16.06 | Found
Luke 2:41-3:20
‘And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them.’
Luke 2:48-50
There was a time when we’d lose our dog, around once a week.
Blue is a whippet, and whippets have a strong chase instinct. In the autumn of her second year, this chase instinct teamed up with dog adolescence, to create a compulsive squirrel hunter. Our local woods, in the autumn, are teeming with squirrels storing up nuts for the winter. Hence, on around a weekly basis, Blue would suddenly bolt into the undergrowth, chasing (always unsuccessfully) consecutive squirrels until she was completely lost.
We always eventually found her, and there was an annoying characteristic of when we did.
We were stressed and sweating—having jogged around for ten minutes, shouting her name, and asking dog walkers if they’d seen a whippet on the loose. But Blue was always absolutely fine. She’d trot up to us, clearly having had a fanastic time, and with a look on her face that said, ‘Where have you guys been?’ In her mind, it wasn’t her, but us who had got lost.
Today’s passage gives us the only story that we have in between Jesus’ birth and adulthood. And, in this story, His parents have lost Him.
You can imagine their panic. Two full days of searching and speculating. Two full days of retracing footsteps and asking strangers on the street if they’ve seen a twelve-year-old looking lost and afraid. Two full days of thinking We’ve lost the Messiah.
But when they find Him, He’s (possibly annoyingly) serene. He’s sitting down, discussing the Scriptures with the religious scribes in the temple. A picture of calm. His parents’ frenzied search and anxious imaginings is so different from His easy comfort with sitting in the House of the Father, waiting for them to catch up.
His question to them is revealing:
‘Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’
They don’t understand. Often when we read the Scriptures, we think ‘Neither do I!’
But I wonder if He meant something like this:
It wasn’t Jesus who was lost; it was His parents.
Jesus’ location should have been obvious to them, because He was in the very place where all humankind was always meant to dwell: in the peaceful presence of the Father. He has begun to do in this story what He spends the entirety of His life into all eternity doing: modelling and leading a broken humanity back from their places of lostness into the atmosphere of love for which they were made. As He sat there, in the courts of His Father, He was living out what He was leading humanity back into.
I resonate with Mary and Joseph’s anxiety—and not just due to some unprocessed whippet/squirrel trauma. I resonate, because anxiety is a part of my life that rears its ugly head far more often than I’d like it to. Because my inner world so often looks more like two frantic parents rushing around a busy city, than the visual of Jesus sitting in the utter peace and security of His Father’s presence.
But the story is for us. Because, when we’ve done our rushing and worrying, we find ourselves coming across Jesus, who sits completely unruffled by the things that worry us, unshaken by what we fear, and sitting calmly in the courts of the Father. And when we find Him, He realise not just that He is calm, but that He is inviting us to slow down, to let go, and to take a seat beside Him.
Because His Father is our Father too. And we are as welcome and secure in the Father’s presence as Jesus is. Whatever fears and anxieties and surprises and grief life may through at us, this place—with the Father—is the only place in all the cosmos where we move from being the lost, to being those who are completely, permanently, peacefully, and perfectly
Found.
Reflect:
What is causing me the rushing anxiety of Jesus’ parents right now?
Spent some time, asking the Spirit to help you in your imagination. Come and sit down with Jesus. What might He ask you? What might He say?
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
I kind of love that,
As a twelve year old,
You were already astonishing scribes
And perplexing your parents.
But I, Lord,
Often feel like I’m rushing around—
Afraid and anxious,
Frenetic and stressed.
Help me to return, today,
To you.
To sit with you in this temple;
To learn from your rhythms;
To hear both your questions and your answers,
That my soul may become like yours—
Sitting with calm amidst an anxious world of flurry and fluster,
In the resting, trusting, abiding peace,
Of one who dwells in all my moments
In the presence of the Father.
In Your Name,
Jesus my Lord,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
2 Kings 22:1-23:35 | Psalm 75