URC Daily Devotion Monday 25 November 2024

St Luke 2: 41 – 52

Now every year Jesus’  parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover.  And when he was twelve 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 travellers, 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 favour.

Reflection

How reassuring the Holy Family was as full of cross-generational misunderstandings as most families today!  Parent: How could you do this to us?  Child: What’s the stress – it’s obvs I’m here!  Yet behind this is a deep sense of intergenerational community that we have largely lost. The festival includes all ages of relatives and friends, those who travel physically and metaphorically together in a shared life of faith.  The boy Jesus is safe, known and loved, his parents trusting the whole village to raise their son.  In an age of abuse revelations, when no institution appears trustworthy and individuals exploit trust, how might we rebuild such communities? How might we exercise the wisdom of serpents alongside the innocence of doves within relationships and balance protecting the vulnerable with God’s declaration it is not good for us to be alone and the lonely are placed in families?

In the Temple we see twelve-year-old Jesus sitting among the teachers (not sent out to Junior Temple) actively engaged through listening and asking questions and showing amazing wisdom and understanding.  How might we enable our children and young people to be actively engaged in their and our faith formation – creating spaces where together we listen to one another, enriched by both the questions and answers of different generations?

This story is alive with resonances of Jesus’ calling – a deep awareness of his Sonship, a desire to dwell in the Father’s presence, a stepping out of the safety of family life into the public eye, ongoing questions and discussions with religious teachers about the life of faith, a shocking absence for 3 days and a joyful reunion with those lovingly searching for him.  How might we enable children and young people to discern God’s call on their lives both now and into the future through their current experiences, passions and gifts?

Prayer

Loving God,
as we and all your children grow and change
in wisdom, in age,
in relationship with you and with others,
give us grace to enable and welcome change.
Help us to accommodate growing and changing children and young people,
to change with them,
and together to respond to your call
to grow up into the fulness of Christ.
Amen.