Holy adolsecence
29/12/24 02:30
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: five golden rings. Despite the depiction in children’s books and illustrations of the iconic Christmas song, music historians mostly agree that the reference is not to jewelry, but rather to ringed neck pheasants. At least half for the verses in the song refer to birds as the gifts. As one who lived in South Dakota for a quarter of a century, I like the notion of ringed necked pheasants. It is the South Dakota state bird. Unlike some state birds, the bird is an immigrant, imported to the state, mostly for sport. And South Dakota and Alaska share another unique trait when it comes to state birds. Locals hunt and eat the state bird in those two places, although Alaska’s state bird is native to the state, while South Dakotans hunt and eat immigrants, who were imported in part for the sport of hunting. Try hunting and cooking a Cardinal in Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, or West Virginia. Or hunt and cook a flicker in Alabama. You’ll find the response to be quite different.
However, I didn’t plan to write about state birds today. I didn’t even plan to write about the popular Christmas song. I am, however, looking forward to worship this morning when we will have an opportunity to sing several Christmas carols. It is our tradition on the first Sunday after Christmas to sing a lot of carols and we are leading worship at a small island church this morning, so we’ve continued that tradition in our worship planning. This congregation loves singing and their piano players are great song leaders. We’ll be singing with enthusiasm.
I brought up the song because I am reminding myself that it is already the fifth day of Christmas. Time is flying already! In the cycle of readings in the traditional church, there is a rush to read through the life of Jesus in the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany. Two of the shortest seasons in the Church year are dedicated to the life of Jesus. That means that each year there is a rush of Gospel readings and it always seems like time is rushing by. The readings are set up in a three-year cycle in the Revised Common Lectionary, focusing on the first three gospels: one year is Matthew, the next is Mark, the third is Luke and then the cycle repeats. Readings from the Gospel of John are sprinkled throughout all three years, with there being more in the second year because the Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the gospels. This is the Luke year in our lectionary. Luke, being the longest gospel, makes the pace of reading seem particularly quick.
There is something else that is unique to Luke. Luke is the only Gospel with a birth narrative and anything at all about the childhood of Jesus. While Matthew does have the genealogy of Jesus’ father and stories about the predictions of the birth, those readings occur during Advent. Matthew does have the story of the flight other than Egypt and the killing of the innocents, but that is a topic for another year. Luke has only one story about the childhood and adolescence of Jesus, and that is today’s story. Next week the Lectionary heads to the prologue to the Gospel of John and most congregations will probably substitute the Epiphany readings because it falls on the day before Epiphany. The story of the visit of the Magi only appears in Matthew, so that Gospel is always the reading for Epiphany. You sort of have to be a Bible geek to keep track of all of this. Today, however, the focus is the iconic story of Jesus at 12, when the Holy family goes to the temple and Jesus remains behind. When his parents realize he is not with them, they return to Jerusalem in a panic and find him in the temple with the scholars. Mary expresses her panic and concern which Jesus dismisses with a very typical teenage response, “You should have known.” Actually the Gospel reports he said, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
This story is the only view of Jesus adolescence that appears anywhere in the Bible. While the 20th century was an intense time of discovery about the importance of child and adolescent development and the 21st Century has been a time of incredible discovery about brain development in childhood and adolescence, it was not at all common to pay any attention to childhood and adolescence in the time when the Gospels were written. Some secular writers of the time write as if children are simply miniature adults. Others simply don’t mention children in their writing. It was fairly common not to give a baby a name until they were two or three years old because of the high infant mortality rate. Better not get too attached until you see whether or not this child will survive. Children were ignored for the most part and so the simple fact that we have a single story about Jesus’ childhood is remarkable.
In my mind, the story is a dramatic illustration of just how common Jesus’ childhood and adolescence were. We enjoyed the adolescence of our children, but there were quite a few zingers, intense moments, snippy comments, and sleepless nights in the process. And now our oldest grandson is 13 going on 14 and we find ourselves heading back into teenage years. It can be an emotional battle for parents and grandparents and we find our worry and panic buttons pushed on a fairly regular basis. The report of the conversation with Jesus and his mother in the temple seems right in line with our experience. The teen acts impulsively, provoking panic on the parent’s part. Parents are deeply aware of the huge consequences of teenage decisions. The adolescent pushes all of the buttons without any awareness of how deeply it impacts the parent.
