Where Did the Baby Go?

Where Did the Baby Go?

Luke 2:41-52

If only babies would stay babies…don’t you want to ask that question sometimes?

If only puppies and kittens would never grow up.

Yeah, right.

Do you suppose Christmas is prone to this kind of thinking too?

If is possible that we want to keep Jesus in the Bethlehem manger rather than face the reality of him as a grown up?

I sure do. We say at our house that Christmas is visible in the magic that unfolds when the young ones unwrap their gifts, and we get see the expressions of joy on their faces and the glee in their voices.

In fact we have a young one who is 32 and still brings that kind of moment to our Christmas mornings. We hope she never grows out of that.

And yet…

While celebrating Christmas day will always hold that special flavor, when it comes to honoring the One whose birthday it is, let’s face it…it’s not his birthday that has kept the Christian faith alive; it’s his life, death and resurrection that lay the foundation of our faith tradition.

The history of Christianity isn’t based on a story about his birth; rather it exists in the stories that surround his teaching, preaching and healing, and probably most notably his death and resurrection – the event that got his first followers in no small amount of trouble.

His impact on the world has not had much to do with being born in a barn, really. His impact is about the justice, mercy and grace he brought to life in his life, the way he lived as he interpreted the law and prophets in his time; and, like it or not, his impact is due somewhat to the controversy, the conflict that followed closely behind him. That began if you remember, even as a baby when Herod decided that all Hebrew male children under the age of two should die so that none could threaten to take the throne from his own family line. That’s what is called a stormy beginning.

So I think Luke wastes no time in telling us that to keep him in the manger too long is to miss the whole point of his life.

However holy is the night on which Christ was born, if that’s where our faith begins and ends, we have made that night an idol.

So what does this mean for us?

I think it has something to do with the church being the body of Christ – the incarnation of his life in our time and place.

· Even as God entered into the human condition in Jesus Christ, so can the church put human skin on justice and mercy and grace in society, everywhere we can go, from across the parking lot to across the world.

· Even as the teachers in the Temple taught and listened, interacting with Jesus to shape his wisdom tradition, so can the church be a place that recognizes the importance of learning for all who come to the faith communities for study, for support, for spiritual nurture; the church ought to be the best there is at teaching character and morality – bringing the ethical dimension into every facet of our culture – business, politics, education.

· Even as Joseph and Mary raised their son under the influence of the Temple, so can the church share the responsibility for parenting - not only those who live under our roof at home, but the children of all who happen to worship under this roof. Every time we baptize a child we promise to do that. The churches in our land ought to be the most supportive environments available in our communities for helping parents cope with raising children.

· And even as Jesus taught us to love all people, not merely our friends, so can the church deliver God’s love in the world so that all can know the meaning of grace where it is needed most – in the lives of those who - like us – don’t appear to deserve it.

Where did the baby go? The baby became the embodiment of God’s unconditional love for sinners. And that’s some of us all the time, and all of us some of the time.

Jesus would not have made it in the Cell phone business. He became the savior not because he was savior for friends and family; he became savior because his life was the light of all people.

Where did the baby go? He grew up to be us – the body of Christ in the world today.