In the name of God: for whom we seek, through whom we are found. Amen.
Christmas Day has passed. We are still in the Christmas season – that doesn’t end until after today. Today is the 12th day of Christmas. Tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany. But it seems like most people in our orbits just cast Christmas aside with the torn wrapping paper – maybe even before December 25th is even over. “That’s done. Move on. Throw it away.”
Michael and I were horrified to learn that all of the many Christmas music stations that we listen to on satellite radio in our cars had reverted back to their pre-Christmas formats by December 26th. While we’ll keep our Christmas decorations up here in the church through next Sunday – the First Sunday after the Epiphany, and the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus – there are established traditions in the church of keeping Christmas decorations up much longer than that. It would be perfectly acceptable and in line with our tradition to keep decorations up until Candlemas, in February. In our house, we’ve been known to go even longer.
And though we don’t always get two Sundays in the Christmas Season, this year we do. The folks who designed the lectionary – our regular cycle of readings for each Sunday – they made all kinds of options available for us to use today. One option was that first chapter of John again. But not only did we read that last Sunday, but it was also read on Christmas Day. I think we’re good on that one for now. Another option is the passage from Matthew about the wise strangers from the East who came to honor Jesus and to present him with gifts. To me, though, that seems to jump the gun on Epiphany. Though most of us probably won’t be in church tomorrow, it’s not yet Epiphany, so to my mind, it didn’t make sense to read about that today.
So, the option that made the most sense to me was this one that we read today. The story of a pre-teen Jesus getting left behind after his family had left the festival in Jerusalem. In fact, it’s sort of hard for us to imagine, probably, but he’d been missing for a whole day before they even noticed – three days went by before they finally found him. But when they did find him, they found him in the Temple, sitting with the learned leaders, listening to them and asking them questions. Jesus had spent the time learning about the faith that he was born into – the faith that he would eventually revolutionize and lead.
The common thread – through Mary and Jospeh noticing the missing child and looking for him, through Jesus’ learning and questioning, even through the teachers in the Temple wondering at his insight – the common thread is searching. They were all searching in their own ways. For their “lost” child. For the wisdom of the elders. For deeper understandings of God. Everyone was searching in one way or another.
That’s a part of the vocation of a person of faith that I think most of us can relate to – that searching. If you’re not the kind of person who sees Christmas as something disposable, to be tossed aside as soon as the moment has passed, then you probably already know that as Christians, we’re called to always be growing more deeply into our faith. And that growth almost always involves some measure of searching.
I’m reminded of the great old movie, Forrest Gump. Later in Forrest’s life, after his mother has died and after his success in the shrimp business has been established, Forrest is finally on the edge of embracing his true dream – to be with his beloved Jenny. She’s returned to Greenbow, Alabama and is staying with Forrest in his family home.
They live a quiet life together: eating, watching television, dancing. He helps her try to heal from the trauma and abuse she suffered in childhood. But when Forrest confronts Jenny about his love for her, and proposes marriage, she gets cold feet again, and she runs away again. After a lifetime of searching, when faced with the stability and security and unconditional love that Forrest offers, she still seems unsure.
In the next scene Forrest begins a search of his own. Not for Jenny, but for clarity in his own mind. Throughout his life he had found clarity and security and even fame and fortune in running.
As he put it: he ran to the end of the driveway, and when he got there, he thought he might as well run to the end of the street. Once he got there he decided to run to the end of the town. And then the county. And then the state. Before long he was on an epic journey running back and forth across the country.
People began following him. Though he rarely spoke, and even when he did it was with only a few words, the people were somehow inspired by him. But he didn’t run to inspire others. He ran because it was his way of searching his soul.
I think that’s what this season of Christmas is meant to be for most of us. As we sat with the season of preparation for Christmas, and then as we sit now with the season itself, we search our own souls for a way forward. How do we live in a world with God walking among us? How do we live in a world where we’re constantly searching, but where the answers are already right in front of us? How do we live with a truer awareness of the deep, unconditional love that is already being given to us, but that we only rarely recognize or accept?
Though we’re not reading them today, the other options for today’s readings really also point in the same direction. They focus us on the importance of the search.
The Wise Ones were searching for affirmation of the mystical signs of divinity that they’d seen in the stars. The opening words of John remind us that through our call to keep searching for a deeper relationship with God, that God is already and always was right here with us, from the very-most beginning of all that is.
Our culture doesn’t honor the search so much as it does the catch. That’s why Christmas is so easily forgotten: the anticipation ended; the gifts were opened; everything else is left behind as waste.
But the culture of our faith invites us to see our experiences of the world and our relationships with each other and with God in deeper ways. The culture of our faith invites us to value the search more than the catch – because whatever we catch is almost always a mirage. The real gifts of our faith can’t be wrapped in a box and held under a tree. The real gifts become realized through living with them.
That’s why we keep reading these stories year after year. That’s why we keep honoring these observances and celebrating these festivals year after year. Because the gift grows with us. God’s gifts can’t be contained, because they’re always meeting us wherever we go and however we grow.
So, keep searching.
Keep searching for new ways of living God’s love in the midst of the
people God sets in your path. Keep
searching for new ways of understanding God’s love in the midst of all the new
experiences and understandings that God sets in your path. Keep searching because the gift keeps
growing. Keep searching, because we
keep growing, too. Amen.
Comments