The Hidden Life of Jesus

Year A + Christmas II

As you may realize, we have been using the Revised Common Lectionary for several years now. The history behind it is this: in 1994, representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as American Baptists, Episcopalian, Lutherans, Methodists, and other denominations all joined together to agree on a three-year cycle of readings for every Sunday of the year. The Episcopal Church continued to allow the use of the one-year list of readings from the Book of Common Prayer, until this year, 2010. From now on, only the Revised Common Lectionary readings may be used in our churches.

However, in adapting the RCL to Episcopalian use, our General Convention added readings for every saint’s day and other weekday feasts of the year. In addition, we took a wider view of the readings for some dates, offering multiple options for them. And that is where we find ourselves today – the Second Sunday after Christmas. We have three options for the Gospel reading today.

All three are stories that describe the time between the birth of Jesus and the beginning of his public ministry. The first, from the second chapter of Matthew, describes the visit of the three magi, who came to King Herod, telling of the star that they had seen and asking where the baby was to be born [Matthew 2:1-12]. The second option is a continuation of that story, the Flight into Egypt and the Holy Family's later return to Galilee (with the horrific event of the massacre of the babies in Bethlehem omitted) [Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23]. The third option possible for today is from the Gospel of Luke. In it, we see the adolescent Jesus going to Jerusalem with his parents and teaching the rabbis in the Temple [Luke 2:41-52].

All three Gospel stories attempt to fill in some of the gaps in the life of Jesus. Some early Christians believed that Jesus’ early life was not remarkable or even important. The Gospel of Mark begins with Jesus as a grown man, asking to be baptized by John. This may have led some of the earliest followers of Jesus to think that anything that happened before then was not important. It took the later gospels of Matthew and Luke to shed a little light on the events of Jesus’ birth and early life.

But do we care about Jesus’ childhood? Does it make any difference to our faith? Is it only his adult life, the three short years of his public ministry, that matters to us?

We have remarked in the past that it is human nature to want to know all the details. The more important the person, the more we want to know “the rest of the story.” This is not a bad thing. Our leaders, religious, political, and otherwise, have a great influence upon us. They serve as examples, but they also remind us that we are not perfect, that we come up short in comparison to them. Knowing more about their lives can help us to realize that they are only human, just people like us. This is certainly true of the saints, but it reflects a reality that we all share.

And just as it is human nature to want to know more, it is also human nature to “supply” the details when they are not available. We have some famous stories about George Washington, including one about a cherry tree and another about a silver dollar, that were written in the 1800s after his death. The cherry tree legend, by Parson Weems (an Episcopal priest!), appeared in a book written to inspire children to emulate the virtues of the great general and first President. Telling the truth at all times is an important rule of life, and if it is modeled by people we already admire, so much the better. The act of throwing a silver dollar (which didn’t even exist during his lifetime) across the Potomac comes to us from George Washington's grandson. A heroic man should have heroic powers, even beyond those of ordinary men, shouldn’t he?

It should be no surprise, then, that people sought out stories about the boy Jesus. Many of them circulated among Christians in the earliest days, but the vast majority died out because they were not true and did not add anything to Christians’ faith.

The ones that remain do serve such a purpose. The three magi represent the recognition of the non-Jewish world that Jesus was come to save the entire world. The actions of Herod reminded Christians of the opposition of the powers-that-be to the life and ministry of Jesus. Parts of Matthew’s account are related to Jewish prophesies: that the Messiah would come from Egypt and would be a Nazorean (although this may be a confusion with the similar word, “Nazorite” – a man set apart, like Samson, for a life dedicated to God). Luke’s childhood picture of Jesus in the Temple emphasizes that he was quickly growing into his responsibility of preaching and teaching.

The little that we know for certain about the childhood and early life of Jesus of Nazareth is a gift to us from God. We have no right to know these things, and wishing that we knew more will not make it so. During these twelve days of Christmas, we direct our thoughts to the ways in which Jesus is like us, and different from us. According to the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE, Jesus is “true God and true man.” (BCP, pg 364) He was born like any human baby; he grew up under the loving guidance of his parents, and he turned into the man who changed the world. But he was also the eternal Word of God, who existed before all things, who was not created by God, but who has lived with God the Father as part of the Holy Trinity for all eternity. (John 1:1-3)

It really makes no difference to our faith how Jesus lived as a boy, and we don’t need to know the details. In spite of our human nature and desire to know everything, we have all the information that is necessary in order to do what Jesus asked of us: to live as members of the Kingdom of God, to reconcile all people to God and to one another.

[NOTE: I received a comment on my last post which I decided not to allow. The purpose of this blog is to inspire and help people grow in their faith. I am well aware that others have different ideas about what is the true faith and how the Bible should be understood and interpreted, and I respect their beliefs and their right to hold them. However, this is not the place for them to present those ideas.]