(1 Samuel 2:18-20)
Samuel was ministering before the LORD, a boy wearing a linen ephod. His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, "May the LORD repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the LORD"; and then they would return to their home.

(1 Samuel 2:26)
Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and with the people.

(Colossians 3:12-17)
As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

(Luke 2:41-52)
Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day's journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety." He said to them, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

Passing Over

At the time of the Gospel story Jesus is twelve years old. The family had gone up to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. Passover ordinarily lasts eight days, with the customary celebrations. Many villages were represented in the great procession to Jerusalem. They all watched out for each other’s children. Joseph, Mary and Jesus got through the big holy days fine. Even the reading of the Haggadah, especially the Seder with its special foods, songs, and customs: the focal point of the Passover celebration. As expected, Jesus, obedient, stayed with his parents during these great moments. The savory and pungent odors did not escape him, mixed of course with animal and human fragrances, and surely with the even-then ancient dust of Jerusalem.

One of the great mysteries of Christianity was what Jesus was like as a child. All we have to go on are the few verses in Luke 2 which tell the story of Jesus at age 12 worrying his parents to death. You'll recall that he stayed in the Jerusalem temple while the group with whom his family was traveling had left town. I love to think of Jesus as a typical adolescent looking up at his frantic, angry, worried mother when she'd come all the way back to find him-like, "What's the big deal? Of course, I'm here." Ah, yes, even Mary knew the frustrations of a mother with a teen-age son.

Other than this story we know nothing of Jesus' childhood, adolescence, and young adult life. All the other gospels either skip from his birth to the beginning of his ministry or just start at the beginning of his ministry which they say was "at about 30 years old."

Our gospel passage for today finds us in the temple with that 30-something year old Jesus. He is teaching. It's not just any generic temple in which Jesus is teaching. This is his hometown synagogue. Jesus is preaching to the people of his village.

When Jesus Was Twelve

I. Overview of Lesson: Jesus goes to the temple at the age of twelve and astounds scholars with his understanding. He continues listening to the teachers and asking questions even after his parents leave Jerusalem. Mary and Joseph frantically search for Jesus and find him in the temple. He returns home with his earthly parents and is obedient to them. 

II. Objectives for Students: 

1. Explain the significance of Passover     
2. Explain the meaning of God as our father.    
3. Compare and contrast Jesus’ life as a youth to the lives of youth today.    
4. Discuss the reasons why Jesus was obedient to Mary and Joseph. Apply these principles to why students should obey their own parents.

 

Colossians 3:12-17: Paul exhorts the readers to clothe themselves with the best practices of life in Christ "Above all clothe yourselves with love." Your clothes for the New Year should be worn with love, which binds the rest together.

 

This morning's Gospel is the third of the New Testament's passages about the infancy and childhood of Jesus. Now Jesus is a 12 year old in Jerusalem for Passover and Mary a worried mother who has lost him in the crowds and after three days of looking, finds him talking theology in the Temple. This third challenge is the toughest of all for Mary because her struggle is with God.

There must have been a Mary who asked, "Isn't it enough to bear my firstborn in a stable? Isn't it enough to be a refugee fleeing from a massacre? Isn't there to be some reward for all I have had to go through? Can't this treasure of a son I have fought so hard for be spared to grow up a little bit normally, to learn a good trade, to marry a nice Jewish girl and give me grandchildren so that I can be respected among the other women of the village? Is that too much to ask?" The horrors of Bethlehem were twelve years ago, now, and Nazareth is a safe, quiet place. Isn't there some way to just put up the walls and say, "this is enough?" Can't we just do God's work in our own town and forget the outside world?

Then there's the other Mary, the one who shouted "Three cheers for God" when she heard she was pregnant, the one who patted her belly and thought, "this one's going to turn the world upside down, this one's going to be the means by which God fills the poor with good things and sends the rich empty away," this one's going to take on the evil that has made our people poor and despised. Now he's 12, and she can see it coming. Already, he's beginning to pull away, to seek out his own path. This Mary would give even her son as a gift to God--and yet, when her 12 year old looks at the Jerusalem temple and tells them, "didn't you know I must be in my Father's house," the words must have stung.

This is the hardest of Mary's three challenges, and what we see in today's Gospel is just the beginning.

