Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is filled with a lot of things and as I was prepping for this morning, I was thinking of the text and the text we’re looking at today, which we will go through and read, actually is a story about a family and it’s actually Jesus’ family. It made me think, though, a lot of times when we read scripture, it’s really hard because I would assume a lot of us are not Jewish in terms of heritage, so in order to truly understand what life felt like to be a Jew, it’s difficult, but upon reflecting on and researching and learning about the moment in which Mary and Joseph, which is Jesus’ parents, and Jesus and what they were doing, I started thinking about myself growing up and I would invite you to do the same and I was actually gonna pose a question. You can think about this among yourselves.

Do you have any family traditions? Those of you who are grandparents, great-grandparents, or parents, do you have any family traditions that you do with your children or grandchildren or do you remember stuff that you grew up doing that were embedded in your family and became a tradition or a custom, like a trip that you would do every year or a thing that you would do every other year or celebrate? And so for me, a lot of you who’ve known a bit of my stories, I didn’t grow up in a Christian household. I was born in Toronto, but my family’s Chinese and so my parents immigrated, then my grandparents immigrated. So naturally, there’s a lot of cultural things that happen and one of the things that I remember most growing up in my house is celebrating something called Chinese New Year.

And I know a lot of you probably know about it. Our lunar calendar year is actually a month behind the normal calendar. So basically, at about end of January or February of each year, it’s the Chinese New Year.

So traditionally and culturally, it’s like the most vibrant thing. Everything’s red and everyone’s partying in the Chinese way, not the loud way, but in the Chinese way, which means we have a lot of decorations and we eat a lot of food, but it’s not like the Chinese people don’t dance. So you have to go to your Hispanic friends and my Hispanic friends to do dancing.

But in Chinese New Year, it’s all about the family. And so even if you live far away, you would travel distances to spend time with the generations. And it is customary for the older generations to give these red pockets to bless your children or your grandchildren as a gift.

So as a kid, it was the best. It was the best because I’m like, oh yeah, it’s Chinese New Year. It’s time to get money, right? And so we would be like, oh, happy new year.

And you almost put your hand out and you’re expecting your grandparents or your parents to, and they do, because you have to do that. But as you grow up, you realize now you’re the one who has to give all the money. So I don’t look forward to Chinese New Year as much anymore, but trust me.

I’m like, oh, life is so expensive. Now I have to give you free money? Can you like earn it? And now that we got tunis, that makes things more expensive because it’s kind of like not consider it to put a tuni in the pockets. You got to give a fiver at the least.

So anyway, that being said, that’s a tradition I was thinking of. And I wanted to just start off with that today because our text begins with sort of a road trip, a road trip with Jesus. And if we all remember, the reality is Jesus was born through a divine impartation, but he was born as a human in the most unlikely way in a manger with parents who didn’t really choose each other, but God put them together.

And sometimes it’s hard to remember this mystery of Jesus’s divinity and his humanity at the same time. And so we kind of pick up the story today in Luke 2, verses 41 to 52. And this is when in Jewish tradition, they celebrate something and they celebrate it today.

My Jewish friends do it today. It’s called the Passover. And if you go back to the Old Testament, it’s a time of Moses where I’m not gonna go and talk too much about it, but just as a reference, it’s the time where the Egyptians were ruling and the Israelites were their slaves.

And God was going to help free them. And he chose Moses as one person to help them do it. And apart from the many things that God did to actually free the Israelites from Egyptian ruling captivity, he did something and gave mercy on the families that were of Jewish descent if they would mark their doors.

And basically the angel of death passed over those houses. And that’s actually the celebration of Passover is that for generations upon generations to this day, the Jewish people celebrate what God did in the first parts of scripture that we recollect. And this was, it had become already over generations, something that they say it’s a celebration of Passover.

It’s a great thing. God had mercy on us and he gave us a new life. And so people would travel days.

So it would be equivalent for us, I live in Beamsville. And so if you live in Niagara or in this region, it would be equivalent to us traveling to like the dreadful Toronto, right? On the 401 in the middle of like rush hour traffic, you know, for days. Except for them, it was them traveling from Nazareth, the small town to the central city of Jerusalem where the big stadium was, before there was a big temple, where the party and the celebrations were happening.

