After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions (Luke 2:46)

On Monday night we gathered to greet the newborn Christ. Here he is now, about twelve years old. They grow up so fast, don’t they? We do seem to have missed out an awful lot. Not that that’s stopped people filling bits in. Those of you who’ve had children: did you ever sing “Away In A Manger”, get to that line that goes , “But little Lord Jesus no crying he makes” and think, “Why couldn’t I have had one of those?” Turn to Hymn 315: “Once In Royal David’s City”. You’ll have sung that lots of times from the old hymn book. Do you notice there’s a couple of verses missing? In particular, “And through all his wondrous childhood he would honour and obey, love and watch the lowly maiden in whose gentle arms he lay. Christian children all must be mild, obedient, good as he.”

How would we know what Jesus was like when he was little? What makes us think his childhood was wondrous? We’re just back-projecting an understanding of Jesus onto a part of his life we know nothing about. We wouldn’t be the first. In the second century a whole bunch of stories circulated about the childhood of Christ - some of which didn’t present him in a favourable light at all. We are, perhaps, safest in thinking that Jesus’s childhood was pretty much like any other child. Especially if we compare the way Luke ends his telling of this story with the end of the reading from Samuel which basically says that they both just grew up; that during his childhood Jesus was nothing extraordinary.

If you were here on Watchnight, though, you may remember I said that something remarkable about humanity, and about God’s dealings with us as his creation, is our capacity to be ordinary and extraordinary at the same time; to be part of the crowd but also unique and special at the same time. I don’t know - maybe that reflects Christ’s incarnation and his being both Son of God and Son of Man at the same time. Maybe it doesn’t. I’m just wondering aloud. And that’s perhaps more important.

I started by talking about our tendency to back-project our understanding of Christ onto his early years and that often happens with this story of the young Jesus in the Temple. When I’m preparing services there’s a website I use that suggests artwork associated with the readings and it’s remarkable how many of the paintings of this story have Jesus in the middle of the Elders, his finger raised in a gesture of teaching, as if the Elders are learning from him. Now that would be something, wouldn’t it? Maybe not on the level of bringing birds made of clay to life, but pretty impressive.

But that’s not what Luke says. He says that Jesus was asking them questions. He was learning from them. Sure, he showed a very sound understanding - one that they were amazed by - but let’s be clear: Jesus is asking questions. Not because he’s testing the Elders, “You at the back there! Explain the significance of the four bulls under the basin in Solomon’s Temple”, but because he wants to learn as much as he can from them. He wants to understand as much as he can. He’s going to soak it all up and in the years to come it will be the bedrock on which he builds his teaching.

Here’s the thing though. He’s eleven, maybe twelve years old. I work with kids that age all the time and that’s what they’re like - at least most of them. Some of the best lessons I’ve had have been with kids of that age where I’ve just abandoned the lesson plan because there has been question after question, “Wait a minute! If that’s the case, then why does that happen?” “If energy can’t be created, where does it come from?” Maybe I’m back-projecting now, but I imagine that if I’d been among the teachers in the Temple and some twelve year old kid was asking all these questions I’d have found it quite exhilarating.

It doesn’t last, though. By the time they get to be fifteen adolescence has set in and most kids would rather have their eyeteeth pulled without anaesthetic than ask a question. Or answer one. All that’s over and we’re into grumpy teenager. Any of you have one of them? Were you one? The thing is, we’re all past that stage now. Here’s a thing, though: in our reading from Colossians, Paul encourages them to ‘admonish each other in all wisdom’ - they are supposed to be sharing their insights in the faith with each other. 

Is that what we do? When we gather here, in our Father’s house, do we share our insights in faith with each other? All my life I have been an educator and there’s a bit of me that feels a tension between this calling I have to preach the Gospel here in this place and the calling I have as a teacher and it comes to this: I never ask if there are any questions. We’re supposed to have questions. We gather here in the presence of God - a God we will never understand fully. He’s way too big and not like us for us to fully understand. We use terms like ‘omniscient’ and ‘eternal’ and ‘omnipotent’ to try to understand him but, truth to tell, they simply open up more questions than they answer - or ought to.

That is, after all, why God came to us in Christ; why he shared the life of a human being like us; to get us started in understanding him. To offer us metaphors that can help us understand the relationship he wants with us -  the relationship between a loving father and his children. To help us understand the relationship he wants us to have with one another - as brothers and sisters who look after one another. To offer us the prospect of eternal life with him -  a life that goes way beyond this one where we so often get distracted by shiny things.

But this is a beginning. We gather in the presence of God - a God so big and brilliant that we will never fully understand him in this life. But that shouldn’t stop us trying. We are in our Father’s house. Here we can open our hearts to God and if that means opening up to him about the stuff we just don’t get, that’s fine. Do you think God will go, “Sure, I’m willing to forgive murder, but if you can’t get your head around the concept of the Trinity then you’re so off my Christmas card list”? Do we think God so petty?

We are in our Father’s house. Do you have doubts? That’s OK! Everyone does - that’s part of being human. Speak them aloud and ask. Are there bits of Christian doctrine you don’t get? That’s OK! There are bits I don’t get. Speak them aloud and ask. There may even be times when I’m preaching when you don’t agree with what I’ve said. Even that’s OK. Speak those disagreements aloud and ask. That’s how we learn.

Faith isn’t certainty. It’s trust. Trust that God will bring us home to him if we look to Christ to guide us on the way. It’s the trust that our Father will not let us go. That is the trust of a child; the kind of child Jesus was when he sat in the Temple asking questions, wanting to learn, wanting to grow in wisdom. If we are the body of Christ; if we really do love one another and have faith in the love of God, then let’s be more like a twelve year old child than a sullen adolescent.

Lord, you are always there for us. We may bring our doubts and you love usthrough them. We may bring our uncertainties and we may lean on you. We may bring our failures and you forgive them