READING: Luke 2:41-52

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they travelled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazedat his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mothersaid to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your fatherand I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with themand was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.

SERMON

Do you know that our Gospel reading this morning is the only story recorded in Scripture that recounts an event in Jesus’ teenage years. The hidden years you might say.

Mary and Joseph go to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Passover with Jesus their twelve-year-old son. When Passover was over they began to trek back home. It was only when they had travelled a whole day’s journey and pitched their tents that they had realised they had lost Jesus.

Now before you write them off as being bad parents by not watching their son – you need to understand they were travelling in a large group.

The women and children generally would start their journey ahead of the men, because they travelled slower. By evening time, when they would make camp when the men had caught up with the women and children.

I guess Mary thought Jesus was with Joseph and Joseph thought Jesus was with Mary. So it wasn’t until evening they found that they had lost Jesus.

For those of us who are parents/Grandparents has this ever happened to you?

One thought that their child is with the other parent only to find that they are not? Or have we done this has children just wandered off and left our parents distraught wondering where we were?

So you see it can happen to any of us or has happened to any of us.

Mary and Joseph lost Jesus for three days. Just imagine how they must have felt.

But do you know what? We too can lose Jesus if we don’t watch where he is going.

I guess it is part of Christian living that the longer we are Christians the greater the danger we can lose him for a while.

We can even get caught up in doing his works and drift away.

The then Bishop of Oxford, John Pritchard wrote in an issue of the Christianity magazine in 2012 in his article “God Lost and Found”: “Have you ever looked around your church and wondered what all these good people are really, no kidding, hand on heart thinking about the worship this morning? I fear if you could see the thought bubble above many heads there would be rather less red hot faith than the minister would like to think.”

He goes on to say: “The reality is that most of us at some stage of our Christian journey enter a grey period when the vivid awareness of God that we used to delight in has disappeared.

What was once bright and shiny is now tarnished and dull. Of course we keep the mask on because it would be just too embarrassing to stay home or go jogging on Sunday morning, but deep down we are going through the motions.

A famous Dutch born Catholic priest and Christian philosopher Henri Nouwen – author of the book “The Wounded Healer” who died in 1996 said this about his own spiritual journey: “After sixty-three years of life and thirty eight years of priesthood, my prayer seems as dead as a rock. The words “darkness” and “dryness” seem best to describe my prayer today”

We can be involved in Church but then we can miss out on where Jesus is.

His parents backtracked to where they had last seen him and found him in the Temple.

If we have lost him, if our love for him has grown cold, we need to be like Joseph and Mary and to stop everything we are doing UNTIL we find him again.

As I was preparing this I was reminded of what God said to the Church in Ephesus in the book of Revelation in Chapter 2 verses 1-7;

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.

2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.

3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.

5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

6 But you have this in your favour: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

7 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

You can have a dull belief and lose your love for God and the writer of the book of Hebrews reminds us in Hebrews 2:1 We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.

The Church in Ephesus didn’t go out of its way to walk away from Jesus. They got caught up in other things. If the well has run dry, you need to go back to the place where you were last with Jesus.

We may need to retrace our steps and find him again to find him where we left him.

It is never too late

John Pritchard ended his article by saying: “The great illusion is that we think he has wandered off when he has probably settled down in the everyday heart of our lives, in our ordinary experiences and waits for us there.

The future may be less spectacular spiritually but the second part of our Christian lives may be even richer than the first.”

As we look into the New Year of 2022, I wish to leave you with two points to you from my sermon.

1. The first is this: We can all lose Jesus at some time in our Christian life – if we don’t watch where he is going.

2. The second is this: If we do lose, we need to stop everything and go back to where we last saw him.

The challenge in our Christian journey is to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus day by day and to do this …

We need to pray regularly and not to give up if you don’t feel anything. After all, Jesus on the Cross went through the same thing – a separation from God his Father when he said: My God, my God why have you forsaken me.

We need to read our Bibles regularly. Someone once described the Bible as God’s love letter to us. When you are feeling down pick it up and realise that God really does love you.

Make sure we have Christian fellowship. There is no such thing as a solo Christian. And this is very tough during these times of Covid. For just as a hot coal grows cold out of the fire, so our hearts will grow cold outside Christian fellowship

And so in 2022, may you, in the words of Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Amen.

PRAYERS

Eternal God, you have given us so many gifts and now the greatest gift of all. Your love for us and all creation is expressed in the beauty and vulnerability of a new born child. Our joy is sung by the angels. Our presence in the story is seen in ordinary shepherds. Our homage is made by those men from the east. In amazement we can only say ‘thank you’ and continue telling the story.

Hark the herald angels sing; Glory to the new born King.

Christmas isn’t just for the children, but it is for children. Thank you for their innocent excitement which reminds us of what we’ve often lost. Bless them not just with presents but with Jesus. May their lives be touched by his life, their story connect with his. We pray, naming then in our hearts, for children who are special in our lives, for their joy, their future and their faith

Hark the herald angels sing; Glory to the new born King.

Christmas isn’t just for adults, but it is for adults. We may have grown jaded from many Christmases. We may have become disappointed by the loss of magic and fallen back into more worldly celebrations. Speak to us afresh through the simplicity of the story and the extraordinary truth that it contains, and in that freshness call us back to be ‘detectives of divinity’, seeking your presence anywhere and everywhere, even in ourselves. May Christmas make us different this year.

Hark the herald angels sing; Glory to the new born King.

As well as glory there is also sadness at Christmas; sadness for those left behind by neglect, loneliness, bereavement and more. There are no easy , ‘over the counter’ solutions to the smudge and satin of our struggles, but we pray for the transforming presence everywhere of the Christ child, this down to earth God, with his gift of life and hope. We name in our hearts any who will be finding this time hard…… For these people we too say;

Hark the herald angels sing; Glory to the new born King.

At Christmas divine lightning strikes the earth and nothing is the same again. This is the heart stopping moment when ‘Before Christ’ changed to ‘Anno Domini’, BC – AD,

And we are invited to the birthday party of a new world. Lord, as far as we are able, we accept the invitation. Thank you, we’ll be there.

Merciful Father accept these prayers in the name of your son our saviour Jesus Christ.

And so we bind our prayers together in the words that Jesus taught his disciples.

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
For ever and ever.
Amen

Revd Kevin.
Associate Priest at St.Wilfrid and St.Thomas