Introduction
The other day Debbie asked what I was going to preach on
today. I said the Lectionary suggested this story of the boy Jesus at the Temple. “It’s a pity we
don’t know more about his childhood,” she said. This account, after all, is the
only one in the Gospels. Other apocryphal Gospels contain stories of his
childhood but they are fanciful in tone and even display Jesus using miraculous
powers vindictively.
“There’s nothing very normal about Jesus the twelve-year-old
boy here, is there?” she said. “His debate with the religious leaders isn’t
exactly typical.”
“Well, it does say he went home obedient to his parents,” I
countered.
“Exactly,” she said. “That’s not normal for a twelve-year-old!”
This is an ‘in-between’ story – in between the birth stories
and Jesus’ adult ministry. It is an in-between story for an in-between Sunday.
We’re all carolled out, even though in the church calendar Christmas only
starts on Christmas Day. But secular pressures have changed us. We are in the
‘twelve days of Christmas’ until Epiphany on 6th January. But in our
minds we are between Christmas and New Year. Today is New Year’s Eve. We are
probably thinking of how we shall see in the New Year tonight. We may be
thinking that the next big spiritual event for us as Methodists is the Covenant
Service next Sunday. We are ‘in-between’.
But there are other ways in which we live ‘in-between
lives’. We have gifts and talents but may feel we are not in the place where
they can be best utilised. We have hopes and dreams but to date they are
unfulfilled. We may even have a sense of destiny or calling but it has not come
to fruition. Something we long for has not happened yet. These ‘in-between’
states are very frustrating places in which to live.
And Jesus is living an ‘in-between life’ at the age of
twelve. We see glimpses of his destiny with that wonderful reply to his parents
in verse 50,
‘Why were you searching for me? Did you
not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’
But although we do not know how much he understood at this
age who he was and what his calling was (will we ever?), we do know it would be
something like another twenty years before he would go public. Might we gain
some clues from this story about how to live during the long and often
frustrating ‘in-between times’? You won’t be surprised to hear I think we can.
1. Development
When I read this familiar story this week, one part hit me
in a new way. It’s the description of what Jesus was doing in the Temple when his
worry-sick parents found 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.
(verses 46-47)
I’ve always read those words just as an account of a
youngster engaged in debate with his elders, but admittedly a bright young man
whose ‘understanding and answers’ are remarkable – and perhaps from that there
has been another hint about what lurks beneath the surface with Jesus. Up until
now it has been another of those hints about who he will turn out to be.
I still believe it is. But I saw it a new way this week.
What does Jesus do here? He listens, he asks questions and he gives answers.
What hit me was this: I’m reading here is like a microcosm of his later
ministry. Listening, asking questions and giving answers. Doesn’t that sound
like the teaching ministry of Jesus? He listened, and not just at surface
level. He asked questions, not just to hear people’s answers but to prod them
towards spiritual truth. And he gave answers – often surprising, sometimes
disturbing. So I now see here the early development of Jesus’ later gifts. He
grabs the chance with both hands.
And I see the need to do the same today. We have young
Christians who show signs of being greatly gifted. We need to give them a
chance to develop. We need to take some risks with them. They need those early
opportunities to use their talents, getting their hands dirty in Christian
service.
To do this meets with resistance in some church circles. “Don’t
let them do it, they’re so arrogant.” Maybe – I’ve seen the car sticker that
says, ‘Hire a teenager while he still thinks he knows everything.’ “But they
are rough and unsophisticated and will make mistakes.” Perhaps – but didn’t we
make mistakes once? Don’t we still? The answer isn’t to clamp down on them but
to mentor them. Let them dip their toes in the water and put an experienced
Christian alongside them who is not there just as a safety net to prevent a
mess but as one who gently encourages their skills and maturity.
One of my greatest privileges in seeing this put into
practice was during my first circuit appointment. As I have mentioned before, I
became involved in a youth ministry that ran youth worship events in the town.
We began in churches, and then used a vacant shop in town. When we lost that we
took over a church hall, and when we got too big for that we hired the local
night club. We developed our own worship band, and the tongue-in-cheek slogan
for the event was, ‘If it’s too loud you’re too old’.
The band began with competent adult musicians. But the goal
from the beginning was to phase in younger singers and musicians, putting them
alongside the experienced adults but eventually letting them take over. Others
we got to do other things. We trained some in how to pray with people, for
example. I’m not in touch with many of them now, but I do know that one is on
the five-person leadership team of a large independent church in Chichester,
and another is married to an Anglican vicar, supporting his ministry in Cheltenham. They got some early experience with us in
Hertford. We believed in a principle of development. As a church we need to
identify with those who have embryonic gifts and start developing them. It is not
only about spiritual investment for the future, it is about being church in the
here and now. And because of that it is a fatal mistake to ignore or belittle
those with nascent gifts.