Jesus had been taken to the temple by His parents in accord with the Hebrew religious tradition. That tradition had become legalistic and externalistic. As a consequence the temple had been reduced to a centre of trade and exchange rather than a place of liberating newness. The newness announced and observed in Luke's account of Jesus' birth, isn't a newness that fits these old categories. Here is an early hint that the possibilities of the liberating hope announced by Jesus' birth, would begin to engage the world of despair!
        It happened that three days later, Jesus' parents found Him in the temple sitting among the teachers, listening and asking them questions and all those who heard Him were astonished at His intelligence and His replies (vv.46-47). His parents were overcome when they saw Him and His mother said to Him, "Child, why have you treated us like this?" Jesus replied, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Fathers' house?" But they did not understand what He meant (vv.48-50).

Luke 2:41-52

This passage is unique in the Gospels. This is the only account we have in the canonical Gospels of Jesus’ childhood between his birth and his emergence on the public scene around age 30 (3:23). The uniqueness of this narrative ought to raise the question again of how Luke is telling the story and what significance that might have in hearing the message of this passage as part of Luke’s Gospel.

The entire Book of Luke is structured as a journey, as Jesus travels from Galilee to Jerusalem. While in the Gospel of John, for example, we are told that after Jesus began his public ministry he made several trips to Jerusalem for festivals (e.g., 2:13, 5:1, 7:10). In Luke there is only one trip recorded that takes up much of the book (9:51-19:28). This is not a historical feature of Luke as much as it is a theological one; it is simply the way Luke arranged the material to communicate his message. This suggests that the journey in Luke is more than just a physical journey, and the setting is more than geographical.

The fact that the beginning and ending of the journey to Jerusalem is clearly marked by Luke also defines this as an important structural element (9:51: "he set his face to go to Jerusalem": 19:28: "he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem.") In both cases, he sent people ahead of him to prepare and make arrangements for the journey (9:52-56, 19:29-35). And in both cases that preparation is followed by accounts that tell about following Jesus.  The stories about the beginning of that journey illustrate both the command to follow Jesus and the difficulty of doing so (9:57-62), and the stories about the conclusion show the contrasting tension between the willingness of people to follow and their lack of understanding in doing so (19:19:36-44).

With that larger context in mind, this early trip to Jerusalem during Jesus' childhood takes on greater significance.

In the Gospel Jesus knows that he is called by God and “must be in my Father’s house.” As he grew he “increased in wisdom…and in divine and human favor.” Samuel in the first lesson and the “chosen ones” in the second lesson are called by God, and become what they are through the transforming power of that call. God’s “call” to us is a “recreative” action. We become, through God’s power, what we were intended to be in creation. By God’s act we are freed from our slavery to sin and become what Christ is by nature, children of God.

One of the curious features about the Christian story is that we know nothing about Jesus before he began his public ministry around the age of thirty. We don't know what he looked like. It's only an inference that he followed Joseph as a carpenter. Scholars speculate whether he went to school. He left not a single scrap of writing. The Gospels of Mark and John don't even include birth narratives, but begin with Jesus as an adult. John Dominic Crossan has noted that ancient biographies often start with the public lives of their subjects, skipping over earlier years as irrelevant.

The Apostle Paul talks about the old and the new in Colossians, chapter 3, comparing it

to a change in wardrobe. Paul talks about the "old self" (3:9) and the "new self" (3:10),

suggesting in our reading that we "clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,

meekness," and a number of other spiritual garments.

When we put on a new shirt, we generally take the old one off first, and indeed, earlier in

the chapter Paul says that there are certain things of which the Colossians must strip

themselves before donning new apparel. Paul is using a baptismal image; at the time

baptismal candidates ceremonially stripped off their old selves with their old outer

clothing, and then, after emerging from the baptismal waters put on a new, fresh

garment.

The oldest holiday, or holy day, we know in the history of the human race is New Year’s. The earliest records we have are five thousand years ago. And we know that the ancient Romans celebrated New Year’s by breaking branches off of what they considered sacred trees and giving branches to one another in exchange for “Happy New Year.” A little later, they began to exchange coins, I guess when they got a little better off! The coins had the face of the god Janus on them. Janus is where we get the word “January.” The one special thing about the god Janus is he is two-faced. He has a face looking to the past and a face looking to the future. That is why the god Janus became the symbol of New Year’s where, just as we are tonight, we look at the past and give thanks for that. We look to the future and gather our hopes for that.

The looking-back part can be difficult.

