The passage from this morning comes from the Gospel according to Saint Luke 2:41-52.
What is the good news in the passage?
That's how we are taught to start writing our sermons in seminary. That's the question that we ask ourselves when we are stuck. That's what my husband annoyingly repeats to me when I turn to him with an over-dramatic sigh and say, "I've got nothing."
Sometimes - I think I can safely say most of the time - it's not terribly hard to find the good news in a biblical passage. At least at the surface, it is typically something like, "Jesus heals" or "Jesus brings us into community" or "we are all a part of the Kingdom of God through Christ."
Other times, finding the good news in a passage is not that easy.
Sometimes, finding the good news in life is just as difficult.
As I think about the last few days we have had together as a community at Luther House Chapel, I can't help but think that this is one of those times when finding the good news is not so easy.
Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy, festivities, being with family, eating good food. But this Christmas we had to lay one of our sisters to rest much too soon.
And as we sit here this morning, looking for the good news in this passage, we are also looking for good news in this place, in this season, as we mourn one of our very own in great sorrow.
This morning, verse 48 sticks out to me - "His parents didn't know what to think." As I sat at my desk looking for words for this morning, as I stood at the wake and funeral over the past few days, as I felt her absence so poignantly in this community, I didn't know what to think.
I longed for good news, I longed for joy and peace - in this congregation and in this passage, but I was unable to find it. And I kept going back to that verse - "They didn't know what to think."
And not even a week after Christmas, we encounter this passage and we ask a similar question as Mary asked of Jesus that day, "Why have you done this to us?" We ask God in the midst of our grief and pain, "Why now? Why her? When we loved her so dearly, when she was such a part of our family? Why have you done this to us?"
And then this next comment from Mary sticks with us even more: "I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere." In the middle of this season of our own grief and sorrow, we sometimes look to the sky and call out, "Where are you, God? We are searching for you everywhere!" And we are searching for God frantically.
And I wonder, if Jesus had been older in this story, if he had been more mature, would Jesus have had a different answer for his frantic mother? Would he have been more gentle? Because as the story goes, he says, "You should have known where I was. Why were you searching for me? I was in my father's house." I imagine the twelve-year old Jesus adding something like "Come on mom! Stop worrying!"
I also imagine that when Jesus was older and more mature, he reflected on that memory with his mother. I'm sure she remembered it much more vividly than he did - her fear, anxiety, maybe even her anger when she was frantically searching for him. And Jesus lovingly would calm her saying, "Mother, you should know - I would never leave you, I have never left you. I will never leave you."
This is good news.
And if we move back further in the passage, there are two other details that point toward the good news. Stay with me, here.
At the beginning of this story, it says that Mary and Joseph weren't worried about having Jesus right next to them. They assumed he was with the other travelers, so they didn't fret. This tells us one of two things. Either they were pretty neglectful parents, or they were a part of a community that was so closely knit that they were comfortable with not knowing exactly where their son was. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Mary and Joseph were not neglectful parents.
For most people, it might be hard to imagine a community so closely knit that people's children run around and their parents know that they will be taken care of. But it's not difficult to imagine if you are a part of Luther House. We know what it is like to be a part of a community that comes together in one of the busiest times of the year to care for one another and love one another well.
This is good news.
And finally, we can look at what Jesus was doing in the temple while his parents were frantically searching for him. He was sitting among the people listening and asking, he was understanding and answering. We have a savior who sits among us, even in our grief, listening and asking, understanding and answering. We are loved by a savior who understands our pain and our grief because he has endured it the same as we have. He endures it with us today.
And although we have so many questions, so many things left unanswered, the good news is that we don't have to be the ones who answer the questions. We don't have to answer the "whys" and the "whats nexts." We are called simply to obey, to love one another, to carry each other onward in community in the way that our Lord taught us.
This is good news.
