Reflections on "Grab bag: Between Birth and Baptism" Luke 2: 39-52; Romans 1: 1-4

I had fun reading through the "Infancy Gospel of Thomas."  I had not done that in several years, and probably not really studied it since college!  Through the years, I have continued to give thanks for Dr. William Walker, my New Testament professor at Trinity University.  The text books he used and the methodical way he taught the NT have been very helpful.  If I could go back and take one class in college that I did not take, it would have been his class on the Apostle Paul.

Speaking of Paul, I had intended on making a clearer connection between the Romans passage and the sermon.  I think Paul's words remind us that we tell stories about Christ in the context of his resurrection.  I did not make that point explicit in the sermon.

I added the Lillian Daniels story about the young boy who noted that they were telling the same story the second year of the Christmas pageant.  That was a good add to the sermon and would have helped the Chapel sermon.  More could have been made of the repetition of stories we tell about Jesus.

I also added a line in the Sanctuary service about Jesus being baptized as an adult after someone in the Chapel asking if Jesus was baptized as an infant.

“Between Birth and Baptism” July 14, 2013; Grab bag series; Luke 2: 39-52; Romans 1: 1-4

Introduction:  you now know all the content that will be on the Bible content exam on what we know abut Jesus’ childhood.  You ought to ace the exam.

One story. 

After Jesus is presented in the temple until he is baptized as an adult as he begins his ministry, there is one story about Jesus in the biblical texts.

One story.  The one we just read in Luke.

The good news -- if you don't know much about Jesus’ childhood, you haven't forgotten it because it's not there.

The bad news -- there is a whole segment of Jesus' life about which we know very little.

No wonder one of you asked the question:  "What do we know about Jesus in his growing up years?"  The answer – “not much.”  End of sermon.

Well, not really!

Move 1:  why do we tell stories from childhood? 

            a. You know those stories.

1.      I just spent a week in TX with my family and Leslie’s family.

2.      Lots of stories told. Now, the kids are telling the stories they have heard their parents tell.

3.      I would say that the stories get better over time, but that may or may not be true!

4.      In Luke, we get a “parents leaving kids behind” story.  I bet most of your families have a story or two like that.

5.      Just last week as we were sitting in my brother’s TV room, his wife begins telling stories about how my father used to leave my brother behind.  I listened to the places he’s been left and finally had to say, “I can top all of those.”  My father left me sitting in a grocery cart.  In the parking lot as he drove home.  Thank goodness for the person who wheeled me back inside the store until my my mother asked my father where I was!”

b. Typically, the childhood stories we tell and tell again are fun and they teach us. 

1.  Back to the story we read in Luke.  It actually does not seem that funny, but maybe it got funnier as it was told over time.

2.  Parents leaving a child behind can have a little humor tied to it.

3. But the story reveals something about Jesus when he tells his parents, “I must be in my Father’s house”

4.  Like the stories told about the child who argued with everyone about everything and then one day ends up being a lawyer who gets paid to argue cases.  Those childhood stories that get repeated will become the “aha” stories about how everyone should have known the child would become a lawyer.

5.  I imagine years after Jesus’ death and resurrection when the family got together, they would tell this story from the Temple and nod their heads. 

6. Of course Jesus told his parents, “I must be in my father’s house” (or “I must be about my father’s interests” in other translations).

7. His ministry in later years, the stories that we do have of Jesus, reveal that he was about his father’s interests.

Maybe later Jesus’ family laughed about leaving him in Jerusalem and smiled knowingly at his answer.

Move 2:  the lack of stories of Jesus’ childhood, however, reveals our own struggles, and the struggles of those who put together the gospels, to  understand what it means that Jesus is the Son of God.

                        a. Hard to be funny about Jesus.

                                    1.  I personally think we often miss Jesus’ humor.

                                    2.  If we approached many of the stories Jesus tells or situations in which he finds himself as if there was a chance they would be funny, I suspect we could make the case that Jesus had a pretty good sense of humor.

                                    3. Laughing Jesus – maybe you’ve seen some of those pictures.  Hasn’t really caught on (although there is is a web-site or two). 

4. we can handle an image of Jesus loving, but Jesus laughing?

5. Cuts down on the need for funny stories of his childhood.

b. We are also not sure what to make of Jesus – fully human, fully god.

