Christmas 2

The parents of Jesus went to Jerusalem every year 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 travelers, 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. - Luke 2:41-52

We meet Jesus today in a story unique to Luke. Twelve is always a significant number in scripture, as you know.  Now twelve years old, Jesus has done something very significant--and deeply troubling to his parents.  Having traveled with them and others up to Jerusalem for a festival, Jesus failed to join the group for the return journey to Nazareth. When Mary and Joseph realized he wasn’t among them they returned to the Holy City. Searching desperately for three days (another significant number) they found him in the Temple. He was conversing maturely with the teachers there. Jesus was quietly astonished that his parents didn’t understand that he must be “in his father’s house”.

Jesus has begun to fulfill his promised destiny. He has found his community and his calling as a teacher. With the psalmist he might be singing

“How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts! My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.”

During the twelve days of Christmas we celebrate the Incarnation, God’s taking human form in Jesus’ birth. It is the foundational mystery of Christianity.  On this last Sunday of Christmas, I would like to share some thoughts about what the Incarnation means to you and me in everyday life.  It’s from a beloved book, The Holy Longing, by Ronald Rolheiser a distinguished theologian and teacher. 

“Why would God take on flesh?” Rolheiser asks.  One answer he offers is a sweet story you probably know.  It’s about a four year who old woke in the night with fears of monsters and ghosts. His mother came and calmed him down. Getting ready to return to her own room his mother said “You don’t have to be afraid. You aren’t alone. God is here with you.” “I know that God is here,” the child replied, “but I need someone in this room who has some skin!”

God knew that we needed someone who had skin! Like all of God’s creatures, human beings experience the world most powerfully and assuredly through our senses.  Jesus was fully human and fully alive. He could be seen, touched, heard—even tasted and smelled!  Jesus lived, ate, and drank.  Jesus loved and laughed and wept. He suffered, bled and died.    In Jesus, God was fully physically present--in the flesh. 

When Jesus died it wasn’t the end. Rolheiser writes that the Incarnation wasn’t just a “thirty-three year experiment, a one-shot incursion by God into human history”.  Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name, he notes.  Jesus was fully human and fully divine.  Christ was the divine aspect of Jesus.  It was Christ who rose on the third day.

In our scriptures the word Christ is used for three things: the person Jesus, the sacrament of Eucharist, and the community of believers.

God was physically present in Jesus during his lifetime.  God continues to be physically present in Christ: in the Eucharist—the bread and the wine—and in the body of believers, the Body of Christ—you and me, and all of us. 

Like the Incarnation itself, the Eucharist and the Body of Christ are mysteries of the faith, and physical, existential realities.  They are things that we can and do know through our senses. 

Rolheiser wrote, “God is still here, in the flesh, just as real and just as physical, as God was in Jesus….The word…became flesh and continues to dwell among us. In the body of believers and in the Eucharist, God still has physical skin and can still be physically seen, touched, smelled, heard, and tasted.” 

He concluded, “If it is true that we are the Body of Christ, and it is, then God’s presence in the world today depends very much upon us.”   As St. Teresa of Avila wrote, now we are Christ’s body on earth, Christ’s hands and feet serving others.  That is how we fulfill our baptismal commitments and embody Christ in and for the world.

My first and forever Christian community is Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Houston. Baptized there when I was three months old, throughout my childhood I was completely at home there.  I knew every nook and cranny of the old buildings. If I wasn’t in church on Sunday, I was helping Mrs. Russell in the nursery.  When I got my driver’s license at 14 (yes!), I brought friends from school to the weekly youth group meetings.   

At that age I was probably told about the theology of the Incarnation, the Real Presence, and the Body of Christ, but it went over my head.  No matter. I knew the reality of God’s love there. I experienced it in my body, heart, and soul through communion and the community of Christ Church. Only years later did I connect the dots between the living knowledge of those mysteries and the theology.

Today, we welcome two children into the global family of our faith. Three and half year-old Adrian, and his baby brother Ruben live in London. It is the greatest honor and joy to baptize them. They are Cindy and John Larned’s grandsons. Like the Larneds, the boys’ parents Alex and Marsha Hughes are beloved friends of Claudia’s and mine. A year ago, we stayed with them in London and got to know Adrian. He is bright and strong, a little boy with a big presence. He was athletic even then at two and a half. We just met baby Ruben, who is a charmer.



I rejoice that Marsha and Alex are going to an Anglican church near their home in Maida Vale. I imagine Adrian and Ruben growing up in church, in worship, Sunday school classes and social and service groups, feeling that the church is one of their home places.  When they are old enough, they will understand how the love of God is embodied in the Incarnation and the Body of Christ. But they will have known that love personally--experienced it, seen, heard, touched, tasted and felt it in the Eucharist, the church community, and in the world, all along.