“Losing Jesus”

Dec 29

December 29, 2024

Luke 2:41-52

Heart of the Rockies Christian Church

David Shirey

Luke has given us one more gift to open before we call Christmas 2024 a wrap. What I just read is a gift – a one-of-a-kind passage. These are the only verses about Jesus’ growing up years. Of Jesus’ life from age two to age thirty we know nothing except for this passage. So what does it tell us?

I think it tells how Jesus’ faith was formed. Jesus was raised by his parents in the habit of churchgoing. “When Jesus was twelve years old,” Luke tells us, his parents took him to Jerusalem to the Temple for the festival of Passover “as usual.” (Luke 2:41-42). Were you raised with parents or guardians who took you to church “as usual” or not? When I was growing up, what was usual for me was having to choose whether to go to church with my mother or staying at home and working around the house with my dad. In my mind, going to church was the lesser of two evils. I went to church with Mom as did my sister and churchgoing became a lifelong habit for both of us. Our brother stayed home with Dad which became his lifelong habit. It was Jesus’ habit to be taken to the Temple with his parents.

I mention this because there’s an age-old debate that is often reduced to the question: Is it nature or nurture? That is, are we the way we are because it’s our nature – we were born that way. Or are we the way we are because of nurture—because of the way we were raised.

It can certainly be argued Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and humanity” because it was his nature. I can hear someone say: How could he not have become a person of faith? He was the Son of God! Divinity was in his DNA. He was probably born with the Bible memorized. Praying, worshipping, showing compassion, giving generously: all came naturally to Jesus. His nature was Divine.

But lest we focus solely on Jesus’ divinity, the historic creeds of the Christian faith declare that Jesus was “fully human and fully divine.” It’s inaccurate to think of Jesus’ divinity to the exclusion of his humanity. As if the babe in the manger never fussed, never had a dirty diaper, slept “in heavenly peace” every night so his parents never had to get up for a 3 a.m feeding. He was the Son of God to be sure – fully divine – but also the son of Mary and Joseph. Fully human. And a case can be made thanks to this story for the importance of nurture in molding Jesus. He became the man of faith he was because he was raised by his parents going to the Temple.

If it was Jesus’ nature to be the Son of God, it was also his parents’ nurture that formed him to be a son of God.

The fact of the matter is that our habits mold us into the people we become. It’s been said, “Sow a thought and you reap an act; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” Bottom line: Be careful in choosing your habits because over time they’ll carve out your character and your destiny. So, if you make it a habit as Mary and Joseph did with Jesus to practice “the habits of holiness” you’ll reap a character and destiny of “growing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and human beings.”

Which is why it’s a good thing at the cusp of a new year to examine the habits of our lives – especially the habits that cultivate spiritual growth – to see how well formed they are in us. Whether it’s the habit of worship or Bible study or generosity or prayer or serving, we do well to make a New Year’s resolution to make a new habit or deepen an existing habit. Psychologists tell us it takes at least 21 days of doing something before it stands a chance of becoming a habit and after that we have to fight through [the behaviors and attitudes] that threaten to disrupt them before they become ingrained in us[1].

But now having said how important habits of holiness are to forming us as people of faith, I want to suggest that for some of us to grow deeper in our faith we may need to “lose Jesus” for a while. Say what, preacher? Lose Jesus! Hold your horses. Hear me out. Several years ago, one of my colleagues noted how Mary and Joseph lost their son for three days, searched high and low for him, and grew increasingly anxious. Parental panic set in. We’ve lost our son. But “after three days” they found him. Michael said, “Isn’t it true that there may be periods of ‘losing Jesus’ during some people’s journeys of faith? That sometimes we have to go through a season of doubt, of spiritual dryness, of drifting from the Temple, the church, and orthodox theology.” I mention this because I’ve had anguished and anxious Marys and Josephs in my office wringing their hands over a child they raised in the Temple but who in their eyes currently appears to be lost: She’s lost Jesus! He’s lost his faith. To which all I can say is hand-me-down clothes never fit right and neither does a hand-me-down faith. We can wear the faith of those who raised us, but if we never tailor those beliefs and practices to our size – make their faith ours – it’ll either be too baggy or too tight or downright unwearable. Maybe sometimes growth in faith requires a season of losing it … or seeming to, anyway.

I remember years ago, 40+ to be precise, hearing the late French philosopher Paul Ricœur give a lecture in Vanderbilt Divinity School’s Benton Chapel. Part of his lecture addressed coming to what he called “a second naiveté.” You know that word naïve – to innocently believe something, buy it hook, line, and sinker. Take everything at face value. Literally. Which is a sweet thing for children (and age-appropriate), but there are ways of believing that need to be left behind in childhood if one is going to become a mature adult. It was the Apostle Paul who said, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” Paul Ricœur was saying that as we grow into adulthood, there comes a time for stepping back and examining things. Which is hard work because you have to let go of one way of looking at things in order to get to another way of understanding them. It’s not unlike the trapeze artist having to let go of one swing and being momentarily suspended in thin air while reaching out for another. There’s a part of us that doesn’t want to let go. But it’s so worth it because that new level of belief and understanding is so much richer and deeper than the one held as a child. Ricœur called that new rung of belief the “second naiveté.” It’s no longer a hand-me-down faith. It’s a wardrobe of beliefs and practices that fit. Which is to say “losing Jesus” for a season can lead to finding him in a more powerful way for the long haul.

I remember a woman who left a friend’s church. She joined other organizations that had solid values and worthy aims. Several years passed. Then, one Sunday she showed up in worship. She came back the following Sunday and the Sundays after that and never left again. “What brought you back?” asked the pastor. She said, “I missed Jesus.”

Speaking of “losing Jesus,” where was he found? Mary and Joseph found him in the Temple. He said, “Didn’t you know I would be in my Father’s House?” I can only speak for myself, but in the seasons of my life when I’ve been searching, seeking, wrestling with my faith (which frankly, is a lot of the time), I’ve found Jesus in the Temple – in church among God’s people.

I’ve found him in the great hymns and songs of the faith, certain verses and melodies of which are woven into the very fabric of my marrow.
I’ve found him in the Holy Scriptures, sometimes so difficult to interpret, ah but the effort of studying them is so endlessly exhilarating.
I’ve found him in the encouragement to open-handed generosity and open-minded inquiry and open-hearted compassion that are so refreshingly countercultural in this narrow, grasping, xenophobic world. Above all, I’ve found Jesus in certain people at church who are as messed up as the general public, but who at the same time exude the love of God in Jesus Christ. The power of the Holy Spirit is palpable in them. Being with them, I become a believer again. I find Jesus … I find Jesus in many of you.

When I was a child and lost something, my mother used to say, “Go where you last had it. You may find it there.” As we enter a new year, please know that if circumstances arise in 2025 that jostle your faith, addle your belief, make you feel you’re losing Jesus, come back to the place where you were last with him – here at Heart of the Rockies. We’ll be open every Sunday at 10 am “as usual” to nurture a living faith so that we, like the Christ child, may “grow in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and others.”

Let all God’s children say, AMEN.