The Baby Grew Up

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The Baby Grew Up

Luke 2:52

· Sermon,Growth,Children

Here we are just 2 days past Christmas day, and the lectionary gives us this text about Jesus as a boy. We go from baby in a manger to gangly teenager in just a blink. Yes, it’s still Christmas—we have 10 more days in the 12 days of Christmas before the magi arrive and we talk about stars again. That’s what’s odd about the lectionary and biblical timing. Sometimes, the stories get shuffled around. But it’s so rare that we get to talk about these verses, about Jesus as a boy and as a teenager that I just had follow the lectionary and talk about it today.

Mary, Joseph and Jesus were a faithful Jewish family. On the 8th day of his life, Jesus was circumcised, named, and presented in the temple. He was blessed by Simeon, blessed by Anna, and the family settles back in their home town of Nazareth where Jesus would grow up.

I’m more than slightly disappointed that none of the Gospel writers chose to talk much about Jesus as a child. Did he show signs of who he would become? Was he a prodigy? Did he really argue with the Rabbis? What did he know about his own birth? We know that his family went to Jerusalem every year for the celebration of Passover. And in the scripture from today, Jesus plays hooky from the caravan and hangs out with the rabbis in the temple. But the words that I really want to focus on today are these last ones—this last verse from today’s reading. There are many ways of translating it, but here’s the version I like best:

Jesus grew in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and humanity.

That’s it. That’s the only verse in the entirety of the bible that tells us how this child grew up. This is the only insight we get into a childhood that created the man we celebrate and revere.

Christopher Moore, in his book Lamb, spends a great deal of time imagining Jesus as a child and as a teenager and as a twenty-something. This funny, yet somewhat irreverent, take on those missing years tries to fill in the blanks. He describes six year old Jesus this way:
“The first time I saw the man who would save the world he was sitting near the central well in Nazareth with a lizard hanging out of his mouth. Just the tail end and the hind legs were visible on the outside; the head and forelegs were halfway down the hatch. He was six, like me, and his beard had not come in fully, so he didn’t look much like the pictures you’ve seen of him. His eyes were like dark honey, and they smiled at me out of a mop of blue-black curls that framed his face. There was a light older than Moses in those eyes”

It's fun to speculate about Jesus as a kid, but we just don't know. 

The boy Jesus goes on to resurrect that lizard several times much to his younger brother’s delight. I love this image of Jesus—mischievous, playful, and childlike. I imagine him playing games with his friends, coming home late for dinner, and being normal kid. And I wonder—did he resurrect childhood pets? Did he mess with his friends by changing their lunch box water into juice? It’s fun to speculate about Jesus as a kid, but we just don’t know. All we are told is this:

Jesus grew in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and humanity.

So what would that have looked like, and what implications does it have for us?

He did more than just learn facts and letters, he gained wisdom.

Jesus grew in wisdom. Jesus likely had some form of religious education in Nazareth. He probably grew up speaking Greek, or possibly Aramaic. At some point he was old enough to learn to read Torah, as evidenced by his visit in the temple we read about today. He would have studied the prophets, and probably would have read the verses in Isaiah that point to his arrival (whether or not he knew what was coming) And we know that he likely apprenticed under Joseph, and learned the trade of carpentry studying to follow in his father’s footsteps. And I’m sure he gleaned wisdom from his mother, Mary and from the many people in his community. These experiences would shape him as an adult. But he did more than just learn facts and letters, he gained wisdom. Probably through arguing with the Rabbis, interacting with neighbors and friends, or observing how his parents reacted to situations, or through his own interactions he grew into a wise young man.

Jesus grew in stature. To some extent that just means he grew in inches and in years. He physically grew up. This in itself was probably quite a feat. During this time period child mortality was high- ¼ of children died during their first year and 1/2 didn’t make it to 10 years old.[1] So the fact that Jesus made it to his teenage years was cause for celebration. It’s also likely that based on his apprenticeship with Joseph that he was fairly strong, and was probably fit. Children in this time were expected to take part in household tasks or engage in work to contribute to their family’s survival. This was also a time where people walked everywhere they went, and there wasn’t a great variety of foods available, so he was likely thin. I can’t help but imagine a teenage Jesus eating everything in sight or sneaking food in the middle of the night. Again, I wonder if he got some early practice on that loaves and fishes trick. So, the boy grew up.