2. Obedience
We see these early signs in Jesus’ life of his future
ministry, but what does he do in the meantime? After they fail to understand
his explanation about needing to be in his Father’s house, Luke says,
Then he went down with them and came to
Nazareth, and
was obedient to them.
(verse 51a)
Jesus gets on with life. He does not sit around frustrated,
like a petulant teenager, saying, ‘Nazareth
is not where I am meant to be. I am not supposed to be in obscurity; my destiny
is to teach thousands of people and perform great miracles.’ He does not allow
thinking like this to sour his spirit. He gets on with obedience to his
parents. Like Debbie said, not your average twelve-year-old!
And the point is this: we may be in an in-between time.
Destiny may not yet be fulfilled. Our calling may not yet be transparent to one
and all. But the place of obscurity is God’s appointed location for us right
now. And in that place he is forming us for our future. It is not that our
current insignificant address is a stepping-stone to something greater; it is
valid in its own right. For here God develops in us the basic disciplines that
will sustain us when he brings about the hopes and dreams he gave us some time
before.
This can be a long period of anonymity. Joseph in the Old
Testament languishes in an Egyptian prison on false charges. The apostle Paul
talks about having spent fourteen years in Arabia
between his conversion and his public ministry. For Jesus it was nearer twenty
years. But during the anonymity the call is to be faithful in the circumstances
where God has placed us. It’s no good throwing a tantrum or grabbing the ball
back so that no-one else can play: those who throw tantrums are not going to be
suitable characters for future destiny.
The people upon whom God can rely are the faithful, obedient ones.
And is it any coincidence that the way Luke ends this
account is with these words?
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in
years, and in divine and human favour.
(verse 52)
Jesus, serving in faithful obedience in Nazareth, increases in wisdom and favour. I
cannot help thinking that the increase in wisdom and favour is because he is
committed to faithful obedience.
Some experienced Christians in Hertford looked on the youth
worship project I talked about earlier and dismissed it as froth. Maybe it was
for a few people. But I saw some impressive young Christians in that work. I
think of those who took on part-time jobs that were far from the routine: not
the usual supermarket work, but instead taking menial jobs in care homes,
cleaning up elderly incontinent residents. These were young people who knew
about faithful obedience in obscurity. These, I am sure, were teenage
Christians whom God was preparing for something but who were content to serve
humbly in the meantime.
3. Reflection
Have you noticed just how Mary changes in this story? In
verse 48 she is the typical anxious parent:
‘Child, why have you treated us like
this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’
It’s the same attitude writ large that we have when we are
going around the shops with our much younger children. ‘Don’t go out of our
sight, Rebekah!’ Or Friday in Sainsbury’s, as Debbie and I alternated between
who held the basket and who either held onto Mark’s hood or carried him against
his vigorous protests.
No, Mary is just what you would expect of a caring parent at
this point. Perhaps she hasn’t slept. Where is her firstborn son? What is he
doing? Who is he with? Is he safe?
But this is not the Mary of the story’s conclusion:
His mother treasured all these things
in her heart.
(verse 51b)
She has come a long way from frantic worry to treasuring
these things in her heart. This is more than the way we look back on situations
that frightened us at the time and enjoy retrospective laughter. Mary treasures these things in her heart. I
think this is more than the way in which parents collect a photo album of happy
memories. Might I suggest that she has changed from one acting from purely
human, natural instincts and concerns to one who has reflected on these events prayerfully?
Put it like this: Mary has been through panic stations and
then the joy of finding Jesus safe and well. But it is not enough for her to
take a sigh of relief. She is attentive to God. She wants to know where he is
and what he has been doing in this situation. Then she can treasure God’s
bigger picture of truth, which illuminates much more about her Son. Perhaps his
words, ‘Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’, now take on a
fresh and deeper meaning for her.
And prayerful reflection is vital in an in-between time. It
is vital at all times, actually. But in an in-between time the one whose gifts
and calling are not yet being fulfilled needs to reflect prayerfully before God
about what is happening and where he is. Similarly the elders, the spiritual
parents, who may be sceptical about these young upstarts, also need to reflect
in the presence of God. What is God saying? What is God trying to teach us?
Where is he at work in surprising places that we never would have guessed? What
is there here to challenge us? What is God doing here that leads us to
unexpected praise?
So how do we conduct such prayerful reflection? For me, it
helps if you can have a quiet space. Begin praying by bringing your questions
and puzzles to God. Have the Bible at your side to meditate upon. Listen for
the still, small voice of the Almighty responding to you. Test what you think
he is saying against the plumb-line of those Scriptures. Get ready for possible
surprises. So often God is doing a new thing. Supremely he did that in the gift
of Jesus. What if he were doing something new in an in-between time but we had
not tuned into him?
Big Circumstance 
What Do You Think?