Tag: destiny

First Sunday after Christmas Day – Where Is Jesus? (Luke 2:41-52)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
The Boy Jesus In the Temple, by He Qi

Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents were unaware of this. 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. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 

When his parents saw him they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.” 

He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. 

Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them, and his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor. (New Revised Standard Version)

Luke is the only New Testament Evangelist who included a story of Jesus’s childhood. It provides us some interesting biographical information. Yet, more importantly, the story gives us a sense of Christ’s destiny, of why Jesus grew up to  engage in his unique earthly ministry.

In many ways, Jesus was a typical Jewish boy, in a non-descript pious Jewish family. The family was careful to be observant, and annually made their pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover.

Joseph and his family traveled in a large caravan of people, which was common for that day. They were on their camels an entire day before they discovered Jesus was missing.

Mary likely assumed Jesus was riding on the other camel with Uncle Zechariah and his cousin John. 

But Jesus was neither with them nor with Aunt Elizabeth. So, the second day, Joseph and Mary backtracked to Jerusalem, hoping and praying they wouldn’t find Jesus in the ditch, like in the story of the Good Samaritan.

Having not found their son along the road, Joseph and Mary spent the third day scouring Jerusalem in search of Jesus. 

It seems to me that far too many people go about their daily lives without realizing Jesus is even missing. They simply assume he’s here. But he isn’t.

So, let’s search for him. And in finding him, may we see Jesus as we have never seen him before, so that our faith in God might be strengthened, and so that we do not end up losing him yet again.

Turns out, the entire time, Jesus was at the temple. As a parent and grandparent myself, I’m not a bit surprised that a twelve-year-old stayed behind and thought nothing of it. 

Jesus was curious and inquisitive with the rabbis at the temple. Those ancient teachers taught in a different way than Christians preachers today. They gave instruction more like a modern day counselor or therapist.

The rabbis didn’t just impart information; they asked questions to help people discover truth for themselves. And the rabbis were amazed at Jesus’s ability to discover truth.

Keep in mind that Jesus was not a thirty-year-old adult in a twelve-year-old body. Christ was sinless, indeed; but still immature.

The human experience involves growth and maturation. Jesus shared fully in our humanity, not partially. When Christ was born, he was not a fully aware adult looking through the eyes of a baby.

Because Jesus is fully human, he had to grow up just like us and learn in every way, just like us. (Hebrews 4:15; 5:8)

Staying in Jerusalem was not a rebellious act by Jesus. It was typical. Twelve-year-old’s do all kinds of things without saying anything to their parents.

There’s a world of difference between defiant rebellion, and just plain old garden variety immaturity. It’s unwise for adults to expect adult behavior from adolescent kids.

Jesus felt a deep need to stay and talk with the rabbis. As a human boy, he had to go through the process of self-discovery… of finding out that he was the Son of God… of reading the scriptures for himself and learning… and finding that he was reading about himself! 

To say that Jesus simply knew everything because he was God is to fall into a heresy the early church condemned at the Council of Nicaea called Docetism – a belief that Jesus is fully God and only appeared to be human.

No, the Nicaean Council said, Jesus is really a human being and did not simply appear to be one. He is like us, in every way, except sin.

Well, of course, Joseph and Mary finally found Jesus. And Jesus got the third degree from his mother: “What do you mean putting your father and I through this? I gave you birth, and you treat us like this?  What were you thinking?  What part of meeting at the two-humped camel at 9:00 don’t you understand!?”

Since Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and others, how much more do we need to put ourselves in a position to grow and learn and develop and mature? 

There is no spiritual machine in which God miraculously zaps into our brains all the wisdom and knowledge we need.

Rather, emulating our Lord, we must learn, grow, read, pray, ask questions, struggle, and dialogue about the good news of Jesus Christ with each other. In short, we must discover the truth of God.

Perhaps Jesus is asking us, as he did to Mary and Joseph, “Why were you searching for me?  Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house?” 

The answer of Jesus to his parents’ anxious searching of him points to Christ’s growing self-awareness about his messianic mission. The story centers around Jesus, as all stories do in the Gospel narratives, and not so much around the others.

Since Christ is the proper middle to everything for the Christian, we will, like Joseph and Mary, struggle to know where in the heck Jesus is, and why he is where he is, whenever we find him.

But it isn’t really all that hard to find Jesus, at least, once you know where to look, and where he typically hangs out.

When looking for Jesus, he will be doing the things of his Father. In the Gospel of Luke, those things are clearly connected to the prophet Isaiah’s description:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
        to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
        to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19, NRSV; cf. Isaiah 61:1-2)

The ones rejoicing at Christ’s birth, and why they were filled with such joy, is very much connected to the messianic mission of Jesus. They understood that freedom and deliverance had just been born.

