Code Adam
Has anyone here ever misplaced anything? I’m not talking about losing something, I mean just misplaced it. You know that it’s just got to be somewhere in the house. It could be your keys, wallet or the instructions for the TV.
That happened to me this week. I needed the TV manual to figure out how to program something on the TV. Yeah, that’s right, I was going to look in the instructions! I knew we had it. It just took me a while to find it.
I looked in the filing cabinet, something Wendy refuses to do because she can’t figure out my filing system. Of course, sometimes I can’t either. I looked under “T” for TV. I looked under “R” because it’s an RCA TV. I looked in the storage unit under the TV where it used to be. I looked in the box that holds all our manuals for household items.
I finally found it. Of course it was in the last place I looked. Now, when you misplace something, you never know it’s missing until you need it. Like a pen when you get ready to write down that number. Or you’re running late to get to your Dr. app’t. and your keys aren’t on the hook by the back door where they ALWAYS are. So you have to retrace your steps back to the place you last saw your pen, keys, ……or kid.
The Gospels tells us next to nothing about Jesus’ life between his birth and the start of His ministry 30 years later. Luke does tell us a couple short snippets of his childhood. We looked at the one story last week about his circumcision and consecration in the Temple.
Today we’re going to look at the often told but generally misunderstood story of Jesus in the Temple at age 12. The text tells us a little bit of Jesus as a child but it also tells a lot of his parents. They were very devout in keeping the Jewish Law.
Our text begins by telling us that "every year" his parents go to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. Every year - every year - Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival.
It was in the Law that every adult male Jew who lived within fifteen miles of Jerusalem had to attend the Passover. In fact, it was the goal of every Jew to attend the feast at least once in a lifetime. Despite the costs and the tremendous commitment of time, Mary and Joseph adhered to the traditions of their faith. And although Mary was under no such obligation, she also attended with Joseph every year.
So, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus go to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Passover. When the feast was over the journey back home began. It was evening, when camp was made that they first realized they had misplaced Jesus.
Now before you call them bad parents for not keeping up with their kid, you need to understand that they generally traveled in a large group. Women and children would begin the journey ahead of the men, seeing as how they traveled a little slower. By evening time when they would make camp the men had caught up with the women and children.
I am sure Mary thought Jesus was with Joseph. And Joseph thought Jesus was with Mary. So it was not until that evening they discovered Jesus had been misplaced, and or even lost at this point.
I can imagine the chaos and panic that broke out when they realized that Jesus was with neither of them. They probably started searching frantically, keeping in contact with one another over their walkie-talkies, and calling 911 on their cell phones. Finally, they probably ran up to a WalMart associate calling for a “Code Adam”.
Now, just in case you don’t know, a Code Adam is what happens when a child is “misplaced” in a WalMart store. They close and lock all the doors and search until the child is (hopefully) found. It is named in honor of Adam Walsh, the son of John Walsh, host of America’s Most Wanted, who was kidnapped.
But, lest you get the wrong idea, Mary and Joseph were not careless parents. No, really, this speaks more of the culture in which they lived. One where children were not prey and parents were more secure.
Of course, you might think that Mary and Joseph would have made sure that no harm came to their special son. Herein lies the problem. While they were thoroughly engrossed in their devout religious pilgrimage, they lost Jesus. In their attempt to draw closer to God and demonstrate their love for God, they had misplaced the Son of God.
It’s easy for people to be so caught up in religious activity – spiritual activity – that they lose sight of the most important thing of all, Jesus himself. How often do we so immerse ourselves in our religion – our Church, our worship, our service, that we lose Christ?
So they head back to Jerusalem and can’t you just hear them? Alternately praying for his safety and muttering to each other, “What is he thinking, not staying with one of us?” “If I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a thousand times….” “He’d better be alright, because when I find him, he is so dead!”
Why were they searching for him? Because they are good parents. Wouldn’t each of us go searching for our children if we thought they were lost? Wouldn’t finding the lost child be most important thing in the world at that particular moment? Of course we would.
