Lost and Found

Luke 2:41-52

Today we have many parents with their babies, we are welcoming them in our midst. As I was looking to the passages after Christmas, I found Luke Chapter 2 ends with the life of Jesus when he was a boy. I thought this could be an important passage to share with you this morning

Have you seen “Hone alone” movie. It is funny and entertaining, also it has a message to all families who in rush. During Christmas vacation the family was running to catch a plane to go to vacation. In the process of rush they forget their little child at home. Rest is I leave it to your imagination. Poor little boy ends up alone in a big home where adventuress life was waiting for him.

I don’t think parents intentionally leave their children alone. But it does happen when we are rushed or occupied or some kind of accidental event occurred. Once our family was in Frankfurt airport waiting for the next flight. Azad was two or three? We were walking together, suddenly he disappeared. You should see us, we were running around shouting in loud voice, Azad, Azad. Finally we found him after 6-7 min. Now you should see our face expressions when we lost him. Our heart beat was fast and our anxiety level went up.

It was the similar situation when Jesus’ parent lost him. After birth of Jesus, Joseph took the family to Egypt for security reasons, after the return from Egypt they settled in Nazareth Mary’s hometown (Matthew 2:22-23) Luke continues from here. We do not have all the details of childhood of Jesus, but verse 40 is important: “And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.”

After this the events which is written is about Passover time. The custom was that the family went to Jerusalem for the feast. What do we find in the passage:

1. We find Joseph and Marry a normal family. The scripture introduce us a normal family.

We do not a lot of writings about the family life of Jesus. But verse 40 indicates that the parents did their best to raise child Jesus, physically, mentally and spiritually. What I mean Jesus lived a normal young boy, with a parent who did take care of him. Therefore loosing Jesus does not indicate negligence from the part of the family. Please realize that those days the families traveled in caravans. Usually women and children left earlier setting the pace, then men followed the caravans. Now on their way back and after traveling one day, they realize Jesus was not with them. We don’t know how he was lost, maybe each parent have assumed that Jesus was with the other?

We can loose our loved one in the rush or in the feast time. Just a notice (warning)to all of our parents, watch out, maybe we are trying to do the best thing for our child, but in our rush we can lose them.

You should see our faces when we lost Azad. Luke also describe Jesus parent’s nightmare. The text does not indicate if it took were looking for Jesus for three days. (One day caravan, one day going back, the next day looking for him). But once they found him the words of Marry were interesting, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you."”(48)

Any parent will have this anxiety attack. I fiend that Jesus parents were handling the situation quiet well. Instead of shouting and screaming they said what they have on their heart. Jesus on the other hand is surprised. His statement is very important which we will discuss in the English sermon.