1 What childhood stories could be told that help explain that?

2.       Biblical texts, but there were other stories told about Jesus' childhood.

2. Stories told that were not accepted by the early church nor made part of the biblical canon.

3. Several of these stories are found in what is known as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.  (The Other Gospels:  Non-Canonical Gospel Texts, Ron Cameron, editor, 122-130) 

4.  A kid is running down the street and bumps into Jesus, which makes Jesus mad, so he strikes him dead.  That didn’t make the Bible. 

5.  A story where Jesus is playing upstairs and one of the other kids falls out the window to his death.  Everyone accuses Jesus of having pushed him (sounds like a typical who did what story from childhood, except it is life and death).  Jesus finally gets tired of the accusations and calls the boy back to life and asks him to tell everyone that Jesus did not push him.

3. Or a story told about when Jesus was six years old he drops the pitcher of water he is bringing to his mother, so he miraculously fills his garment with water and takes it to his mother.  That didn’t make the Bible either.

4. Let’s be clear – I am not saying that these are true stories about Jesus’ childhood that were left out of the Bible; they were stories told about Jesus that were determined to not be true.

                        4.  As an author writing about the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas” notes, “The biographic legends of Jesus, at school and at ply, display nothing distinctively Christian at all:  Jesus is portrayed simply as a child of the gods, a Wunderkind in whose life are manifested epiphanies of the divine.  Ironically, the descriptions of the precocious glee of the infant Jesus both hint at his humanity and detract from it as well.  These stories adumbrate the tyranny of the miracle tradition. . (123).

d.  How do you tell stories about Jesus’ childhood that somehow explain how he was fully human, yet also fully God? 

The answer – you probably don’t. 

Move 3:  The childhood stories cannot explain who Jesus is and what God is doing.

a. Consequently, the childhood stories give way to the stories of his birth and his death and resurrection.

                        1.  Somewhere along the way I suspect they decided that these stories are the ones who define the most important things we need to know about Jesus.

                        2. Lillian Daniel in her book When Spiritual But Not Religious Is Not Enough tells the story of an unchurched family that joined the church. The first Christmas, their young son was in the pageant.  The next year, he showed up for the first rehearsal and when he hears the story he says, “Oh not, not that same story again!”  She notes that now he has young children and that familiar story has shaped his growing up and his life now in ways he never could have imagined. 

            b. The biblical scholar N.T. Wright reminds us that that "Christianity is about something that happened.  Something that happened to Jesus of Nazareth.  Something that happened through Jesus of Nazareth.  In other words, Christianity is not about a new moral teaching... Christianity isn't about Jesus offering a wonderful moral example...nor is Christianity about Jesus offering, demonstrating, or even accomplishing a new route by which people can “go to heaven when they die... Finally Christianity isn't about giving the world fresh teaching about God himself....Christianity is all about the belief that the living God, in fulfillment of his promises and as the climax of the story of Israel, has accomplished all this – the finding , the saving, the giving of new life – in Jesus.  He has done it." Simply Christian, N. T. Wright (92). .

1.      So we tell stories that about what happened and what happened, what God did in Christ to transform the world.

3.       In other words, what Jesus did at six years old may not matter that much -- the fact that God came in flesh does.

4.      Most of what Jesus did as a teenager, may not matter – the fact that Jesus died a sinless death on the cross and was raised from the dead matter.

5.      As those who are invited to pass down the stories about Jesus that reveal God’s great love for us and God’s desire to save and redeem us, what stories do you tell.

6.      Or what stories about Jesus can reveal the God who is even now alive and in at work in our midst?

Conclusion:  I read this week that the Gospel stories add up to about 1 year’s worth of activities from Jesus’ three years of ministry.  That means that on average 2 out of 3 days of what Jesus was doing as an adult went unrecorded (Craig Barnes,  5/20/13, Christian Century, “Faith Matter:  Holy Small Talk).

A bit better percentage that the childhood stories, but still a lot about Jesus’ life is unknown.

But we know that which gives us life – we know the stories of the God who comes in flesh to live among us, the God who dies in the person of Jesus Christ to save us, the God who raised Christ from the dead to give us hope.  The God who is alive even now.  Amen.