Jesus is Missing!

Luke 2:41-52

One of the scariest experiences that parents can have is when a child goes missing. That happened to us 25 years ago; when I recall it, it still brings back chills. We were at Disney World in Florida; our daughter Sarah was young, probably 6 or 7. It was a long hot day – like it so often is in Florida at Disney World. We had just stepped out of a gift shop when we noticed that Sarah was not with us. We frantically went back in the shop, but she wasn’t there. We started running around yelling for her. After a few minutes we found her safe and sound. But for those few minutes it was awful; every terrible thought you can imagine think went through our minds.

That happened to Jesus’ parents when he was twelve years old. Our gospel lesson says that Mary and Joseph took their family to Jerusalem for the Passover. This was a big trip back then and Jerusalem would have been very crowded. The population of the city swelled from 50,000 to 150,000 people at Passover time. This was an important Passover for Jesus because it the time for his Bar-Mitzvah. He was twelve years old, which meant that he could go into the temple court reserved for Jewish men, and did not have to wait back in the court of women with the moms and children. For the first time he could enter into discussion about the Torah with the Torah teachers and be treated like an adult. So this was an important transition time for Jesus. That is why it is perfectly understandable that Jesus’ parents did not notice he was gone until they were already part way home.

Pilgrims traveled in groups back then for protection from robbers and wild animals. The residents of Nazareth who were taking the pilgrimage would have traveled the 90 miles together to Jerusalem in a caravan. Everyone walked. Only the very young were carried, and maybe a few rode donkeys. During the trip extended families and friends would look out for each other’s kids. When I was growing up every mom in the neighborhood looked out for everyone else’s kids. If you did something wrong, your mom knew about it before you got home! Everyone watched out for everyone else. That is the way it was on these trips. Everyone kept an eye on everyone else’s kids. So if you didn’t see your child, it was no big deal. You assumed he was with his cousins or friends. That is what Mary and Joseph assumed on their way to Jerusalem.

On their way back to Nazareth it would have been the same thing, except that Jesus’ status had changed. He was no longer considered a child. He went to the Passover a child and was returning technically a man, even though he was still just twelve years old. So probably when Mary and joseph did not see him when they started back to Nazareth they just assumed that he was asserting his new standing a little bit. At the very least, they would have assumed that other family and friends would be keeping an eye on him anyway. They did not become concerned until it was time to make camp the first night, and they could not find Jesus. So Mary and Joseph had to travel back to Jerusalem to retrieve their son. It as a day’s journey out and a day’s journey back, so by the time they arrived back in Jerusalem Jesus had been missing for 48 hours. They searched the city for another 24 hours. You can imagine them going to the place where they had lodged, the restaurants where they had eaten, to the homes of relatives in Jerusalem, talking to the officials and speaking to everyone they saw, asking if they had seen the boy Jesus.

After a whole day of looking they finally find him in the temple courts sitting and talking to the teachers as if nothing was wrong. You can feel the tension in the story. Verse 28 records that his mother said to him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously.” That was probably the censored version of what Mary actually said. You can hear the emotion in her voice and the intensity on their faces – a combination of relief, anger, worry, compounded by sleeplessness. But Jesus just brushes off their concern as if nothing was nothing. He replies, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" This morning I want us to look at this very human story and see the spiritual meaning in it for us. I want to use this story as a metaphor for our spiritual life.

I. We also lose track of Jesus. By this I mean that we lose touch with him. I have old friends that I have lost touch with over the years. I have college and seminary friends that I was once close to but now I have lost touch with. One of them I had not heard from for a while. I did not receive a Christmas card from him one year. When I finally took the time to track him down, I found out that he had died. He had actually committed suicide, and I did not know about it for a year and a half. I was living in western Pennsylvania at the time and he was buried in Dayton, Ohio. I would have gone to the funeral if I had known. I would have spoken at the funeral. He was one of my closest friends in college. We had lots of theological discussions back in those formative years. We both went to seminary. Both of us were ordained to ministry. He was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister; I as a Baptist minister. I still feel bad about not keeping in touch with him, wondering if there was something I could have said or done that might have made a difference.

We can lose touch with Jesus. We can lose touch with God. We get busy with our lives, busy doing other things, busy with other people. I understand sin in this manner - in relational terms rather than legalistic. Sin is not so much breaking the rules of a divine lawgiver. Sin is more being out of touch with God, being separated from God, being out of fellowship with God. That is the way I experience it. Acts that we might do wrong come out of that state of being disconnected from God. We look up one day and realize that we haven’t given God a second thought for quite a while. And we suddenly realize that God is missing from our lives. We still hold the beliefs but not the relationship.

We lost track of our daughter Sarah at Disney World by taking our eyes off her for a couple of minutes. Out of sight, out of mind. So it is with Christ. We lose track of Christ when we take our eyes off him. There is the famous story in the gospels where Jesus is walking on the water on the Sea of Galilee during a storm. The disciples in the boat see him and call out to him and he comes near. Then the apostle Peter takes the step of faith and gets out of the boat and walks on water toward Jesus. But Peter begins to sink when he takes his eyes off of Christ and starts looking at the waves churning around him.