And this was Passover. So that’s what we all do. So we pick up in this text, I’m gonna focus a bit on the second half, but I’m gonna walk through the first bit because it just gives us a story of what was happening.

So I’m gonna begin Luke two, verse 41. Every year, Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover, when he was 12 years old. So Jesus was a tween at this point.

And in Jewish customs, around this time, he was already expected and supposedly would have memorized what is their Torah, which is the first five books of our scriptures, right? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. So, I mean, that’s a pretty big deal. But at around 12, he was going into adulthood and the expectation was he was supposed to know, right? And so he was about 12, and they went to this festival according to the custom.

And by the way, this is KJV, so when I read, it’s gonna be a little different, but just follow along. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled for a day.

Then they began to look for him among their relatives and friends. Okay, let’s pause here for a second. This family trip just turned into a family nightmare.

Who in their right mind would expect that to happen, right? You go as a family, and I think culturally it’s important to remember, like they traveled in herds of family, like aunts, uncles, neighbors, family friends. You’re talking about days upon days, depending on where you’re coming from, and you’re traveling on foot. So when you don’t see your kid, it wasn’t abnormal.

It was like, oh, okay, they’re just somewhere over there in the clump, because the expectation is all family are just kind of like watching each other’s kids. And so again, as I tell this, this is not a story of bad parenting, even though it could be deduced as that. But it was just like, assume that Jesus was there, but we are told that he was not, and they did not notice until a whole day later.

When they did not find him, verse 40, wait, where am I going? When they, 45, when they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. So again, picture this, you’re on foot. You realize your son is not with you.

So now you don’t get an Amber alert on your iPhone that alerts Ontario that says, this kid is wearing this. This is where they came from. Watch out for this backpack.

Watch out for this car. Nothing. This is like panic mode intense.

I’ve lost my child. We have to return. So they’ve literally turn around and trace their steps back towards Jerusalem in case they might’ve missed him along the way.

And then the next verse 46 says, after three days. So you go from one day of travel, you backtrack another day, two more days, two more days pass. I don’t know about you.

If you think about any of your relatives, especially children, this is terrifying. And I’m saying this because I think it’s important for us to understand humanly, empathetically, sympathetically, what it might’ve felt like to be Mary and Joseph at this point. This is all consuming.

This is the worst of the worst of anything. And of course you wonder why, what happened in those two days? Well, obviously they were looking for him. It doesn’t say exactly what happened, but you could assume you go back into a big city.

There’s tons of places. Where are you gonna look? Probably where kids go. So they’re looking at all the nooks and crannies, all the market areas, all the fun places, all the fields, all where people gather, everywhere except where? Where they found him, which we will learn here.

After three days, they finally found him where? In the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished.

They were amazed as well. I’m gonna pause here for a second. I sat with this for a little bit trying to understand.

It’s a very, very normal reaction, right? Almost valid. This kid needs to be put in his place, right? A little bit, but then he’s Jesus, so. Okay, but that’s the thing, right? All this was happening basically for those three days, Mary and Joseph, who’d been given the gift and the task and the call to steward and raise this child.

Physically, it is their child, and those of you who knows what it is like to raise children or raise nieces and nephews or even just be in a sphere of children, it is all-consuming. They are a lot of work, and it is hard. And then when you think you’ve lost them, your world basically spins.

There is like a gut of just, it’s terrifying. And then you do all this work. You look, and then he shows up, and then he has the audacity to say, “‘Well, why were you looking for me? “‘Why were you searching for me?’ Jesus says.

“‘Didn’t you know I had to be in my father’s house?’ Or in other translations, “‘I had to be about my father’s business.’ And it says, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. I’ve read this, even before today, many, many times. I was like, oh, man, it sucks.

For Jesus, but also mostly for Mary and Joseph. But as I sat with this, it dawned on me. There is a mystery, and we talk about the work of the Spirit, for those of us who’ve walked with Jesus, have a relationship with him, but there’s this mystery to Father, Son, and Spirit that while we can cognitively know and biblically know it’s true, can I get an amen to, we can’t fully understand, amen? But we don’t often mention that.