O God, from our mother’s womb you have known us. You call us to follow you every single day of our lives. And you seek us out whenever we wander from you. As we grow up and grow older, clothe us with your love, so that we may mature in grace and find favor in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Amen.

Born to Die (Judges 13:2-24)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The angel and Manoah, by Sadao Watanabe, 1972

There was a man from Zorah named Manoah. Manoah was from the family of Dan. His wife was not able to have children. The Messenger of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You’ve never been able to have a child, but now you will become pregnant and have a son. Now you must be careful. Don’t drink any wine or liquor or eat any unclean  food. You’re going to become pregnant and have a son. You must never cut his hair because the boy will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from birth. He will begin to rescue Israel from the power of the Philistines.”

The woman went to tell her husband. She said, “A man of God came to me. He had a very frightening appearance like the Messenger of God. So I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name. He told me, ‘You’re going to become pregnant and have a son. So don’t drink any wine or liquor or eat any unclean food because the boy will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from the time he is born until he dies.’ ”

Then Manoah pleaded with the Lord, “Please, Lord, let the man of God you sent come back to us. Let him teach us what we must do for the boy who will be born.”

God did what Manoah asked. The Messenger of God came back to his wife while she was sitting out in the fields. But her husband Manoah was not with her. The woman ran quickly to tell her husband. She said, “The man who came to me the other day has just appeared to me again.”

Manoah immediately followed his wife. When he came to the man, he asked him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?”

“Yes,” he answered.

Then Manoah asked, “When your words come true, how should the boy live and what should he do?”

The Messenger of the Lord answered Manoah, “Your wife must be careful to do everything I told her to do. She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevines, drink any wine or liquor, or eat any unclean food. She must be careful to do everything I commanded.”

Manoah said to the Messenger of the Lord, “Please stay while we prepare a young goat for you to eat.”

But the Messenger of the Lord responded, “If I stay here, I will not eat any of your food. But if you make a burnt offering, sacrifice it to the Lord.” (Manoah did not realize that it was the Messenger of the Lord.)

Then Manoah asked the Messenger of the Lord, “What is your name? When your words come true, we will honor you.”

The Messenger of the Lord asked him, “Why do you ask for my name? It’s a name that works miracles.”

So Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and sacrificed them to the Lord on a rock he used as an altar. While Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did something miraculous. As the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the Messenger of the Lord went up in the flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they immediately bowed down with their faces touching the ground.

The Messenger of the Lord didn’t appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah knew that this had been the Messenger of the Lord. So Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die because we have seen God.”

But Manoah’s wife replied, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering. He would not have let us see or hear all these things just now.”

So the woman had a son and named him Samson. The boy grew up, and the Lord blessed him. (God’s Word Translation)

The Sacrifice of Manoah, by Charles Blanc (1813-1882)

In the anticipation of Christ’s birth, we are reminded today that there have been extraordinary births in history – a sign that the delivery of a baby will lead to a deliverance of the people.

The ancient Israelites were yet again in one of their downward spirals into apostasy. As a result, their arch-nemesis, the Philistines, had domination over them. The tribe of Dan – from which Samson was born into – was geographically situated in such a way that they would have borne the brunt of Philistine oppression.

In the case of miraculous births in Holy Scripture, an angel comes to announce the coming child. These sorts of situations always have an infertile woman who was not planning on becoming a mother. And in many cultures, including Israel, a son born to a woman who was childless for a long time is recognized as a particularly special gift from God.

There are typically, therefore, high expectations that such a special child is destined for great things in this life. Indeed, Samson would become an extraordinary person by initiating the deliverance of Israel from the Philistines.

Samson, according to the angel, was not only to make sure he never eats any unclean food, but also was to be set apart from his very conception as a Nazirite – one who has the special rules of abstinence from alcohol, cutting the hair, and touching corpses. (Numbers 6:1-8)

From the very beginning of Samson’s existence in the womb of his mother, the Spirit of God was with him and began empowering him for his destiny of deliverance.

Since we know the rest of the story, as contained in the Bible, we understand that the way the deliverance of Israel came was not by any sort of conventional means. It was a rather circuitous and complicated set of circumstances and decisions which brought about Israel’s freedom from oppression.

In a similar way, the deliverance which Jesus secured – not only for Israel, but according to Christianity, for all nations – came about through unexpected and tragic circumstances. This is why many Christians will state that Jesus was born to die – because his death, like Samson’s, brought about a great saving event that vastly outdid anything done during life.

Perhaps you existentially know something in this season about such bittersweet circumstances and events. It could be that you are experiencing a situation that is both very sad and quite joyous at the same time.

So, may you, especially, in this time of year, find satisfaction in your grief, and contentment in your lament. May the angel’s announcement stir in your soul the peace that passes all understanding. May the Lord be with you, my friend.

Soli Deo Gloria