Jeremiah reminds the people that the blind & the lame, those nursing children & even those preparing to birth them are among the remnant.  These are the poor & the weak, those who could not save themselves.  Their salvation is all God's doing, not by their own strength.

      Nor does God abandon them in their travel.  Just like a father, Jeremiah says, God leads them next to fresh water supplies & smoothes their paths so that they are able to return to the land of milk & honey.  God cares for the remnant of Israel like the loving shepherd of a flock.  Notice that Jeremiah uses verbs which are later attributed to Jesus himself: God has ransomed the chosen people & has redeemed them from those who are stronger than they are. 

      Today's psalm is a song of joy & praise for God & for those sacred places where God can be worshipped, especially the temple to which they return after their captivity.  It is the same Jerusalem temple where Jesus is found later grappling with scripture & the intricacies of Jewish law.  The journey to freedom in the psalm echoes Jeremiah's words as the desolate valley becomes a place of springs with pools of water. 

      Celebration is truly what Christmas is about, & I'm glad that the church calendar allows us 12 days to do so.  But why all this celebration?  Because one child was born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago?  Well, yes, on one level, that's why we celebrate Jesus' birth.  But actually, we're reminded of the reason this birth is so important to us in our opening collect for the day which you'll find on the front page of your pew bulletin.  Let's look at it again:  "O God, who wonderfully created, & yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature:  Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; . . . ."

      We celebrate God's gift of Jesus the Son today because Jesus' creation & birth in the form of a human baby affirmed more than any other act could have done God's belief that God's creation so many centuries before—& especially that of human beings—was indeed "very good."  God cast the divine lot with humans unreservedly when God chose to make God's own child, part of Godself, human.  Jesus' birth, by a human mother, with a caring human father who adopted him as his own & reared him as a good Jew, was the capstone of God's creation. 

      However, even more, Jesus' life, death, & resurrection were the continuation of the story, & through Jesus' saving action of being crucified for us & being raised from the dead, humans were indeed given a dignity which they had not previously had.  At Christmas time, we celebrate the whole of the story of Jesus' saving grace.  The collect tells us why Jesus humbled himself to share our humanity.  Why is that?  So that we can share the divine life with him.  God made Jesus to live like us so that we can learn to live more like God.

      You might say to me, "Yeah, right!  I know very little about the divine life & I darn sure can't live it."  Well, we can all learn a lot about the divine life by observing the way Jesus lived his own life here on earth & working toward emulating Jesus' life.  That's the miracle of the gift of Jesus as a human.  And you're right that you can't live a divine life, at least not on your own steam.  Nor are you supposed to do so.  That's also why Jesus was born a human baby in a stable:  so, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can learn to be more like him. 

      You might ask how the heck that can happen.  Well, as is often true, I like to turn to the 2^nd lesson, the epistle, for answers to practical questions like that.  After all, an epistle is a letter to one or more of the early Christian churches, encouraging them along the way to be more faithful Christians.  We at Hope can learn much from observing the issues these first Christians grappled with & listening to the missionaries' answers.

      We see that the writer to the Ephesians starts by praising God who has given us the spiritual blessings we need to grow in love & faith.  God acted first, we are reminded, & chose us before the foundations of the world to adopt as children.  That adoption was accomplished through Jesus Christ who also had an adoptive father, & it was God's pleasure to adopt us.  Have you ever known a couple who have desperately wanted children & finally got to adopt one?  What joy they have in finally having a child in their family!  So much more must God's joy be to adopt us as children.  Don't you ever forget that!

      In the 2^nd part of the epistle reading, the writer encourages the Christian community by bragging on their reputation for faith in Jesus & love toward the rest of the community.  When I'm told what a great job I'm doing at something, I surely want to keep doing a good job.  Don't you?  Then we're told that the writer is praying for them to have the wisdom & revelation to come to know Jesus.  He prays that the eyes of their hearts may be enlightened so that they might fulfill God's call to them as individuals & as a community. 

      What a wonderful phrase, that the "eyes of your heart" may be enlightened!  Much of what we learn is through what we see with our eyes, but for the eyes of our heart to be enlightened, our heart must be open to learn new things.  We at Hope must be open to new ways of being church if we are to grow & especially if we are to be attractive to younger seekers.  The kind of learning that the writer speaks of here anticipates that the learner act on what he or she learns.  If we are enlightened, we respond in faith by doing whatever we're called to do.  Is your heart open to be enlightened?  Are you ready to respond to God's call to behave in new ways, to learn how to participate in Jesus' divine life? 

      Whatever way God is calling you to stretch your faith at this Christmas season, don't let this opportunity go by to have your heart become more enlightened so that you may participate more fully in Christ's divine life.  Jesus came to free us all from our sins, to teach us by his humanness how to be more divine.  Don't miss the opportunity this year to grow in Christ's love & faith.  All of us at Hope can benefit from such enlightenment. Amen.