And I wanna point that out, that one of the most critical things in this text, and in the moment where Mary stood in front of a son that she thought she had lost, and she was screaming at him, it was like one of the first moments in Scripture, where it is recorded and written, that we can see that Jesus himself was aware of his own divinity. We don’t get a lot of details, but Jesus wasn’t just some kid running around, being raised in a 12-year-old Jewish household, and running rampant and disappearing on his parents. And when confronted with his mom, he responded in an atypical way that revealed even more, that he was living into his father’s will.

And if you noted, it might not show up there as parallel, but if you read this text, when you read what Mary says, she says, your father and I were really anxiously looking for you. The word father is in small letters because Joseph is his earthly father. But when Jesus talks about my father’s house and my father’s business, there’s a capital there.

And it’s interesting because in ancient Jewish customs, there’s a lot of names of God that they use, but Abba, father, was not actually one of the common ones. Jesus brought up this relationship with his father, his heavenly father, that he was innately in tune with and knew even at the age of 12. And when his earthly mother said to him, how could you treat us like this? How could you do this and be so ignorant and so disrespectful and so blah, blah, blah? He responded with, well, why were you even looking for me? Can we sit with this for a bit, church, and recognize what this tension actually is? Because I think this is the invitation that sometimes we as believers, no matter how long we’ve been with Jesus, sometimes miss.

Because Mary was reacting. That’s a very normal reaction. But then after Jesus said, why were you even looking for me? I was exactly where I should have been.

Why was it that Jesus knew, but yet his parents did not? And it’s not a knock on them, but the reality is there’s a mystery to how God is moving in Jesus and revealing himself and calling him to his will and his ways, even as a young boy. But as parents and as people, fully human, there’s a reality we live in. We are trying to raise a child.

We are trying to live into our Jewish traditions and our customs or our Christian church life, where we go to church on Christmas, where we do these things, and they are good things. But sometimes in our day-to-day, sometimes in the things that we celebrate, sometimes in the customs that we uphold, somehow in the back of our minds, we forget that the Spirit of God is moving ahead and he’s doing something a little different. And he will use whoever and whomever and whatever circumstance, even in the most stressful situations where you’re like, why am I going through this? So in the parents’ mind, in Mary and Joseph’s mind, they’re like, this is the worst.

They’re focusing and they’re honed in on how terrible the situation is. And I bet you they were probably praying and asking God to help them find him. And it’s valid.

But yet, all the whole time, Jesus was exactly where he needed to be. And I wanna bring this duality, keep switching, but okay. Mary ends off this text and says something, because after reacting and yelling at her son, and he goes, why are you looking for me? I’m exactly where I need to be.

And it says that Mary and Joseph didn’t understand. I think that’s key. Because when you’re confronted with Jesus sometimes, in circumstance, especially difficult ones, sometimes we just wanna react because the circumstance is difficult, just like Mary.

But when Jesus shows up or reveals himself, something else happens. And sometimes it’s in a way that we don’t fully understand because it goes against our human nature. It goes against how we think we need to act, how we think we need to do things and respond.

And Mary does something here the second time around. After she reacted to her son, he says something that hits her. And it says, they turn around, they started walking together back to Nazareth, and it says Jesus was obedient to them.

He’s like, okay, I’m gonna listen to you now. I’m gonna walk with you. Second part of verse 51, it says, but his mother, so Mary, treasured all these things in her heart.

There’s something interesting about Mary is that this is not the first time it was written that she treasured something in her heart. If you flip back to Luke 2, I won’t be up there, but basically at the time where Jesus was just born in the manger, born in the most unlikely place with the most unlikely people in the most unlikely way, right? Can you imagine, she’s there, cold, scared, but yet she’s holding the Son of God in her arms. Amazing, miraculous, and these shepherds who were guided by God to come and to visit and to tell, and then they were proclaiming after they left, and they actually met Jesus, they were like, you need to know that the Messiah is born in Nazareth.