Naturally we think of Jesus from our perspective: God comes to us in human form. As we age and mature, however, we gain the ability to think of the perspective of the other. Think of Jesus from God’s point of view. God loves humans so much that God wants to experience all of human life from the inside, as a human. We get to know God as a human companion. God gets to experience the hormonal rush and impulsiveness of a teenager from the inside. And Luke reports a story of how real the experience is. It is a lot to take in. And the year is only just beginning.
However, I didn’t plan to write about state birds today. I didn’t even plan to write about the popular Christmas song. I am, however, looking forward to worship this morning when we will have an opportunity to sing several Christmas carols. It is our tradition on the first Sunday after Christmas to sing a lot of carols and we are leading worship at a small island church this morning, so we’ve continued that tradition in our worship planning. This congregation loves singing and their piano players are great song leaders. We’ll be singing with enthusiasm.
I brought up the song because I am reminding myself that it is already the fifth day of Christmas. Time is flying already! In the cycle of readings in the traditional church, there is a rush to read through the life of Jesus in the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany. Two of the shortest seasons in the Church year are dedicated to the life of Jesus. That means that each year there is a rush of Gospel readings and it always seems like time is rushing by. The readings are set up in a three-year cycle in the Revised Common Lectionary, focusing on the first three gospels: one year is Matthew, the next is Mark, the third is Luke and then the cycle repeats. Readings from the Gospel of John are sprinkled throughout all three years, with there being more in the second year because the Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the gospels. This is the Luke year in our lectionary. Luke, being the longest gospel, makes the pace of reading seem particularly quick.
There is something else that is unique to Luke. Luke is the only Gospel with a birth narrative and anything at all about the childhood of Jesus. While Matthew does have the genealogy of Jesus’ father and stories about the predictions of the birth, those readings occur during Advent. Matthew does have the story of the flight other than Egypt and the killing of the innocents, but that is a topic for another year. Luke has only one story about the childhood and adolescence of Jesus, and that is today’s story. Next week the Lectionary heads to the prologue to the Gospel of John and most congregations will probably substitute the Epiphany readings because it falls on the day before Epiphany. The story of the visit of the Magi only appears in Matthew, so that Gospel is always the reading for Epiphany. You sort of have to be a Bible geek to keep track of all of this. Today, however, the focus is the iconic story of Jesus at 12, when the Holy family goes to the temple and Jesus remains behind. When his parents realize he is not with them, they return to Jerusalem in a panic and find him in the temple with the scholars. Mary expresses her panic and concern which Jesus dismisses with a very typical teenage response, “You should have known.” Actually the Gospel reports he said, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
This story is the only view of Jesus adolescence that appears anywhere in the Bible. While the 20th century was an intense time of discovery about the importance of child and adolescent development and the 21st Century has been a time of incredible discovery about brain development in childhood and adolescence, it was not at all common to pay any attention to childhood and adolescence in the time when the Gospels were written. Some secular writers of the time write as if children are simply miniature adults. Others simply don’t mention children in their writing. It was fairly common not to give a baby a name until they were two or three years old because of the high infant mortality rate. Better not get too attached until you see whether or not this child will survive. Children were ignored for the most part and so the simple fact that we have a single story about Jesus’ childhood is remarkable.
In my mind, the story is a dramatic illustration of just how common Jesus’ childhood and adolescence were. We enjoyed the adolescence of our children, but there were quite a few zingers, intense moments, snippy comments, and sleepless nights in the process. And now our oldest grandson is 13 going on 14 and we find ourselves heading back into teenage years. It can be an emotional battle for parents and grandparents and we find our worry and panic buttons pushed on a fairly regular basis. The report of the conversation with Jesus and his mother in the temple seems right in line with our experience. The teen acts impulsively, provoking panic on the parent’s part. Parents are deeply aware of the huge consequences of teenage decisions. The adolescent pushes all of the buttons without any awareness of how deeply it impacts the parent.
Naturally we think of Jesus from our perspective: God comes to us in human form. As we age and mature, however, we gain the ability to think of the perspective of the other. Think of Jesus from God’s point of view. God loves humans so much that God wants to experience all of human life from the inside, as a human. We get to know God as a human companion. God gets to experience the hormonal rush and impulsiveness of a teenager from the inside. And Luke reports a story of how real the experience is. It is a lot to take in. And the year is only just beginning.