Today is the first Sunday of Christmas, but in its fullness the festival of Christ is not just about a baby born in a manger: it is about how Christ shapes who we are. Paul’s words in Colossians spell out for us what should make us unique: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

A coffee executive named Howard Schultz founded Starbucks on the belief that Americans are missing a third place in their lives – a place that his coffeehouses can fill.  While on a business trip to Italy, Schultz discovered that Italians were living a remarkably balanced life.  He was impressed by the passion they brought to their work, their rest, and their enjoyment, and he noticed that a great deal of pleasure was being found in the camaraderie and community of Italy's 200,000 coffee bars.  Because there was nothing similar in the United States, Schultz began to dream of establishing Italian-influenced third places where people could congregate.  He hoped that after the first place of home and the second place of work, Americans would come to consider his coffeehouses to be their third place, a place to experience camaraderie and genuine community.

That’s the Starbucks Principle.  And for many, it seems to be working.

The question we need to ask ourselves is: Why isn’t the church serving as an effective third place for many of our neighbors today?  Why aren’t we creating a community marked by the qualities lifted up by Paul in his letter to the Colossians?  After all, it’s hard to resist “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12).  It’s difficult for people to turn away from “love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (v. 14).  And if we did “everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (v. 17), we’d have a long line outside our door.  It would be like free frappacino day at the Fairfax Starbucks!

‘Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

‘Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful’ (vv. 12-15). For the sake of this sermon’s points I’m extending the metaphor of putting on clothes, to cover all those lovely qualities listed there: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience (v. 12); forgiveness (v. 13); love (v. 14); peace (v. 15).

We should note that, as Paul has developed his theme in this passage in Colossians 3, he has put more and more emphasis on the communal dimension of the Christian life. Human behaviour is always communal: what we do affects others; what I do influences other people – sometimes in the most extreme way.

Verse 12- So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;

Paul's motivation to the Christians in Colossae to put on these Christ-like virtues is the wonderful and humbling truth that God has chosen them. This is yet another way in which grace is the motivator for our actions, not moralistic ideology or pious babble. What else could magnify God's grace than the majestic and mysterious truth that God chose us, God sought us, God separated us for Himself, God poured out His love upon us in the most scandalous way?

What Paul is going after is a matter of the heart. Since the heart is his focus, he realizes that the way in which the heart will most respond is through the profound truth of God's grace, not mans self-effort.

Great words. As succinct a description as can be found anywhere of what we are called to be and do as God's people in the church...compassionate, kind, humble, meek (or teachable), patient, forgiving, loving, harmonious, peaceful. We will be learners and teachers, full of heartfelt song. And whatever we do will be done in the name of Jesus. Wow!

That IS the way it is in churches, isn't it? Oh David, you silly goose. Right.

Do you have any idea where that phrase comes from...silly goose? I don't. But I do know that geese are not all that silly. In fact, the next time you notice a flock of them flying South for the winter, study them a bit. There are some things we might learn.

In other words, God is creating a new community out of people who have sloughed off their old selves and put on their new selves. And the mark of this new (chosen, loved, holy) community is [first] that the people in it stop cherishing the things that separate Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman. The new people in the new community do not boast in ethnic distinctives or language or intellect or culture or race or homeland or social status. Those things have passed away. And the number one, primary mark of newness in the new people and the new community is that Christ is all and in all. Don't miss that all important climax at the end of verse 11: "But Christ is all and in all."

If you ask, "What's new about the new self of verse 10, and what's new about the new community of new persons?" the answer is, "For them Christ is all." In all of them Christ is all.

Verse 12 - Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Remember who you are: God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved. According to the Apostle, "election" is no longer just for the Jews, but in inclusive of all who trust in Jesus Christ.

To clothe yourself means to take responsibility for how you present yourself.

The way we do this is to be so full of these inner qualities that they can be seen on the outside, like well-fitting and attractive clothing:

Towards the needy, we show compassion, (splagchnon - feeling and responding to the misery of others. this is in opposition to the normal inclination to identify upward socially);

Towards our brothers and sisters, we show kindness;

Towards leaders, we show humility (modesty, lack of arrogance, having an honest assessment of ourselves, and being willing to submit);

Towards those who have injured us, we show gentleness (meekness, or refusal to get back at); and

Towards those who disappoint us, we show patience (refusal to give up on).

Out of four gospels, four separate, overlapping, but in parts unique, differing perspectives of the life of Jesus, this story, of Jesus, at twelve, is the only canonical account we have of what happened to him between the time he was born and the time he was baptized by John at thirty and started his ministry. We don't know if he went through the terrible twos. We have no idea what Jesus was like as a teenager. We don't know if he worried in his twenties about the direction that God was leading his life. We don't know if he played with other boys, if he got in trouble with Mary and Joseph, or seemed to be perfect, even as a young boy. All we have if this snapshot, this short account of one day in his life between infant and man. We have a story about a day in Jesus' life at age twelve. For perspective, Jesus was about the age of the students in our confirmation class right now.

