You need not be a parent to sense the horror of a losing a child.
Whenever something precious is lost – as with Mary and Joseph and their 12-year-old son in this morning’s Scripture lesson, the anguish of the moment is soul-crushing torture; the guilty questions that follow weigh heavy upon the human spirit like the proverbial millstone –
Where did he sleep? What did he eat? Did he brush his teeth?
What was I thinking? Why wasn’t I paying closer attention? What did I do wrong?
Didn’t anyone think to ask this spindly, unaccompanied, preteen boy where his parents were?
So, no, you shouldn’t struggle to find yourself among these ancient words of modern truth: Losing someone – or something – that you hold close to your heart – pierces the whole of your mind and body. And that searing pain lasts longer than a moment. Joseph and Mary search three days for Jesus. Three days that likely feel like a lifetime of not knowing where to find Jesus. For what surely seems like an eternity, all they experience is the grief of loss and the guilt of responsibility: The Holy Child of Bethlehem is nowhere to be found.
Yet they should have known where to find him. That’s my sense of this lone biblical story from Jesus’s growing years: Mary and Joseph – you and I – darn well should know where to find Jesus.
Maybe that takeaway arises from my stage of life. Or, as another wonders, maybe current events are exposing how some of us seem to have lost the gist of what it means to be a Christian. Or maybe – simply and frankly – it’s because the anxiety meter of God’s presence leans far and hard into the red zone of emotional breakdown and spiritual failure.
Listen to the Word that God has spoken – even if you don’t understand, even if you’re not in a place of understanding.
Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was 12 years old, they went up as usual for the festival.
When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for 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. When his parents saw him they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them.
Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor. (Luke 2:41-52)
Also from Pastor Grant on Luke 2:41-52: “Treasuring and Pondering“
This homely tale of a missing child begins with everyone doing the right things.
Joseph and Mary – doing what they ought – join the community of faith in returning to Jerusalem to celebrate and remember God’s freeing of their ancestors from Egyptian slavery. The religious teachers – in the temple, doing what they do – are discussing and debating deep matters of faith and belief. And Jesus – doing what boys his age do when they demonstrate exceptional spiritual wisdom and engagement – accepts an invitation to become a protégé of mentoring rabbis.
So naturally Mary and Joseph are astonished – while so also still reeling from the anguish of fearing the worst about their boy’s well-being. How could Jesus have been in the temple all this time? When confronted about putting his parents through such trial and tribulation, Jesus replies in amazement that mom and dad didn’t think to look for him where he was most likely to be found. In other words, as I suggested earlier, Mary and Joseph ought to have known where to find Jesus.
Joseph and Mary remain dazed and confused, and you can’t really fault them. Trying to wrap your brain around truth and reality is nearly impossible when emotions are running high in flood stage. Just listen to a new mother tell of waking up at night in a cold sweat, somehow convinced that her newborn is trapped under the blankets of mom’s bed, even though her precious little is sleeping in her crib in the next room. Mom’s first priority is searching her bed; mom’s comprehension of the truth comes later.
Of course, not understanding something has nothing to do with its truth. You might not understand that we already know where to find Jesus, and you might be too anxious to tell yourself that. But truth is truth nonetheless. And when you find Jesus – when you find peace that surpasses all understanding, you ponder in your heart of hearts what is and always has been true: You really do know where to find him.
Where? No longer in just a temple or church! Each of us is a living temple, cleansed by the Cross of Jesus, where Christ reigns in our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit, preparing us for the anxious moments and fear-filled times that lie ahead. “Take time to be still in My Presence so that I can strengthen you,” author Sarah Young writes in the first-person voice of Jesus. “The busier you become, the more you need this time apart from me.”
Indeed, too many of us regard time spent with Jesus as a luxury that we cannot afford. Thus we too often rely solely on our own wits, moving and working with reckless abandon until the well runs dry, and we cry out to Jesus for help – or simply turn away in exhaustion and bitterness.
How much better to stay close on the hip of Jesus: Banking on his power and strength, trusting his wisdom and example in every situation. “If you live in this way,” Ms. Young writes, “you will do less but accomplish far more. Your unhurried pace of living will stand out in this rush-crazed age.” Some will deem you lazy; others a freeloading burden. You might not land that big promotion, or earn a spot on the dean’s list, or be named to the all-conference team. But your peacefulness will be a blessing to others. Through Ms. Young, the Lord concludes: “Walk in the Light with Me, and you will reflect Me to the watching world.”
Late on a Saturday night, almost exactly a year ago, I sat on a folding chair in a quiet room at Northgate Care Center.
Seated with me, a wife mourning the loss of her husband, whose spirit having just been freed from his body, lay slightly reclined but peacefully and mercifully still on the nearby bed.
Though the small gap of the room’s ajar door, we sensed a gentle flutter of movement out in the late-night hallway: First flickering down the hall, then back again with equal stealth. “Oh, I know who …,” said my grieving friend, her voice trailing off. “Let’s invite her in.”
I got the sense that Mary Ann liked her nocturnal patrols of Northgate hallways – the nurses, well, bless their hearts, maybe not so much fans of Mary Ann’s prowling around.
With gingerly step, Mary Ann entered the softly lit room. With somber face, she gazed upon the bed and called it: “He died.” And then she turned to my grieving friend and shared the deepest of compassionate hugs – lasting just so long as to make the tender moment a bit uncomfortable.
Last week, we lost Mary Ann to the tender arms of heaven, and perhaps our greatest loss is her faithful and compassionate witness to the Gospel: “Walk in the Light with Me, and you will reflect Me to the watching world.”
Rest in peace, Mary Ann. And let there be peace on earth. Let it begin with you and me. In attitude and behavior before the eyes of the watching world, let the surpassing peace of our words and actions mercifully answer the broken and fearful world’s desperate question: Where is Jesus?
Where is Jesus? Seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty, as the Church has declared for centuries. But so also Jesus in you and me by the baptismal power of the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, February 2, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Chelsey Harmon and Sarah Young inform the message.