Adolescent Incarnation
On the one hand, this is a very human story that all of us can identify with. What parents or other caregivers of children cannot identify with the shock, anguish, and confusion of Mary and Joseph. Who hasn’t felt the adolescent tension between respect owed to parents, and the assertion of newly discovered independence? On the other hand, when Mary rebukes Jesus — your father and I have been searching for you anxiously — meaning Joseph, and Jesus rebukes her — Didn’t you know I must be about my Father’s interests, duh? — we are reminded of the third person in this triangle, of whom only Jesus seems to be aware. And in this story, so human and familiar, yet so eerie in the fears it evokes in us, perhaps even stupefying us, we may come close than any other moment in the Gospel to the meaning of Incarnation, “in the flesh,” or “in the nature.”
“When he was twelve years old, they went up for the festival as usual.” Apparently it mattered to Mary and Joseph that they go as a family every year they could to Jerusalem for the Passover. But this year would be different. For at the age of twelve, Jesus would be ready to make the same religious vows that all adult male Jews were expected to make. Perhaps at this festival, Jesus might make those vows.
But something else was going in Jesus’s human brain. Perhaps, as he approached the age of reason, he was articulating in his brain intuitions that up until now he had felt more than he could articulate in human language. Of one being with the Father in his divinity, and at the same time, of one being with us in his humanity. To go any further in trying to explain the Incarnation risks either explaining away his humanity, or explaining away his divinity. Most heresies go too far in one direction or the other. I hope my distinction between Jesus’s intuition and articulation isn’t one. But it seems to me that to present Jesus waxing philosophical at the age of six is explaining away the same limitations of his human flesh as we all have.
And it’s not as though his behavior had constantly reminded Joseph and Mary that Jesus was really just Joseph’s foster son. When Mary, who probably can’t decide whether to hug Jesus or throttle him, says, “your father and I have been searching for you anxiously,” she’s referring to Joseph. Jesus understands that, which explains his rejoinder, “Didn’t you know I must be about my Father’s interests?” Literally, “Didn’t you know that I must be about my Father’s things?” Those “things” could be his Father’s location or house, his Father’s associates or relatives, or his Father’s interests or affairs. At the moment his parents find him, is he worshiping the Father, or is he correcting the teachers, certainly something in which his Father would have a great interest? Just at the age of adulthood, he is already fulfilling the purpose of the Incarnation, to reveal the nature of God, which is love.
It’s not surprising that Joseph and Mary couldn’t understand what Jesus was saying. His parents had been told that he would be Lord and Messiah and Savior and assume the throne of his father David. But nothing was said about this being accomplished through question and answer sessions. Since Joseph is never mentioned in the accounts of Jesus’s public ministry, we assume that he had died. Mary, sadly, would still have to learn that the interest of God the Father and God the Son in reconciling fallen humanity to God would require much, much more than a lecture.
When did Jesus, son of Mary and adopted Son of Jospeh, resident of Nazareth, understand this? Certainly, in the garden of Gethsemane, he would struggle in his brain to reconcile his very human fears with his divine vocation, which had been his from the moment he became incarnate in Mary’s womb. Like us in all respects, apart from sin, Jesus Christ was. And the greatest expression of his divinity was in trusting his Father, even unto death, death on a cross. Come to think of it, I suspect that at the age of adulthood, Jesus understood exactly who he was and his mission. How else could he have amazed and astounded all those teachers of the Law with questions and answers that revealed his understanding of God’s loving purposes for all humankind?
God incarnate: subject to all the limitations of human mortality except for sin, the failure to trust our maker. To see Jesus as subject to human limitations doesn’t make him any less divine; it actually reveals the wisdom and power of that divine love, already on display in a twelve-year-old adolescent with attitude.
The Rev. David Kendrick
January 5th, 2025
The 2nd Sunday after Christmas Day