Luke 2 tells the story of Mary and Joseph losing track of their 12-year-old Jesus when they leave Jerusalem and Jesus quietly stays behind. By the time his parents realize he’s missing and conduct their search for him, it’s more than three days. They finally find him, upbraid him, and return home with him. And somehow, Mary comes to “treasure” this in her heart, Luke tells us. Apparently, Mary eventually decides that that time she lost her son was something worth treasuring. Apparently, losing Jesus is a good thing. It’s good for Mary. It’s good for you and me, too. It is something worth treasuring to realize that the Jesus we thought we knew everything about has been lost. That the Jesus we thought was obligated to go in the same direction as we go, has been lost.
Let’s do a quick inventory. Does Jesus embrace the exact same people we embrace? Shun the same people we shun? Prioritize the same things we prioritize? Does Jesus have the same politics as we do? Does Jesus conveniently care about all the same things we care about? Is it possible that we’re wrongly assuming that Jesus is close by and on the same path as we are, when he’s really not?
Only after three days of searching Jerusalem does it finally occur to Mary and Joseph to look in the temple, the Father’s house. They were looking for a Jesus that doesn’t exist, a Jesus that exists separate from the Father, a Jesus that bends toward our will and our expectations instead of the Father’s. The Jesus that is lost by Mary and Joseph is the Jesus that we assume will follow us around, the Jesus that conveniently wants all the same things we want. But the Jesus that is found by Mary and Joseph is the Jesus much closer to the Father’s heart, that simply doesn’t belong to our will and expectations. He will always be too slippery for that.
The search lasts three days. Isn’t this what the whole gospel story culminates in? Losing Jesus in death and then finding him in resurrection after three days? And when the disciples on the road to Emmaus meet him, they don’t recognize him at first; and even after they do recognize him, he instantly disappears from their sight. He just can’t stop slipping through our fingers. The disciples in Emmaus, though, like Mary, find joy in this slipperiness.
“The boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it,” Luke tells us. Jesus may go when we are stationary, and Jesus may remain still while we are ready to move. Like Mary and Joseph, we may get a good distance down some path, some ambition, some return to or departure from tradition, and realize that Jesus didn’t come along for the ride. How attentive are we to the movement or stillness of Jesus? Are we tuned into where he is and where he is not? I bet that, after this episode, Mary and Joseph were much slower to take for granted that they knew exactly where Jesus was at all times.
What a gift it is to lose Jesus. What a thing to treasure in our hearts, because the Jesus we lose wasn’t a Jesus worth holding onto anyway. It turns out that Jesus is just a Jesus we’re trying to make in our own image, like a twelve-year-old that should just do what we tell him to do and go where we tell him to go. But the real Jesus, as difficult as he might be to find, is bringing us much closer to the Father’s heart.
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