Some of you grew up in small towns, others in larger towns, maybe even cities.  There was a time when small towns would fill up on a Saturday night—lots of people, restaurants busy, shops busy, movie theater busy: energy in the air.  Larger cities still offer that atmosphere of activity.  You can do, see, experience things there that you just can’t elsewhere.  That yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover gave Jesus, his family, and his fellow townspeople who traveled with them, the chance to feel the currents of life in the city.

Take a moment and remember back to when you were twelve—a couple of you may have to remember forward to do that.  You’ve come from your little town to the big city.  What would you do, there?  Mainly look.  Big buildings, tall buildings, so many buildings—some very ordinary, others extraordinary.  So many sounds to hear, busy streets, so many languages, concentrated life, music.  Then the food: so many good aromas.  Seeing, hearing, eating—for a twelve year old coming from a small town (more like a village, really), the big city would be a place of unlimited opportunities, unlimited adventures.  A little scary, sure, but also exciting.

We mustn’t be flabbergasted, then, when we learn that Mary and Joseph, on their way back to Nazareth, make the horrifying discovery that Jesus wasn’t with the group (2:44)—they had forgotten him in Jerusalem, or he had gotten separated and lost there, or he had decided to run off, there.  The journey down had been a long one: about thirty hours’ worth of walking a distance about the same as from Conroe down to West Columbia.  That’s probably four days’ walking, serious walking.  The group returning to Nazareth is a day out when Mary and Joseph verify what they fear—“Have you seen Jesus?”  “No.”  “Is he with you?”  “No, he isn’t.”  I’m glad to be able to say that I’ve never lost track of my children—except once or twice.  I can say, and maybe you know all too well yourself, that feeling in the pit of the stomach is not pleasant.

The parents return to Jerusalem: a full day’s journey back—so two days pass.  They reach the gates of Jerusalem and begin their anxious search.  Where would you begin to search for your lost child in Houston?  In a city clogged with as many as a million people during the Passover, how would you begin looking?  How would you keep the anxiety from overwhelming you?  I can imagine Mary, becoming more frantic by the hour, Joseph, also frantic, trying not to show it, trying to keep his composure, finding it harder and harder to think clearly.  Strange how, when we set out to find the most important things, it seems to become more and more difficult to think clearly, to see clearly.

How was Jesus using that time?  Was he frantically searching for his parents?  Or was he having the time of his life: a twelve-year-old boy from a little village, drinking in all the big city had to offer—so much more, so different, from all he had known?  Where did he get food?  Where did he sleep?

Scripture doesn’t help us, here.  None of that is really the point.  Scripture tells us the point.  On the third day of their anxious, frantic search for their missing son, Joseph and Mary go to the Temple.  There they find him (2:46).  It seems he had been at the Temple the whole time.  Not sightseeing.  Not standing in gape-mouthed wonder at the magnificent buildings.  Talking.  Jesus was talking with the priests and the scribes—the teachers of the Law, God’s Instruction.  Jesus is an unusual twelve year old.

How did it finally occur to Joseph and Mary to seek Jesus at the Temple?  Most likely, the Spirit guided them, their thinking, their feeling: what were Jesus’ interests?  What did he like to do?  What did he most like about their yearly trip to Jerusalem at the Passover?  What was he always talking about and eager to do again, next year?  As they thought along such lines, spoke with each other, their search rapidly narrowed, for they realized that what always seemed most to interest and attract Jesus was the Temple, the house of God.

There are many things to see and do in Houston.  I think it would be hard to be bored there, even if you had almost no money.  If you and I were to list the places our children would like to go, the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart would not be very high on the list.  It’s a beautiful and impressive building, there on the edge of downtown, but not the first place I would think of going, and not the first place I would think to look for my missing child.

But Jesus isn’t missing, really.  Jesus wasn’t lost.  He wasn’t anxiously searching.  We’re searching, in this life.  Mary and Joseph are searching.  Not Jesus.  He was listening, and he was asking questions (2:46).  Was he there to learn or to teach?  We listen to learn, and we listen to teach.  We ask questions to learn, and we ask questions to teach.  Those who were listening to Jesus, this twelve-year-old boy(!) from . . .where was it, again?—they “were amazed at his intelligent answers” (2:47).  Who was he?  Who had taught him?  Where had he gone to school?