Jesus grew in favor with God. Again, probably largely due to his Jewish upbringing, Jesus was developing an understanding of and perhaps a relationship with God. This would have been in the context of being a faithful Jew—traveling to Jerusalem for Passover, keeping the Sabbath, and trying to fulfill the commandments in the Torah. He was probably not any more pious than the average Jewish teenager, but he did participate in rituals and festivals. Being religious wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary for Jesus, not as a child and not as an adult, and growing in favor with God really means having an active religious life—and Jesus certainly would have had one.

Jesus grew in favor with humanity. Many of the above commandments in the Torah would have led Jesus to be good to people—this included things like helping neighbors, giving to charity, loving the stranger, taking of animals, and generally being kind. Now, what he did beyond the expectations of practicing Judaism, we do not know. But he probably wasn’t a jerk. Despite some of the tales in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (one of the Gospels that didn’t make the biblical cut), I persist in my belief that Jesus was probably a good kid and that growing up in a loving family probably helped him become a good man.

What does this mean for us?

What would happen if we challenged ourselves to grow like Jesus did?

Well, I believe that if this is how Jesus grew up then it’s probably a good roadmap for us to follow. This verse has long formed my personal philosophy of ministry with youth and children. But today I want to take it one step further. As we sit on the precipice of a new year, and we ponder our resolutions, I wonder what would happen if we challenged ourselves to grow like Jesus did—in wisdom, in stature, in favor with God and in favor with humanity?

In our modern context what does this type of growth look like? Do we still endeavor to grow in wisdom? would argue that some of us do, but a large majority of people do not. Sure, we send our kids to school, but knowledge and wisdom aren’t necessarily the same thing. Knowledge is an accumulation of facts and data. Knowledge is what wins you big money on Jeopardy. Wisdom however, involves discernment, thought, and application of information. A lot of people know a lot of stuff, but who is truly wise? In the coming year what will you do to increase in wisdom? Will you visit a museum? Listen to someone’s personal history? Read something on a topic you’ve not studied? Talk to your neighbors more? Take a course of some kind? How will you personally strive to grow in wisdom?

What about growing in stature? Sure, we all like to talk about a New Year’s diet or a brand new exercise routine. But what are we truly doing to increase our physical health? I know we’re going to work harder to return to our philosophy of eating for life and reducing our intake of junk. What about you? What else could you do to extend your years on this planet? Go to that doctor’s appointment you’ve been putting off? What about that vacation you’ve been meaning to take? How about just trying to make sure you’re getting enough sleep at night? How will you personally strive to grow in stature?

And how about that whole God thing? How will we commit to growing in relationship with God? Well, you’re already on the right track—you’re here. But what else? What would you be willing to do augment your relationship with God and the church? Would you be willing to lead a study group? Would you be interested in studying other faith traditions? Maybe the mention of the Gospels that didn’t make the biblical cut piqued your interest- would you want to study some of those? What about on a deeper personal level? How will you personally strive to grow in your relationship with God?

And finally, how might we grow in our relationship with humanity? I think of all of the ways to grow, this one is actually the easiest. Every day we have opportunities to help others and to work towards justice in our still unjust world. This can be accomplished with
something as simple as voting or with something as big as a week of mission work. This could mean raising money to build wells or schools or throwing a party for the children of AA. This is something I know you already do really well, and my hope is that you’ll continue to push yourself to grow in relationship with the neighborhood around you and the world beyond you. How will you personally strive to grow in your relationship with humanity?

Choose to prolong the joy by rejoicing in the growth of Jesus

As the year comes to a close and the lectionary threatens to leave us Christmasless until next December, I’m hoping that we can choose to prolong the joy by rejoicing in the growth of Jesus from that baby in the manger to the man whose example we follow. I hope that we can model our own lives by his growth and work to improve the world around us. I hope that we will earnestly consider the ways that we as a community can grow together in wisdom, stature, and relationship with God and each other.

Amen.

[1] Reidar Aasgaard, The Childhood of Jesus: Decoding the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2010), 93.