Given that we have just this little snippet from Jesus' growing up, what can we learn about how we must live from the way his young life was taking shape at that point?

For added consideration, our Old Testament lesson today cannot be overlooked, because of some striking similarities between what we read about Samuel and what we read about Jesus.

Last week we examined some of Paul’s best known words, “There is no longer

Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female,

for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Just prior to this passionate call to

believers for unity and equality, Paul writes, “As many of you as were baptized

into Christ have clothed yourselves in Christ.”

Clothed in Christ! Clothed in Christ! I like saying it! I like hearing it! And I

like feeling it! Clothed in Christ!

Listen as I now read how Paul defines being clothed in Christ. (Read Text)

Of all Paul’s writings this may be some of the easiest to read and to understand;

yet, some of the most difficult to apply. Why do I say this? Because in this text

Paul is stating how important it is to allow the Christ that dwells within to become

a visible and active reality in our human relationships—especially our relationship

with other believers, with other people of faith, with other people in the family.

What are the implications of Christmas.  The promised Messiah has been born to Israel, the glad tidings of great joy have been announced and the prophetic words of Simeon, "...my eyes have seen your salvation..." have been spoken.

How does all of this translate to our lives?

***

The first clue comes in Luke's gospel just before our lectionary gospel reading for today for today.  The words of Luke 2:39-40 are a fitting prelude to everything that follows and point to the implications of the Christmas story for our lives.

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

The birth of Jesus was just the beginning.  He has to mind his parents, grow physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.  He needed to mature.  The birth has no meaning unless he grows and matures and becomes everything the promises of God said he would be.

As is typical of Paul's letters, he concludes with a section on practical Christianity. He has detailed matters of theology and he now follows these up with applied ethics. He presents this ethical teaching in the terms of abandoning the evils of the past and of adopting the new life-style of a believer. The believer must "put off" the old cloths of their past life of sin, 3:5-11, and "put on" the new garment of a follower of Christ, 3:12-17. It is his exhortation to "put on" which serves as our passage for study.

When it comes to a life of faith, what’s outside matters - and what’s inside matters. Perhaps what matters most is bringing into harmony what’s inside our hearts and what’s on the outside that we let others see. God calls us to set our hearts right, to embrace wholeness and healing in all the broken places inside. And then God calls us to be agents of reconciliation with others, treating one another with grace and love. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, and bear with one another, uplift one another, and clothe yourselves in love just as the love of Christ lives in your hearts. Amen.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I could really embarrass you and ask how you do at keeping them! Although much-maligned, I think the popularity of New Year’s resolutions signals our desire for new beginnings. We want to imagine ourselves as different than we are. The New Year marks a time to start that process. The following probably won’t surprise you. Resolutions about health and fitness are the most common (28%); followed by career (18), organization or time management (18); personal relationships and personal finances (15%). They are all decisions to become something different or something other than what we are or have become. The problem, of course, arises when the new resolutions encounter the old habit. Because those old habits have a lot of momentum behind them. They’re the psychological version of a runaway transport truck on a mountain road. The results are found in our rueful confessions of failure by February.

A Christmas carol that's hardly ever sung any more warns us that it won't be easy. Actually, this isn't a Christmas carol but a hymn for the feast of St. Stephen, which takes place on December 26. Stephen was the first deacon of the church, and thus he has significance for me because I am a member of the order of deacons. He is called a martyr because he died as a witness to the victory of Jesus Christ. You already recognize him when you hang a wreath on your door: Stephen's name means "wreath" in Greek, and so that is a symbol of his commitment to faith and the enduring victory of Christ, even in the face of an unwelcoming world. The hymn describes the difficulty of taking a different path this winter:

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay 'round about,
Deep and crisp and even:
Brightly shone the moon that night,
Though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
Gath'ring winter fuel.

Are you going to make some New Year�s resolutions for the New Year?  I hope you do because resolutions can bring positive changes into our lives.

The late Erma Bombeck made these New Year�s resolutions:
1. I'm going to clean this dump just as soon as the kids grow up.
2. I will go to no doctor whose office plants have died.
3. I'm going to follow my husband's suggestion to put a little excitement into my life by living within our budget.
4. I'm going to apply for a hardship scholarship to Weight Watchers.
5. I will never loan my car to anyone I have given birth to.
6. And just like last year...I am going to remember that my children need love the most when they deserve it the least.