I wonder what Jesus was asking those teachers of God’s instruction?  I wonder what he was especially interested in finding out.  My hunch, only a hunch, is that Jesus was curious about the key: the key to interpreting Scripture.  Was it justice?  Was it righteousness?  Was it obedience?  Was it faith?  What was it that made all of Scripture—the lovely and the unlovely, the blessings and the condemnations—come together into a unified whole?  What would these teachers say?  What answer would they give?

Perhaps Jesus was also curious how well these teachers knew Scripture.  How well do we know our Bibles?  Do we pursue the teaching of God or of men?  Do you spend much time with Scripture, during the week, or is here in church from my mouth about all the Bible you get?  Do you read with questions and prayer?  Do you find that you understand a bit more, or do you feel as if the more you read the less you understand?

These priests and scribes, experts in Scripture, in God’s Law, were the ones to whom the people looked to help them understand and live according to God’s teaching.  Much as I and my fellow pastors today.  What is the essence of our message?  Do we teach inventions?  Innovations?  What were those teachers teaching?  What was their message?  What did the people learn from them?  As we find out soon enough, the teachers of the Law, on the whole, were not very reliable guides; it seems that, for them, the key to interpreting Scripture was obedience.  The essence of their teaching was, “We know God’s will, and you don’t.  We know what’s best for you.  Do as we say.”

Joseph and Mary were anxiously searching for their son.  Life can be a search, at times an anxious search, for meaning, for truth, for peace, for hope.  Different teachers claim to offer these things.  People try one way and another.  I have known Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists—some of these within my own family.  What is at the core of those ways?  Obedience without security, renunciation without desire, intellectual and spiritual laziness, and anger.  I’ve never yet met a happy atheist.  

          When Joseph and Mary finally collect themselves sufficiently to put their minds and hearts together, they intuitively go to the Temple, to seek Jesus in the house of God.  Mary wonders to Jesus how he could treat them this way; she tells him how worried he had made her and his father (2:48).  Jesus, perhaps with some surprise but without any disrespect, asks them why they didn’t realize that he would be here (2:49).  Certainly, he would be in his Father’s house.  Beloved, I think he is, too.  I think he is here, in this house of God.  He is listening.  He is asking questions.  He is here for those seeking him.  Here is where anxiety comes to an end.   Here is where the search for meaning, truth, goodness, hope, for reality leads.  If you want to find Jesus, you don’t need to roam this life, worried.  He isn’t hard to find.

Emotionally drained, mentally weary, neither Mary nor Joseph get what Jesus is saying.  They are relieved: that’s all they can feel and think, in the moment.  Yes, feel relieved, that you have found Jesus!  It’s good to have that feeling.  Only think, too.  Mary and Joseph are thinking they now can go back home, back to routine.  No, they didn’t understand what Jesus had said to them (2:50), but I suppose that Jesus, by that age, was quickly becoming accustomed to this, to people not comprehending what he was telling them.  Did he wonder at their lack of comprehension?  Did it frustrate him?  Did it cultivate in him a resolve to be patient, to keep trying?

We’re told that he went back with them and was obedient to them (2:51).  I take that to mean that Jesus willingly, even meekly, certainly mildly, submitted to the authority of Joseph and Mary.  Think about that for a moment: the Word Incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, God-With-Us, submitting to the authority of these two people, his own creatures.  Remarkable!  God takes His Word seriously: honor your father and mother; and so Jesus does.

And Mary, perceptive and thoughtful more than many, took note of all that happened, and “treasured all these things in her heart” (2:51).  How full, Mary’s heart!  May God fill your heart, with the promises, power, and presence of Jesus Christ.  He isn’t far.  He isn’t hard to find.

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are God’s judgments and how inscrutable God’s ways!  For from God and through God and to God are all things.  To God be glory forever!