And she’s sitting there, and it says in Luke 2, that after all this happened, Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. If there was one thing related to being a mother or a parent today to offer and to hold today is what does it mean to treasure up the things we do not fully understand, and the mysteries of how God works in his ways, in his will, in his power, and to ponder rather than to lean on our own human understanding. Does that make sense? We see evidence of what it’s like to be human, because we all are.

So when we think about our families, the people and the children or the grandchildren you think of, or we can even think of the situations that might occupy our minds, that we feel our crisis, whether it’s like, oh, the future of the church, or our society, or family members of ours that we’re waiting to be healed or saved, right? In our human ways, we draw so many conclusions as to how we want God to do it, or how we expect him to do it. And yet in the day-to-days, even in the hardships of a season, like possibly in a crisis situation, Jesus will reveal himself. Works, oh, one of them works, one of them works.

Okay, great. Jesus is perpetually telling people in the New Testament, even when he’s in his three years of ministry, as he has his disciples, he’s like, how is it that you still don’t understand? But it says many times, not even through Jesus’ mouth, is that when he was teaching, and these were people who spent almost the full of three years alongside with him. And it said to them, and it says in scripture that they did not understand what he was saying.

So friends, this point now is not for us to feel this false sense of guilt and shame, like, oh, I don’t understand the ways of God. The fact is we don’t. And the freedom that we declare that we have in Christ is the fact that we don’t understand the ways of God, right? And that we can’t understand the fullness.

And in fact, because he came and he is gonna come again, means in this in-between space, we have glimpses of heaven. And the fullness is not here, but he will bring, amen? So until then, allow the Holy Spirit to interrupt those moments and be comfortable and bold enough and willing, no matter how old we are in this room, how much wisdom you have gotten through your journey with Jesus, because I know a lot of you have. No matter how long it’s been, no matter what you think you already know, there is more.

Okay, there is more. And frankly, being someone in their 40s, I really need you to continue to pour into our generation and the next, to live into every season, because there is more of Jesus and there’s more that he’s showing us and there’s more where he’s leading us to, amen? And ultimately, friends, today, the other text that I got brought to, because there is more, whether we get the positions of parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, the opportunity to love and to shepherd other people that God gives us, just like Mary and Joseph became parents and earthly parents to Jesus. The call to us, no matter whether you’re 40 or 80 or 90 or 100 today, our earthly age doesn’t change the truth that we are actually children, amen? And I wanna remind us through the text that Paul says in Romans 8. He says, for those who are led by the Spirit of God are that we are, no matter what roles we play for other people.

But the fact is, no matter where we are in our journey, our ultimate identity are children of God, yeah? And that is what I want us to walk away with today and to be reminded of as a church that even today has multiple generations in it. It’s beautiful because we are adopted into the kingdom, into the family of God, of generation after generation after generation. And when we look at what Paul says, we are not slaves where we live in fear, but we’ve been brought to adoption.

We have been brought in. We don’t actually live out of just our human response, right? So when Mary responded in this text to be like, ah, valid and human, but simultaneously the Spirit of God is moving. And for those of us who are following Jesus, he’s bringing us in and saying, see it from here.

Walk in here. Walk with me. And sometimes it feels like an interruption of how we should act and what we should be.

So church, I don’t know what you’re going through specifically, but I do know that all of us have crisis in our lives, have questions, have worries, have people that we’re scared about in their future or have all the Spirit of God, where you are, there is freedom. And today, you know every heart, every story, every burden, every reality represented in this place. So we pray, God, that you continue to reveal yourself to every person in the ways in which you speak and that they can hear.

Would you open up our eyes and our ears to see you, oh God. Thank you that you’ve given us mothers specifically, mothers to nurture, mothers to love, mother figures to those who need someone to impart in them a sense of identity in you. And so today as we leave, maybe we be reminded of the truth that we are led by the Spirit of God and that we are children of God.

That in the Spirit that we’ve received, we are no longer slaves and we do not live in fear, but through the Spirit, we have received you through the adoption and we are now part of your glorious kingdom. And by this we cry, like Jesus, Abba Father. And now that we are children, now that we are heirs,