Missing

I started writing a story once that my wife made me stop writing.  It was about a young boy who goes missing.

Every year Jesus' 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 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. 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? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety." 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. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor. - Luke 2:41-52

In my story, the boy, who was in daycare, gets separated from his class when he slips out a door during a power outage and the door locks behind him.

We, the readers, followed the boy on his journey to find his way to safety, but all the while, the adults were in a panic.

My wife, who spent the first three years of our grandson's life watching and caring for him while his parents were at work, hated the story.  It was her worst nightmare, to have her boy go missing.

I tried to point out that the boy in the story was on an adventure, but she wouldn't have it.  To her, the possibilities and probabilities were all bad.  This was not a story a parent or grandparent could love.

That experience gave me greater insight into what Mary and Joseph were going through when Jesus stayed behind, separated from them and the relatives.

Whenever I read this Gospel passage, I think back to my unfinished story.  In a way, the Gospel story has a happy ending, with Jesus reunited with his parents, but there is a blow to Joseph, isn't there?

Jesus says his true father is not the man who was looking to find him.

While Jesus does remain obedient to them both until Joseph is no longer in the picture, this must have hurt Joseph at least a little bit.  The one he raised and loved expected him to understand he, Jesus, had a different relationship with him than he expected.

If I had finished my story of the missing boy, I might have found the relationship between the child and his parents would have to have changed as well.

Whether we think so or not, venturing off on our own is different than being taken away against our will, even if at the start of the journey, it is not our choice to leave.

The relationship Jesus had with his mother and Joseph, his surrogate father, may have been changed forever after that adventure.  It was the first step in leaving his father's house and becoming a man, yes, but it was more than that.  It was a way of forcing Joseph to face the truth about his role once again, as he had back when the angel visited him in a dream.

I don't know how my story would have ended, though I am sure I intended it to be modeled after this Gospel story, with the boy discovering something about himself that changed him forever.

How it affects those who love him, though, is what makes the story hard to read.

More to come...