Looking for a Lost Jesus
On the Sunday after Christmas we read about the Holy Family making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem – Jesus being twelve years old, the bar mitzvah age. On their return to Nazareth Mary and Joseph panic: Jesus is lost and they begin to search for him. Which raises the question: have we ever lost Jesus and been searching for him ever since?
Where have we looked for him? It seems that very early in the history of the Church we began looking for him – vertically, upwardly as though he were lost in the stratosphere or beyond – as if we had reversed the Incarnation, pedestalled him, emphasized his divinity, forgotten his humanity. And thus he seemed always beyond our reach so that we had to resort to Mary and the saints as intermediaries to his favor. It’s as if we had to take some yellow brick escalator to an emerald city to tremble before some Wizard of Oz. And yet all the while all we had to do to find him was look sideways and discover him (by way the four Gospels) right there beside us all the time.
For Jesus far from being the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, far from being the goal of our lives, was himself a searcher like us, a seeker more than a destination. And as such he presented us with a role model of how our lives should be led, not as some vertical ascent into space but as searchers, seekers of truth, of meaning from one day to another, from one experience to another. I mean, what was Jesus doing when his parents found him? Asking questions, questing, seeking to know what the scholars thought even as he stretched their thoughts with his own answers.
How does he describe the characters he admires? He tells of a woman searching diligently, intensely for a lost coin, of a shepherd risking all his other sheep to search for a lost one. He speaks of himself as the Way, the Road, not the goal. He is ever on the road, followed by his often winded disciples. When they want him to settle down in one town he says, “Let’s move on to the country towns in the neighborhood”. His disciples couldn’t keep up with him. So what was he doing? After his resurrection he seems to have disappeared but only to materialize side by side with two disciples on the road to Emmaus – and then there is St. Paul’s unexpected meeting with him on the road to Damascus.
So where to find Jesus? Not up in the clouds (except that often clouds are so beautiful) but right along the path you are walking, your daily journey through life – but only if you are vitally interested in where you are going, only if your daily journey is – everyday – a quest for meaning that teases your soul to rise early every day to journey on forever – insatiably. Which is why I’m glad to recall a hymn by Grayson Brown:
God be in my head, God be in my heart, / God be in my mind, God be in my soul.
God be in my eyes, so that I may see your face; / God be on my lips, God be in my life.
God be in my work, God be in my play. / God be in my home, God be in my prayer.
God be in my song, so that I may sing your praise; / God be in my night, God be in my day.