Most people are like television commentator, Andy Rooney, they have given up on resolutions

Luke’s primary interest in telling the story of Jesus in the temple at age twelve seems to be to establish beyond all doubt that Jesus was a true Israelite, from birth brought up in the moral and ritual life of Judaism. Home, temple, and synagogue formed him, and no subsequent criticisms of his ministry or message could trace charges against him to heretical, unfaithful, or misguided influences on his formation. At every significant period of his life he was in continuity with Judaism. For firstborn boys, those periods were circumcision at eight days, presentation to God at six weeks, bar mitzvah at age twelve or thirteen, public life at age thirty.

The first two of these occur earlier in chapter two. "On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived." (v.21) And "When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord" (v 22,23) The latter happens in chapter three: "Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry." (v.23) So Jesus being in the temple at age twelve roughly corresponds with his bar mitzvah, although it is not explicitly stated as such.

What difference does Christ make? This Sunday of all Sundays, that question reverberates in my heart and mind. This, of course, is not a simple question and its answer has layers and nuances too vast to address in the short span of time that we have to think on these things this morning. But I believe we would do well to think at least a bit about the question and to seek some insight from the holy scriptures we’ve been given today.

One of the central claims of the Christian faith is that God came into the world in the flesh, that our God became incarnate, human. The mystery of this claim is found in the nonsensical equation: Jesus of Nazareth—fully God and fully human. We tend to emphasize one or the other parts of Jesus’s being. That is, some of us identify more with Jesus’s divinity—we think of Jesus as God, as perfect and all-knowing and other-worldly; we understand Jesus’s saving power as a transcendent power, a cosmic force that shifts the spiritual realities such that all of life is forever changed. For others, we identify more with the humanity of Jesus—we focus on Jesus as teacher, prophet, example; from this perspective, Jesus’s saving power is found in his teachings and loving actions. We are not alone in our tendency to emphasize one part of the Jesus equation. In our Gospel accounts of Jesus we see the very same tendency. In the Gospel according to John, we are given a picture of Jesus that is profoundly transcendent: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.” There can be no mistaking that the one we call Jesus is “fully God.”

On that first Christmas, when the census had been completed in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph packed up their infant son and returned the 80 miles to Nazareth. Day by day, the child grew. He probably went to school. He likely went with Joseph to the synagogue on the Sabbath. When he was old enough, he learned the carpentry trade from his father. And on festival days, as required by Jewish tradition, Joseph and Jesus would travel to Jerusalem to worship God.

So this is where we find them in this morning’s gospel lesson. Three days ago, Jesus is born in the manger, and today he is 12 years old, and he has traveled with his family to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. There was food, there was celebration and there was reunion. And after a couple of days of partying, the caravan with which they traveled turned back toward Nazareth. At suppertime on that first day, Mary began looking for Jesus. “Joseph, is Jesus with you?” “No, I thought he was with you!” They frantically scoured the crowd with whom they were traveling, but Jesus was nowhere to be found. They must have left him in Jerusalem, 15 miles away. The next morning, they traced their steps, looking throughout that large city for their adolescent son. Finally, they found him in the temple with the rabbis and teachers.

Legend tells us that Jesus was there, a 12-year-old boy, teaching the scholars. But Luke doesn’t say he was teaching; Luke says Jesus was “listening to the teachers, asking them questions.” This is how Jews pass on the faith, you know; by having the young ones ask questions. Murray Haar, our Jewish friend in Sioux Falls says that, when he was a child, every day when he came home from school, his father would say “Did you ask any good questions today, Murray?” We usually said to our kids “What did you learn in school today?” But Jewish parents say “What questions did you ask?”

On the Sunday after Christmas we keep the feast day of the Holy Family. Most of us have probably had enough Family feast days in the last week to keep us going for a good long time yet, but this Sunday festival is a different kind of family occasion, as we remember and give thanks for the Holy Family in which Jesus was brought up and spent the first 30 years of his life.

It is remarkable, really, that we have so little information about Jesus in these years. We know that he grew up in Nazareth with his mum and dad. His dad was some sort of craftsman, probably a carpenter. He may have had some brothers and sisters, but there is even debate about that. If he married or had any children of his own, the Bible is silent on the subject. He appears on the scriptural landscape as a single man, aged about 30, listening to the teaching of John the Baptist in the wilderness. And that is all we know.

Except for this one story. Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem every year for the Passover. That in itself was remarkable – most people kept the Passover festival at home around their own dining tables, or shared it with their neighbours or their extended family. The expense and hassle of going up to Jerusalem to keep the festival would have been beyond most ordinary people, and it was the sort of thing that you might aspire to do once or twice in a lifetime, certainly not every year.