We’ve Got Work to Do
Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!
This year we are blest with having two Sundays in the Twelve Days of Christmas. Depending on what day of the week Christmas falls determines how many Sundays in Christmastide we’ll have.
In this morning’s Gospel, Luke tells us about an incident in Jesus’ life when he was twelve years old. Jesus and his family are in Jerusalem for Passover. It’s also the occasion of Jesus’ Bar Mitzvah, which is the Jewish rite of coming of age. In that ceremony, Jesus receives his prayer shawl, and says to his mother, “Woman, today I am a man.” Jesus’ parents and their traveling companions – traveling in a group was safer that traveling alone – head for home in Nazareth. Jesus is not with the group, and Jesus’ parents discover he is missing when they had gone a days’ journey from Jerusalem. In a panic, Mary and Joseph return to Jerusalem searching frantically for Jesus. After three days, they find him in the temple talking with the elders. Mary’s exasperated response on finding Jesus safe and sound is typical for all parents when they have spent any significant amount of time searching for a missing child. Jesus’ response was one of a typical teenager who doesn’t quite understand why his parents are upset.
What Luke is doing in these early chapters of his Gospel is to paint a picture describing how this child is unique. While I personally believe that every child is unique in his/her own way, Luke wants us to know that Jesus is special.
According to Luke, even at an early age, Jesus is somehow aware that he is destined for a unique mission in life. Here he is at twelve years old, aware that he has work to accomplish; hence, he “must be in his Father’s house.”
What about us? What work are we being called to accomplish this Christmas and beyond?
Howard Thurman, who lived from 1899 to 1981 wrote the following:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.
The work of Christmas continues for us and for all who claim membership in the Body of Christ. Our task as Christians is to fulfill and complete the work Jesus began during his life. In other words, we are called to be in our Father’s house doing what we are called to accomplish. We are called to live fully and faithfully into our Baptismal Covenant. That is what is meant by the work of Christmas.
So, my friends, we have work to do. We need to be in our Father’s house, seeing to the work our Father has given us to do.
Merry Christmas!
Amen!