Jeremiah 31:7 – 14 / Psalm 84:1 – 8 / Luke 2:41 – 52
This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, January 2, 2022.
“THE (HUMAN) NATURE OF THE LORD’S FIRST COMING”
(Homily
text: Luke 2:41 – 52)
(Introductory
note: It isn’t every liturgical year
that we are able to observe a Second Sunday after Christmas Day. This is due to
the day of the week that Christmas falls on in any given year. This year, then,
is a bit unusual in that respect. But, in addition, there are three options for
the Gospel text that may be used on this Sunday. This year, I’ve chosen to make
use of Luke’s account of the boy Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem at age
twelve. This is material that Luke, alone, makes available to us.)
What
if God, when God decided to intervene in human affairs by sending His only Son
to take on our humanity in the person of Jesus, were to decide to send Him in
His first coming among us with power, great glory, and with signs and wonders
in the heavens? In other words, what if the Christ, God’s Son, the second
person of the Holy Trinity, were to come in such a way that there would be no
mistaking His identity and His purpose in coming? I guess what I’m proposing
for our consideration is some sort of a cosmic arrival.
If
we think about it, that sort of cosmic, with signs in the heavens sort of a
coming, is the stuff of one of the themes of the season of Advent. For in the
season of Advent, we hold in mind the reality that God will, in God’s own good
time and in the manner of God’s own choosing, send Jesus Christ again with
power and great glory, with unmistakable signs of His arrival and His identity. This coming again is generally known as the
Second Coming.
But
in Advent, we also prepare ourselves for our Lord’s First Coming, that coming
that began in humble circumstances, in the birth of a Jewish boy born to poor
parents in an out-of-the-way place in a small part of the Roman Empire, in
Judea. That first coming began quietly, noticed by only a few. The coming of
God’s only Son began in humility, in vulnerability.
In
Luke’s wonderful account of the boy Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem, we get a
glimpse, a rare glimpse of the time between Jesus’ birth, His early childhood
in Egypt (drawing on Matthew’s account), and the beginning of His earthly
ministry, which began (Luke tells us) when He was about thirty years old.[1]
What
are we to make of this account? What does the interchange between Jesus, as a
twelve-year old boy, and his teachers in the Temple, tell us about Him?
We
see a boy who is well-schooled in the Torah, the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus had,
apparently, been well-tutored during His growing-up years.
We
see a natural aptitude for the things of God, a highly intelligent boy.
We
see a boy who, when His earthly parents finally found Him in the Temple,
submitted Himself to their parental authority.
We
see a boy who grew up, one who didn’t come among us with all the godly
attributes that His divine origin would indicate, but one who grew, matured and
developed as any other child would.
In
other words, we see God’s Son coming among us, marked with all the normal
attributes and characteristics of a human being. God’s only Son had come and
had assumed our human nature completely and fully.
Isn’t
it comforting to know that this world, and the people of this world, are
important enough to God for God to honor our human condition and our place in
this world, that God would dive into all of our humanity and our place in the
created order? Put another way, the world that God created, that world which
God continues to sustain, and the people whom God has deliberately created,
matter greatly to God. All of this matters.
Sometimes,
it strikes me that we lose sight of the importance of this world and the people
in it. We get wound up in our problems and in our challenges. (Make no mistake,
the age in which we live is composed of more than enough of problems and
challenges.) But if we can cast our gaze on the boy Jesus and hold in mind the
fact that God sent this human being to take up our humanity in the person of
Jesus, then we might also be able to lift our eyes heavenward to realize that
this Jesus is God’s direct gift of Himself to this world and to those in the
world.
God
often moves quietly, unnoticed, perhaps, except for those few whose eyes are
looking for signs of God’s movement, God’s purpose, and God’s love for the
world. May we, through the power of the Holy Spirit, be looking for God’s
movement in the world about us, and in the people who live in this world.
AMEN.
[1] See Luke 4:23.
