I have some clear memories of losing a child in the mall or the grocery store or the park – you name it. I don’t really think I am especially careless. It’s the children. Unless you tie them on a string or lock them in a room with you, it’s really hard to keep track of children. Because children are careless. Young children are careless about wandering off because they don’t yet understand the consequences – that they may not find their way back. They don’t understand the possibility of being separated from the ones who care for them. Children are so careless about getting themselves lost.
My sister Katie was especially careless, always wandering after anything that caught her eye. My mother once lost Katie in the mall and frantically ran around looking for her. Eventually she found her way to a department store security office. My mother was tired and terrified, and there was Katie happily sitting between the security officers, smiling, eating candy. Katie said, “Mama, why did you lose me?”
My mother didn’t appreciate the question.
Perhaps some children are just too “at home” in the world for their own safety. Sadly, children need to unlearn that feeling of being at home wherever they are and learn about the dangers around them. We don’t like to do it, but because we love them, we teach them about these things.
I wonder if Mary had taught Jesus about these things before that trip to Jerusalem. I assume she did – she was a mother.
These pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the festivals were a big deal. Crowded, exciting, and potentially dangerous – you would want to keep a close eye on the children.
But the journey to Jerusalem would not be one you would be taking alone. There would be large groups of people, friends, neighbors, and family members all traveling together in a caravan.
On their way back home, Mary thought Jesus was with some cousins or playmates somewhere in the caravan. Maybe he said to her, I’m going to hang out with Jacob, and Mary said, that’s fine.
And then at the end of the day, he was nowhere to be found.
Mary and Joseph had no choice but to travel back to Jerusalem and look for their child.
Jerusalem was a big city, crowded with travelers – Jews from all over the diaspora who had come for the festival of the Passover. For three days they searched, without success. It must have been terrifying for Joseph and Mary. For three days they imagined the very worst they could imagine.
Then they went to the temple. On the third day.
It would seem that this was the last place they expected him to be. I guess that’s reasonable. If I were looking for my child, I wouldn’t immediately think, “They must be at church.” But when they finally arrived at the temple, there they saw him, sitting amongst the rabbis, enjoying a theological discussion.
Mary called out his name. He looked up and saw her. And he said, “Why didn’t you know I would be here? Did you not know that I had to be at my father’s house?”
Why did you lose me, Mama?
And so we have another chapter in Mary’s life full of gathering up the mysteries, holding them and pondering them in her heart.
It would be much later before she would begin to really understand it, but perhaps eventually Mary would know that it was all about where Jesus was at home. Where he belonged. And it is really about the very same thing for each one of us.
We began this conversation on Christmas Eve, about our notions of home – what it means to us to be at home. And the ways in which we may find our home in Jesus.
The idea of home is very much a matter of identity. The scriptures tell us where someone is from to tell us about a person’s identity. Matthew tells us that Joseph is from the house of David and this is important for us to know. It tells us something about who he is. He belongs to the tribe of Judah, to the house of David.
For us, too, if we say we are at home in a certain environment, we are saying something about who we are. To what and whom we belong.
Throughout this season we have used the image of making a house for the holy. We have been thinking about the church being that house, making room enough for everyone. But it is not too far a stretch to say that we ourselves, our bodies, are designed to make a house for the holy, to bring what is holy into this world. We are made in God’s image and therefore designed to carry something of the goodness of God into the world – Just as Jesus carried the goodness of God in his body, when he came to dwell with us.
If we say that our faith, our identity as Christians, is simply to claim Jesus as our personal Savior, is to get only part of it. If we say to invite Jesus into our heart is the all of it, we are missing some essential parts. Because when we let Jesus into our hearts, we are letting the holiness of God in, inviting this holiness to flourish so that we might become a force for God’s goodness in the world.
The boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. He went to the temple, maybe because he was homesick. He left his Father in heaven, his home with the holy trinity, separated himself for our sake. He carried this holiness in his body to show us God’s love toward us.
To find our true home, maybe we can do the same.
May each of us carry the holy in our bodies to show the world God’s loving intentions for all.
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Photo by Max Goncharov on Unsplash
