Amber Alert - Jesus Goes Missing

Isn't it every parent's worst nightmare?  A child has gone missing and minutes feel like hours in the frantic search for the beloved child.  And what do we do when our child rounds the corner of the backyard fence or peeks out between the clothes in the store, just as we're getting ready to call the police?  Don't we hug first and then scold and discipline?  We react out of love and fear, all commingled together.

When 12 year old Jesus stays behind in the Temple with the learned scholars after the Passover Festival in Jerusalem, it takes Mary and Joseph 3 days to miss him and begin their fearful search.  And what do they do they find Jesus?  Mary scolds him as if he were a child, missing the fact that her 12 year old Jewish son, ready for his bar mitzvah, has been about his Father's (capital "F" here) business.  Luke 2: 41-52 is a heart wrenching, singular story of Jesus the boy maturing into a man.

And the literal search is not the most important part of the story.  Mary and Joseph as parents are not the most important part either, even as our hearts ache with either memories or fears of such a nightmare.  This is not a how-to-parent story, but a coming-of-age story as the hero Jesus begins his first step to his maturing into ministry.

If Jesus is maturing and growing into his intended ministry, how are we keeping up?  How will 2013 be a time of deepening our faith?  Will we grow closer to Jesus as we commit ourselves ever more deeply in relationship to other members of our family of faith?  Will we follow Jesus' teaching and preaching ministries as we serve others beyond our immediate community of faith?  Both challenges are intertwined as we set our faces toward 2013.  As we go forth from worship on Sundays, how do we engage with each other during the week?  Significant Relational Groups (SRGs) are excellent opportunities to practice our spiritual humanness together as we share passions, loves, interests.  Serving in mission to those who have been left behind provide excellent opportunities to see Jesus in the "other."  Topeka JUMP is a new opportunity to give voice to our concerns for social justice just as Jesus commands us to love and serve.

I wonder about God's worst nightmare as he sent his only Son, vulnerable to the ways of the world, to us to show us what God is like?  Is God hunting for us, searching the highways and byways for our commitments to the kingdom?  Does God grieve and groan as we go missing?

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley