The Ultimate Gift

This was my sermon for December 30 at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, NC.

⁴¹Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. ⁴²And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. ⁴³When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. ⁴⁴Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. ⁴⁵When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. ⁴⁶After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. ⁴⁸When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” ⁴⁹He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s domain?” ⁵⁰But they did not understand what he said to them. ⁵¹Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. ⁵²And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

Luke 2: 41-52

One of my favorite shows lately is “Little Mosque”- the story of a growing Muslim community in a very small Canadian town where a small protestant church, about the same size as Westminster, has opened its doors and converted their fellowship hall into a mosque.  Each episode chronicles the struggles, both humorous and serious, of the community as people of many beliefs come together.  One of my favorite episodes deals with a wedding gift for a young Muslim couple that no one knows anything about.  The young couple goes to everyone they know and talks about how wonderful this gift is and how they can’t wait to use it, hoping to trick their friends into actually saying what it is used for.  After a long day of “research” they find out that the family member who sent the gift to them actually re-gifted because they had no idea what it was for.  We have all been there at some point, trying to figure out why we were given something or what its function is.  About ten years ago our family was given a very pretty and interesting plate shaped like a flower- huge purple petals, yellow center, and green leaves.  There was no denying that it was a pretty plate but there was also no denying that it matched absolutely nothing in our house.  Mom tucked it away in a cabinet for us to see again and again over the next five years, always wondering if we had any use for it yet.  It finally found a new home where it was loved in a white elephant gift exchange.  Maybe some of us are struggling with that now as we try to find the right place to put that “wonderful” gift from your co-worker where you can confidently say that you set it out right away while only you know that it was strategically placed behind a few things.

            I wouldn’t be surprised if people felt the same way about Jesus when he was born- all of this excitement and traveling and for what?  Mary was told that her son was the son of God, however I am sure that did not make the labor process any easier.  Joseph probably had high expectations for this kid, maybe expecting him to be born and immediately pick up a hammer and work beside Joseph.  Shepherds were called to by angels and went immediately to see this precious child, and all he did was lay there in the manger and probably cry.  The animals saw this baby in their food and doing nothing but knew that for some reason, even though it wasn’t terribly visible at the time, this was ok.  This child is the son of God, but he looks like a normal baby!  

            Thankfully, Luke doesn’t take long to get to the point and almost immediately we find the twelve-year old Jesus in the temple.  It is left to our imaginations what happens in the twelve years that have passed but I can only imagine that Jesus had his fun and caused his own amount of trouble just like any other kid.  I’m sure Mary and Joseph wanted to wring his neck after the third time he came running through the house with muddy feet and he probably didn’t always go to bed when he was told to.  However, that is not important.  What is important is what we find in today’s New Testament reading.

            In today’s text we find what is supposed to be the role model family as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus travel to Jerusalem to observe Passover according to the Torah just as they always do.  Everything seems to have gone smoothly until the return- Jesus is missing.  Now, remembering that Jesus is only twelve and thinking about our own children both at home and at the church we can probably understand why Mary and Joseph thought little of his disappearance at first, figuring that he was with some other travelers in the crowd.  However after a few days have passed they realize that something wrong and they return to Jerusalem, probably wishing they had given Jesus that Camel Phone he had asked for on his last birthday.  The fun begins when they finally reach Jerusalem a few days later and find a completely unphased Jesus in the temple and acting quite unlike most twelve year old boys today- he is sitting with and asking questions of the teachers and my guess is it must be a pretty great conversation if they aren’t shooing him away as if he was any other twelve year old boy. 

Now, I don’t have children but I do have nieces who can be very troublesome, so I can almost understand how Mary probably felt when she found him- and it wasn’t the warm fuzzy feeling that her son was the Child of God.  Right away she asks her son why he has put his father and herself through all of this and making them sick with worry.  This is when we find Jesus’ very first words in the Gospel so of course they carry a whole lot of meaning- the young Jesus asks his mother why they even looked for him, that surely they knew he would be in his Father’s domain.  While Jesus may not necessarily be referring directly to the building of the temple itself but rather among the activity and people of his Father, it is very interesting and important to note that the temple served as the center for Israelite life all the way back to the time of Samuel when the temple was finally built in a permanent location.  Jesus’ response is a loaded response if I ever heard one- not only was he not concerned, but he cancelled out Joseph as his father.  Here we find what one commentator refers to as Jesus’ “precocious understanding of himself” not as the son of Mary and Joseph, but rather as the Son of God.  This is probably the first time that Mary has thought of her special gift in a very long time.  This is when we see that the angels were right in all that they told the Shepherds in the field- that baby in the manger wasn’t just any other baby and gift from God, he was THE baby and the ULTIMATE gift from God.  Jesus’ twelve year old escapades bring that to the surface for the first time, and from here on out we are never given the opportunity in the Gospel to forget it.  

One of my favorite movies to watch this time of year is “The Ultimate Gift”, based on the novel by Jim Stovall.  This movie tells the story of a young man named Jason, probably in his late twenties, who has always had everything handed to him on a silver platter and never wanted for anything.  His grandfather has recently passed away and has supposedly left Jason a gift, only he has to complete a series of tasks to receive this gift.  At the end of a very long twelve months Jason has completed the twelve tasks set out by his late Grandfather and has consequently received a series of immaterial gifts such as friendship and hard work.  In the end, Jason also receives just a few billion dollars to use in a way that gives these same gifts to others and is appropriately called “The Ultimate Gift”.  I have recently read the sequel to this book and movie, “The Ultimate Life” in which Jason is taken to court by his very jealous and greedy family.  In order to keep control of the Ultimate Gift, Jason must once again prove that he did truly learn his lesson from each task and can pass the lesson and gift on to others.  Throughout the year-long trial, Jason not only passes the gifts onto others, but must keep continue to remember the words of his grandfather as he gave each gift to him through a series of videos, as well as all that he experienced first hand as he received them.

Jason is not terribly unlike Mary who, having been reminded that Jesus is God’s Son, has to remember all that she was told and saw when she conceived her son and gave birth.  From this point on, she will continue to raise Jesus with her husband Joseph, but they have been reminded and Jesus is obviously very aware that there are far greater things waiting for him beyond working next to Joseph in the woodshop.  As much as Mary has likely enjoyed her time with her son as they celebrated birthdays, enjoyed family dinners, went to temple, and were simply a family she must now take the time to remember a much greater layer that exists in her little boy and begin to allow that layer to come to surface for the rest of the world to see.

Jesus’ time in the temple is only the first of many, many occasions in which he begins to show his family and the world the way in which we should live.  Jesus has laid the first of many, many stepping stones and it is up to not just Mary, but to all of us to remember the promises that came before and all that comes after in a way that doesn’t just live in our minds, but rather in our hearts and most importantly our actions.

This past Tuesday many of us gathered with our families and friends to celebrate a very joyous holiday.  Presents were given and received, food was consumed, and laughs were shared.  We may not have known what to do with some of our gifts or maybe we did and just didn’t quite see why it was given to us.  The what is not the point though, but rather the how.  The gifts that we received over this past week were given with love, in hopes that they would bring a smile to our face and joy to our heart and show us how much our friends and family care for us.  Just as the friend sent the mysterious gift to the young couple in “Little Mosque” to recognize their engagement and celebrate with them, and just as our family friend gave us a very pretty plate for Christmas to show us that they remembered us and were thinking of us, God gave Mary and the whole world his one and only Son to remind us that God is with us always and to give us a new way to hear God’s word in our lives.  The fact that Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Luke relate him as the Son of God is not anything to take lightly- this is a reminder of the true gift that the little baby in the manger was, and all that he will one day be.

Beginning in the temple and continuing throughout the rest of his life, Jesus laid out a path for us to follow- a path that showed us how to share the love of God through the way that we live our lives, a way that doesn’t just reach into our own lives but into the lives of those that are around us.  When Jason’s grandfather left him “the ultimate gift” it wasn’t so that he alone would learn these twelve important life lessons, but so that he could share them with the world.

Jesus started his journey as the true ultimate gift by sitting with the teachers in the temple and asking them questions.  We can start our journey by reaching out to our neighbors, family, and friends with the love of God and Christmas joy in our hearts.  Maybe we simply need to give them a hug or maybe it includes spending an afternoon at a soup kitchen.  For others it might be sending a card just to say that you are thinking of them.  

Jesus was given to the world as the one and only, true ultimate gift.  He isn’t the kind of gift that gets put on the shelf to be admired from afar and only brought down to be dusted.  He definitely doesn’t belong in a kitchen cabinet until we find a use for him.  Jesus is the gift that gets carried around with us everywhere we go, just as young children carry around their favorite Christmas presents to show off to any and everyone that they meet in the coming days.

It turns out there really was a reason for the shepherds to come to the stable, for the animals to relinquish their food, and for Mary to go through the pain of childbirth.  Sure, Jesus may have appeared to be like any other baby at first but there was so much more to come and even after he reminds his earthly parents of his purpose, even Jesus recognizes that he has some growing to do and returns home with Mary and Joseph and the text says, “Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”