Sermon from Dec. 30th's "Carol and Reading Service": as it was a terrible snow day here!

Today we have continued the Christmas story begun last week through the Christmas concert and reiterated on Christmas Eve.  We follow the Holy family in the days following Jesus’ birth.

We have insight it to the rituals practiced, the dedication and blessing of a new life, the blessing of others for the baby as the baby will grow in years.

So far the reading has gone along, in a systematic way, crafting a story from the highlights.

But now there is a gap...the sermon fills the gap as the Gospel for today continues with Jesus all of sudden being 12 years old, and then followed again by a large gap where we catch up with Jesus around the age of 30 being baptized by John the Baptist.

So, where did all that time go?

Imagine, if you will, yourself as a lad growing up in Nazareth a few doors down from Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter (a.k.a Mary and Joseph).  You are the same age as their son Jesus. 

Jesus is your playmate: you play toss the loom weight, outshoot each other with slingshots, and at festivals dance the hora.  Jesus is in your Hebrew class at the synagogue.  Your mothers send you to the market, where between you, you save enough shekels to buy candied figs.  You hang out on the wall at the edge of the community watching caravans and travellers come through, gathering tidbits of gossip.

Your dad, you, along with Mr. Carpenter and Jesus sit together in the synagogue. You talk and learn together.

You and Jesus are given guidance, wisdom, and correction from the neighbours on the street, around family dinner tables.

There are times when your mother says, “Can’t you be more like Jesus?” Others when perhaps she says “no” to going and hanging with the wild neighbour boy.

This morning I suggest that we hear nothing about Jesus for 12 years because his life, his childhood, was absolutely normal.  There was nothing to distinguish him from the other boys his age in Nazareth.  In fact, it was so normal that the locals forgot the mysterious circumstances and stories around his birth.  Jesus was a regular guy, like every other human being.  His family and community taught him the rituals of being a Jew, the stories and prayers of the faith, and the psalms to sing.  Someone taught him to talk, to read Hebrew, to debate, to formulate parables.  Someone cleaned him up when he was dirty, disciplined him when necessary, looked after him when he was sick.  The community through action taught morals, ethics, and the interpretation of religion, society, and politics.  Humans demonstrated the manners and etiquette Jesus adopted.    Without the Jewish community in Nazareth and his family Jesus would not have grown up to be who he became.

This is important for us today.  If there was nothing to distinguish Jesus in childhood –with only one highlight until the age of 30 – who’s to say who is in our midst today.  Who are we bringing up and influencing?  Who is learning from us? What are we demonstrating and teaching through the way we live?

Could it be that in our midst the Christ returns again and again?

God could come in human form whenever God would choose to do so.  And think of the innocents God has placed in the world to be taught and formed by mere human beings...us.  The potential in the people around us is astounding and God put the potential there, but it needs help, direction to grow. 

Think of the patriarchs of the faith: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob...what about Noah, Moses, Hannah, Deborah, Mary.

Think about the prophets, Isaiah, Elijah, John the Baptist...what about the Apostles, Paul.  They grew up the way they did and became who they were by the human tutoring of those around them.

As we enter a New Year, I invite you to consider who is in our midst. Who becomes all God created them to be because we have taken the time to grow the incarnate, Emmanuel –God-with-us.

Facing the world and particularly other human faces with the knowledge of Emmanuel being present will change how we love, teach, and live.

Those who are on skid row, on the street, in prison, committing suicide, bullying, causing war, are abusive... the community, family, friends, human beings –have failed to grow the incarnate; have failed to see Emmanuel, God-with-us in that person.  They may never become who God created them to be and the world will be a sadder place because of it.

So go and grow the incarnate, with the same innate gifts that raised Jesus to be the man, to be the divinity, that he became.