they said your soul needed savin' so they sent you off to bible school

but you know a little more than they were sure was in the golden rule

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke!

The big festival was over…

One of the days the temple was filled again. Only now the high holy day had passed. Everyone had enjoyed the moving worship, but now it was time to go back home. Back to business as usual. The work-week loomed ahead. The house work needed to be done…

I’m not talking about Christmas Eve.

I am talking about the Passover festival Mary and Joseph went to. 

There are a lot of parallels though, aren’t there? 

And they are more than how big festivals seem to draw people here in a way regular worship just doesn’t.

There’s other parallels, like Mary and Joseph, and everyone at temple for Passover; love the special services. The hymns we only sing during that night. The story you can tell is holy by the way everyone quiets down as it’s read. The way candles seem to soften all our features and give us a glimpse of how God sees us. The presence of so many loved ones here, worshipping with us. The way the temple is full again. 

We love those special services.

Once they’re over, though; like Mary and Joseph, we’re prone to go back to business as usual. 

After a day or so, the big festival is nothing more than a distant memory. It was nice; but now we’ve got to go back to life in the real world. 

And like Mary and Joe; after about a day back to normal, we realize something is missing… 

On that holy night, with the candles and the hymns; the air was think. It felt as if we would only look out the corners of our eyes, we’d see Jesus singing there too. Just a few pews over…

Only now. Now with the demands of work and home, everything has gone back to the way it always is. After about a day back in the old routines, we too wonder where Jesus is… 

In the time between Christmas Eve and going back to the daily grind, Jesus got lost in the shuffle. 

Now Mary and Joseph go back to the Jerusalem and the temple. 

They go there, not because they think the temple is any place special. They go to there because that’s the last place they saw their son.

There’s nothing theological or moral about what they do. It’s simply practical wisdom. Wisdom we do well to emulate. If it was in worship that we last felt Jesus’ presence so powerfully, returning isn’t a bad idea…

Well, Mary and Joe’s instincts serve them well. That’s exactly where Jesus was. In the temple. 

The young Jesus is quick to point out, though; he’s still in the temple, not because he was lost. He’s in the temple because he must be. 

“Why were you searching for me,” Jesus asks rhetorically.

It’s a good question, for us in this busy days, in these days of returning to work and home-life. 

Although the answer nearly goes without saying. 

We’ve known the holiness of Jesus’ presence, when it’s gone, have a hole in us. As Saint Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord.”

We’re searching for Jesus because we miss the comfort of his presence. We’re searching for Jesus because after Christmas Eve, we know we’re lost without him. We’re searching for Jesus because it was so good to be near him we want to spend all our days there.

Finally, we’re searching for Jesus because we think we have to be the one’s to find him.

We’re searching for Jesus; and he just asks why. 

As if he needs to ask.

As if it’s a great mystery…

“Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house,” the boy Jesus asks. 

The temple, church, in worship is where Jesus loves to turn up. In fact, it’s where he promises to. 

It is in his father’s house where Mary and Joseph find Jesus asking all the right questions; speaking with authority. And it still is. Here Jesus puts questions to us; speaks with authority. 

“Why were you searching for me?”

You who are here, like the holy parents; know the let down of the week after the high holy days. You know the pull back to business as usual. You know the sudden, terrifying realization Jesus isn’t there, that he’s somewhere else.

Jesus doesn’t go back to business as usual. He can’t!

This thing God has done has changed everything.

And we, like Mary and Joseph, are caught between these two poles. We know that indeed, something has happened. In the meantime, we have to muddle through somehow. 

Follow Mary and Joseph’s example, run back to the last place you saw Jesus. Listen to Jesus, let him speak with authority. “Why are you searching for me? I must be in my father’s house.”

Perhaps like Mary and Joe you won’t understand everything. But now, just like then, Jesus turns up in the temple. It’s what he promises to do. It is here that Jesus speaks with authority. It is in the place that Jesus’ Word is the final one. 

Soon we will have communion. We will ingest what is obviously bread and wine. But Jesus says it is his body and blood, given for us. And his word is the final one. That settles it in here. 

And there’s another Word for today; you don’t have to search for God. That’s the promise off Christmas Eve; God will do the searching. You who were lost, have been found. 

In Jesus’ birth, God has been revealed. We no longer have to search. God comes to us. And even more, God promises where the Son of God will turn up. Here. 

God has that promise proclaimed even.

God has found you. Come to him.