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. Take special note of the following words. They found him…listening and asking questions. Jesus was in the temple to learn, not to teach.
There is a famous oil painting called "Christ Teaching In The Temple." The painting gets it wrong. It comes from a time when religious people were still uneasy with the notion that Jesus was like the rest of us. In this picture he is standing in the midst of the elders looking very wise, obviously delivering a lecture. He is talking and pointing and they are listening.
He appears to be instructing them, as if he knew what they didn’t. But that’s not what the text says. They found him, says Luke, "listening… & asking questions." He was not the authority; he was the student. He was there to listen and learn.
If you think about it, Jesus probably felt very much at home with the teachers in the temple. He had been there many times before. “Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover.” Also, according to Jewish tradition, at 12 years of age, he was now a man, so why couldn’t he make the decision to stay there and learn? He obviously knew that was where he needed to be.
So they find him and Mary asks, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” (v. 48b) Note the reference to Joseph as Jesus’ father. Can you imagine what a tough job Joseph had? I think you’ll all agree it’s tough enough being a parent, but to be a step-parent? And a step-parent to the son whose real dad is God, to boot?!? Man, that’s gotta be tough!
So, Mary confronts Jesus here. She says, and man, I’m thinking she’s GOT to be a little ticked off, “Your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.” Jesus gently replies, “Don’t you know I must be about my Father’s business?” See how very gently but very definitely Jesus takes the name father from Joseph and gives it to God.
It’s been twelve years since our Lord’s birth. Possibly two years were spent in Bethlehem & maybe three to six more in Egypt (until Herod’s death in 4BC). So they’ve been back home in Nazareth for just a few years, settled into some sort of routine, and they’re starting to feel like a normal family.
However, they were not normal. They were raising the Son of God; they had responsibilities that went far beyond ‘normal’. They probably would have liked to forget about it or at least not be faced with it on a daily basis. Yet, there were times, like in this story, that they did forget.
It was important for Mary and Joseph to know that Jesus didn’t belong to them, he belonged to God. Jesus reminds Mary and Joseph of that fact with the simple statement, “Didn’t you know I had to be about my Father’s business?” It was maybe the kindest way that Jesus could firmly say; “I don’t belong to you.”
Verse 50 tells us that when Jesus questioned why Mary and Joseph were searching for him and “didn’t they know that he had to be about his Father’s business”, that they didn’t understand what he was saying to them. I’m sure he wasn’t speaking gibberish. Maybe it was the stress of searching for a lost child. But they just didn’t understand.
Then in verse 51 we read, “Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.” This verse just amazes me. He could have stayed there. He was 12, a man now. There were plenty of teachers who would have made room for someone like him. Remember, “Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.” (v. 47)
Instead, he went back to Nazareth, back to a commoner’s life. Why? Why would he choose the life of the working poor? He went back to an obscure family to learn about God through a common man’s struggle. He became like the least among us. He became one of us.
Now Mary and Joseph weren’t the only ones along the way to not understand Jesus. The same is true of the disciples and the people of his hometown. They didn’t often understand Jesus. The same is true of the religious establishment. They rarely understood Jesus. The same is true of many today, including myself. I often don’t understand Jesus. How about you? I have made some progress in understanding. I am still trying to learn. How about you?
I’m sure you are all good parents who would never misplace your child (although sometimes you might like to). But let me ask you: How far would you have traveled before you realized that you had misplaced Jesus? Or maybe I should ask: Are you sure Jesus is still with you in your travels? Are you sure you have not misplaced him?
You know he’s in the house somewhere. You’re just not sure where. He may be under “J” for Jesus. He may be under “C” for Christ. Maybe “S” for Son of God. But we must understand this: we don’t need a “Code Adam” to find him. And he tells us we don’t need to search for him because he’ll be exactly where he’s supposed to be – about his Father’s business. US.
