“Growing Up” – Luke 2:41-52

In the opening words of his Gospel, Luke declares that “after investigating everything carefully from the very first” he will“ write an orderly account ... so that you may know the truth...” (Lk 1:3-4)

“An orderly account” Luke says. Kind of an underwhelming statement about Luke’s remarkable undertaking to tell the world and all future generations about the Messiah, the savior of all humanity. So much to say about Jesus, and so little space to do it! What should Luke include? Jesus healed people of diseases, restored sight to the blind, defied the Roman Emperor, was obedient to God to the point of an humiliating death on the cross. Jesus was the first to be raised from the dead and for all who believe he assures the same resurrection. Luke knew these things about Jesus– and so much more. But he was determined to “write an orderly account.”

What Luke chooses to tell us about Jesus bears close attention. Jesus spent 30 of his 33 years in his little hometown of Nazareth. However, outside of a brief description of his birth, we know almost nothing about the first 90% of his life. So, what little we DO know about these years from Luke’s “orderly account” really matters! This is what Luke tells us:

Jesus had deep roots in the Jewish faith. He was a child of a devout home. His family worshiped regularly at synagogue. His parents were conscientious about their religious obliga-tions. Home, temple, synagogue, and community formed him. Luke doesn’t tell us much about our Lord’s “growing up,” except that at every significant point in his life, Jesus observed the religious practices and traditions of his people. As a first-born male child, he was circumcised on the 8th day and given the name “Jesus” – “God saves.” At 6 weeks, he was dedicated to God (“presented”– v. 2:21.) In keeping with the requirement for his mother’s “purification,” his family made the appropriate sacrificial offerings (v. 22). At age 12 , Jesus had his bar mitzvah (that is, he became a “son of the Law”). This is the Jewish rite of “Confirmation.” All part of “growing up.”
Luke tells us that every year at Passover his parents took the whole family on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The law of Moses required pilgrimages for Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, except for people who lived too far away--only Passover was required. Passover is the scene for today’s frightening episode. Jesus is “left behind” in Jerusalem after Passover ended. The cara-van left for Nazareth and had traveled a full day before Jesus was reported missing. It took his parents three days to finally track him down! How could this happen? Luke doesn’t bother telling us why or how it happened. What’s important is what Luke tells us: that Joseph and Mary were frantic, exasperated, and angry with Jesus. They responded as most parents would: “Son, why have you treated us like this? Don’t you know we were frantic? We were worried sick. We were looking all over for you! How could you do this to us?

What we have here is the clash of two fundamental loyalties, the two most important forms of obedience for all of us: to our parents; and to God. The tension is thick: “Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?,” declares Jesus. Family loyalties have their place, but they find fullest expression under a greater love and loyalty–to God.

We have been celebrating Christmas. Family, whatever configuration and type you have, figures prominently at Christmas. The success or failure to live up to our human potential is dependent to some degree upon the families we come from. The home has a decisive influence in the shaping of our beliefs and character. Who we are is mostly shaped by who we come from.

Let me tell you about Sandra’s family. When her parents Harry and Ada Mae Day had their first child, they had to travel 225 from their ranch to El Paso. It was a difficult birth, and they returned home to a very difficult life. They lived in an adobe house without electricity or running water. There were no schools within driving distance. Harry had been forced by his father’s death to take over the ranch instead of attending Stanford University as he had planned. But the Days were a devout family, and would not let their challenges defeat them. Harry and Ada Mae never gave up hope that their daughter would someday study at Stanford. Sandra’s mother taught her at home; she made sure their home was well-stocked with newspapers, books, and magazines. Eventually, Sandra did go to Stanford, to the Law School. In 1981 she became the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. She retired from the Court this past July.

On the day of her swearing in, her family was there. “She looked around and locked her eyes on us,” her brother Alan said. “That’s when the tears started falling.”

What motivates a woman like Sandra Day O’Conner? Inner drive, of course, a call, a sense of purpose in life. But much of the credit goes to a determined mother in an adobe ranch home reading to her children, providing a loving home, nurturing the unique God-given gifts within her children.

We may not all have come from families as capable and devoted as Sandra Day O’Conner’s. Your family, like mine, may have been utterly ordinary. Thankfully, our families do not have to be extraordinary, or wealthy, or brilliant. Joseph and Mary, Jesus’ parents, were unremarkable in almost every way, but they followed the religious commitments of their faith and the moral standards of their community. That’s what they did, Luke tells us, and that’s what’s important about Jesus’ growing up. Observing the religious disciplines and practices of church and community life, however ordinary that might seem, is how we “grow up” to be the people God intends for us to be. Parents provide an earthly model, but it is in Christ through whom we really grow up: As St. Paul says “...we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15)
I know that there are many people who have not had the gift of a stable and loving home. Some you who are listening today may have had some damaging experiences from childhood. The families you grew up with may have been far from wholesome and loving. Each of us at some time has experienced hurt, disappointment, and abandonment at some time in our lives. These days of Christmas may be a poignant reminder to you of this. As you reflect back on your upbringing, you may find yourselves echoing the words of Jesus’ parents: “Why have you treated us so?”
“We have been looking for you anxiously,” we might ask, searching for a family that never existed. We need not continue to look anxiously for that family. The perfect family does not exist; it never will.

But we who follow Christ Jesus have the family we need. We have a home. It is the Father’s House, where life is “being about our Father’s business.” This is the family we need for growing up “in wisdom and in years and finding favor with God and with people.”

© 2006