Flash Forward

A funny thing happened on the way home from the festival...

When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. 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.- Luke 2:43-44

This has always been a puzzling story for me.

Just as we are getting used to the idea of Jesus as a baby, we come upon his first journey with his parents to Jerusalem, and they leave without him.  An alternative reading for today has him receiving gifts from the Magi, so this is quite a jump in time for us.

In our heads, he is still that helpless infant lying in a manger, recently circumcised.  How could they abandon him?

I think part of the problem I have with this has to do with the fact that I grew up in a different time.  At twelve years old, I was nearing the end of my elementary school education, with a long way to go before I would be considered old enough to be on my own.

But in ancient times, a boy became a man at thirteen.  He was presented to the community and could be ready to have a wife and family of his own.

So, Jesus at twelve was like me in my college years, almost independent.

Still, it is hard to imagine Mary and Joseph leaving with an entourage of family and friends and not knowing if Jesus was among them.

Later, when they realize he is missing, they search for three days, and when they finally find him in the Temple, they admit to being anxious.

I guess we are supposed to see this as a turning point in Jesus' life, the first time he publicly seeks his future ministry.

So, if we consider this a flash forward view of what is to come for this babe in the manger, what is the message we can take home to our children and in our lives?

Maybe we are to look and see the potential in our kids, the future ministries and good works they will do in the world, long after we are out of the picture.

If we can do that, we might have a different perspective, a surprising realization that they are not so much ours to guide as they are God's.

They will seek out and discover the path that suits them best, and it may be a bumpy road to get there, but we will not be the ones who make the journey safer, easier or less troubling for us or them.

We will live in the anxiety of parents who place their trust in God and pray that the child we still remember as an infant will be all right indeed.

More to come...