We get into trouble in our lives when we take our eyes off Jesus. We take our eyes off Christ and on to other things, and when we look back, Jesus is gone. He has moved onto other things. We get off track in our spiritual lives when we take our eyes off Christ. The spiritual life is a walk of discipleship. The simplest definition of the Christian faith is Jesus’ command “Follow me.” When Jesus first called his twelve apostles that is all he asked of them. He did not ask them to sign their name to a creed or perform a ritual or join a religious organization. He simply said, “Follow me.” To follow someone you have to keep your eyes on him. You have to keep up the pace too. If you are walking on a mountain trail with a guide and you don’t know the way, you better stay right with the leader. If you let him get too far ahead, then you won’t know which way to take when you come to a fork in the trail. It is the same with the spiritual life.

These days there is a lot of do-it-yourself spirituality. Everyone is blazing their own trail. Consequently many people get very lost in the spiritual wilderness. For many people Jesus is not Lord. He is more like a life coach or an adviser. We are freelancers more than disciples, maybe getting in contact with Jesus once in a while to ask his opinion or his help, but that is all. We certainly do not want to be bothered with walking with him every day on his schedule. We like our freedom and our independence too much for that.   That is how we lose track of Jesus.

II. In the gospel story Mary and Joseph find Jesus again, and how they did that also has something to teach us. How did they find Jesus again? First they retraced their steps. They were already a day’s journey out of Jerusalem with the caravan of relatives and friends. So they had to separate from the group and turn around and travel a whole day’s journey back to where they started. It is the same with our lives.

The word for repentance in the NT literally means to turn around and go in the opposite direction. It means to do a U turn. Repentance is another one of those terms that is not real popular these days. Once again I think it is because the word has been burdened so much with moralism. But it simply means that we admit we are going the wrong way. To get on the right track means that we have to turn around and do some backtracking. No one likes to backtrack. Sometimes I am going to the airport for a trip, and halfway down Bean Road we remember that we forgot something that we really need for the journey. I don’t want to go all the way back, but if we have the time we go back anyway. I don’t like that. I will do anything I can to avoid, but sometimes I have to do it. I don’t like to repent either. But I have to do it. Mary and Joseph turned around and went back the way they came. It meant they had to go their own way apart from family and friends. That is the way it is with the spiritual life sometimes. Family and friends are not be on the spiritual path as we are. Sometimes we have to go it alone. It takes courage to part from the crowd and go in search of Christ.

Mary and Joseph got back to Jerusalem and started looking. They looked everywhere. They were persistent and tireless in their pursuit of Jesus. God says in Jeremiah, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” You know that Mary and Joseph’s searched for their child with all their hearts. Think how you would search for your missing child or grandchild. You would not rest until you found him. I read sad stories of parents of lost children who spent years and every dollar they had searching for their lost child. Our search for God and Truth – our search for Christ – must also have an urgency about it. To tell the truth I don’t see that urgency in a lot of people these days. Spirituality seems more like a hobby to most people, certainly not an all-consuming passion. The reason why many people do not find Truth is because they are not really searching – certainly not searching with all their heart. Half-hearted is a more accurate description. Mary and Joseph searched with all their hearts.

Notice where they eventually find Christ. They find him in the house of God. There are people on a spiritual search today, but the last place they look is in the house of God. You might think that would be the first place people would look. That is what Jesus said to his parents when they eventually caught up with him. They said they had been looking anxiously for him everywhere, and he responds, “Where else would I be but in my Father’s house?” People today look everywhere for God but in church. They have decided ahead of time that there is no way Truth or God could be found in church. Church is boring, with uncomfortable pews filled with old people and tedious sermons. They never stop to think that maybe there is some wisdom to be found in this 2000 year old tradition.

Jesus was in the temple discussing weighty spiritual matters with the elders, with the spiritual leaders and experts in the scriptures. Where else would he be to do this but in the house of God? Where else would we expect to find God, Christ and truth?

III. The third aspect of this I want to explore is the reaction of Mary and Joseph and others when they found Jesus. It says that people and Jesus’ parents were AMAZED. The other word used is ASTONISHED. Verses 46-48 “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.” People were amazed at Jesus because he was just a twelve year old boy and yet he had amazing spiritual understanding. The reason he had amazing spiritual understanding was because of who he was.

I have talked with, taught membership classes for, and baptized a lot of twelve and thirteen year old boys and girls. Some are clearly more spiritually aware than others. But in the 38 years of being a pastor I have never been amazed at a twelve year old’s understanding and answers. After all, twelve year olds are twelve year olds. But Jesus was not your typical twelve year old boy.  As a thirty year old man he was not typical either. When Jesus taught in his hometown of Nazareth it says, “He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, “Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?”  Another place says, “And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?” When you discover Jesus and his teachings we are amazed.

The important point about the reaction in our passage is who Jesus was. That is what this passage is really all about. Here for the first time it became apparent who Jesus was. That is the same for us. We celebrated Christmas this week. There we saw that at this birth the world was told who he was. Here again in our passage today we get another passage about who he was. He was One greater than the temple. He was one who felt at home in the temple and called it his Father’s house. It means that he was the Son of God. And as he later was to say, when we have seen we have seen the Father. And then our search is over, and our relationship with him has just begun.