Sunday Service 2nd February

The Challenge of the lost

2/2/25

Call to worship

Hymn 619 & 620: Spirit of the living God

Time for all

Hymn 351: Jesus hands were kind hands

Reading: Luke 2: 41-52 Liz

Prayer

Hymn 687: Lord of our growing years

Sermon

Prayer

Hymn 97: O God, you search me and you know me

Benediction

Welcome to our meditation for 2nd February.

There is very little in th Bible about Jesus’ childhood. Only two of the Gospels say anything about his birth, and then this is this one incident about him being lost, or maybe not lost.

And we will look at this after Liz leads us in our reading and prayer for today.

Sermon

Here’s a question that I think we mistakenly believe is very easy to answer?

Who was lost?

Because all of us here are adults, and we think we understand the passage, we look at it from adult eyes.

I think at some point any parent goes through the gut wrenching moment when they realise that their child is not where they are meant to be, they are lost.

And the panic they go through during those moments when they believe their child is vulnerable cannot be described.

I have told the story before of one Christmas we are doing some last minute present shopping and I put Iona and Cairy together at a toy stall and told them not to move while Mummy and I went a wee bit away. Every moment I was glancing back at them making sure the two of them were playing.

It was only when I went to collect them that I realised that one of the two children wasn’t mine.

It seems another child had come over to play with them and Cairy had taken the huff that Iona was playing with her and had wandered off to complain to us that Iona wasn’t playing with her.

There was but a second of fear when our hearts stopped, and then the tannoy system blared out, ‘Would the parents of Cairy come to the till because she says THEY have got lost.’

Fear was instantly replaced with embarrassment as her parents argued who was going to be the parent that did the walk of shame to collect her and admit they had not been vigilant enough.

Because we look at this passage from an adult perspective we believe that Jesus is lost.

What has happened is that they have left to go back to Nazareth after the pilgrimage.

Joseph has thought that as Jesus is still a child that he wanted to be with his mum.

Mary, walking with the women, believes that as Jesus is on the cusp of adulthood that he wants to be with the men and is with his dad.

It is only after they meet up at the end of the day that they realise that he wasn’t with either of them.

So they rush back to Jerusalem.

A day travelling to the point where they realise that Jesus wasn’t with them,

a day travelling back, and a day searching.

Then they find him.

I am sure they have a mixture of relief and anger filling their heart.

‘My son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been terribly worried trying to find you.’

Which takes me back to my first question...who was lost?

Because the reply Jesus gives us implies that he didn’t think he was lost as all.

Jesus knew exactly where he was, knew exactly what he was doing, and why he was doing it.

So what is going on here?

Well there are at least a couple of things going on.

There is the theological message that Luke wants to give us.

Luke wants to remind us all that Jesus grew up in and was part of the Jewish tradition.

Jesus may have argued with the Jewish leaders throughout his ministry but he didn’t come to create a new religion, he came to reform the religion God had created for his people.

This was important for the Gospel writers, especially when the faith was spreading towards the gentile converts and seemed to be breaking away from the traditional Judaism.

The story of God and his relationship with humanity starts with a wandering traveller called Abraham and his descendants.

God never deserts those descendants but his message of relationship was meant to be spread through them to the world.

Jesus is set apart to remind the people of their true commitment to God to spread that message to others.

And this passage also sets Jesus apart as different, challenging the old ways.

Just as Jesus is not bound by his parent’s expectations of him, so he will not be bound by the religious leader’s expectations of him.

Jesus will question them, challenge them, in the hope that they will change.

That’s the theological message.

But I think that there is a practical message for us here as well.

I remember an old saying that was going the rounds when I was young, and was on many an inspirational Christian poster...’If God seems far from you... who moved?’

Let’s look at the passage again.

We presume that Jesus is lost and that his parents go looking for him.

But Jesus has challenged that idea because he never saw himself as lost.

He knew exactly where he was, and why he was there, and what he was doing.

So if Jesus isn’t lost, who is lost?

And I think there is a message here for us, and a guidance that we need to hear.

I think it is very easy for us to spiritually drift.

We don’t intend to wander from God; we just meander along doing what we have always done.

And maybe in the past that has been fine, but our situation has changed, and we may not even be aware that our situation has changed.

But then suddenly something has happened and we are out our depth.

With Mary and Joseph their situation had changed without them knowing it.

For years they went through the same old pattern.

They would go on the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

And every year would be the same, traditional, safe pattern.

There was comfort in that pattern, there was safety in that pattern, there was the feeling that God was within the order of that pattern.

It was like a spiritual retreat they went on every year and it recharged their spiritual batteries, it reminded them of their priorities, it reset their priorities.

Mary would have Jesus with her and the women while Joseph walked ahead with the men.

Mary could talk to the women about women things and Joseph could have some quality time with the men and talk about man things.

At night they could catch up and share their insights.

Then there was the time in Jerusalem and the festival and all the new learning’s they gained from those clever professional priests,

not like the local rabbi, who was a good soul, but didn’t have the glamour or spiritual insights of those Temple priests.

And then there was the journey home, where they could share their insights with other men and women, hear things that others had learnt,

and again,

Mary would have Jesus at the front of the crowd, and Joseph would be with the men at the back.

Years and years of doing the same thing

There was comfort in the rhythm of it.

It was like a dance with God; and they knew their moves, and God knew his.

But something had changed.

Jesus had grown.

And it happens.

My granddaughter Leah just started nursery.

My daughter was horrified on the first day.

This was her little girl, she was going to be struggling with this, there would be tears, and she would comfort her.

And Leah didn’t care too hoots.

She didn’t want to hold hands with her mum because she is THREE. And big girls like her are independent.

So with a quick, ‘Bye Mum,’ where she didn’t even turn round to look her mum in the eye, her coat was off and she was in the nursery.

Just to rub salt into the wounds when they got back home Leah was waxing lyrical about how wonderful the nursery staff where,

and Cairy was absolutely sure that when Leah was in nursery she didn’t wax lyrical about how wonderful her parents were.

Things had changed.

Jesus had grown.

He wasn’t a child any more, but he wasn’t a man.

And that caught them by surprise.

They were lost and they didn’t know it.

They were about to hit a crisis and they were completely oblivious of it.

So what do we do when that happens to us?

What do we do when crisis suddenly hits because our life has changed and we were unaware of it.

When we have drifted and we suddenly become aware that we are alone.

God, Jesus, is not beside us as we thought he was.

What do we do?

Well it seems that a lot of the time we just give up.

A lot of research has gone into those that drifted away from church after COVID and when the churches legally weren’t allowed to meet.

So many people felt abandoned, lost, and they just gave up.

They felt that church was hard work and not for them.

Maybe even spirituality was not for them.

Others have gone on a spiritual pilgrimage which may never conclude. They just wander looking for the perfect experience.

Others have just become lost in indifference.

In this passage we are given one solution.

Back track.

Go back to the last time you saw Jesus.

Was it in a church service, was it in a relationship you had with someone, was it in a specific scripture.

Go back to the last time you saw him and felt him and knew that he was there.

Once you go back to where he was...you can reacquaint yourself with him, and see where you go from there.

Find again the truth that God has a plan for you, for others, and try to walk that plan with Jesus.

Maybe the truth is that we sometimes saw Jesus as someone we could be in control of, like he was our child to do as we bid, answer our prayers, fix our life.

And we need to see that Jesus does his Father’s bidding, which is to bring us, and others, into a closer fellowship with them, in doing God’s work through us rather than for us.

I know some feel guilty that they drifted.

They want to pretend that nothing has changed, because they think that they can pretend that nothing has changed, then maybe nothing has changed.

But the truth is that any relationship that is based on pretence isn’t a real relationship.

And only a real relationship can help us in a real world.

Everyone drifts at some time.

When that happens God doesn’t want to punish us, he wants to heal us.

So once again.

When we are lost, and we will get lost at some time...we need to do what Mary and Joseph did.

We go back to when we last saw Jesus, we then acknowledge that things have changed, and we start again to build that real, honest, messy relationship with God.

Let us pray

Christ our saviour,

How often have we been like Mary and Joseph, crying out in panic, ‘Where are you Jesus?’

And like them we put the blame on you.

You’re not where you’re is supposed to be.

You’re meant to be here, with us, dealing with our problems, sorting our mistakes, fixing our life.

It is quite disconcerting when we hear your words, ‘Didn’t you know that I would be in my Father’s house?’

It feels like a judgment on us.

Why were we not doing the Fathers work?

Why were we distant from him?

Why had we wandered off to do what was important to us?

And why was that more important than what the Father wanted us to do?