READINGS

Luke 2:41-52 - The Boy Jesus at the Temple 1 Samuel 2:26 - Eli’s Wicked Sons (Birth of Samuel) Ecclesiastes 7:15-17 - Wisdom Zechariah 12:10 - Mourning for the One They Pierced

HOMILY

43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.

Just a little hint that it was going to be the last Passover.

46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.

Three days is the Greek translation for a Hebrewism meaning several days later.

Something which would happen at the end of the Gospel, except that they don't have to search for him because he's already showed himself to them [after resurrected].

So this passage is a foretelling of the resurrection.

'listening to them and asking them questions': somethign Jesus had been doing shortly before his crucifixion.

47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.

Which is a theme that's going to be repeated throughout the Gospel: the people who were amazed at his answers.

48 When his parents saw him, they were ASTONISHED [APPALLED]. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

The Greek is exeplagēsan, which it means to BE APPALLED.

It's much more to be appalled, astonished in the sense of being a bit horrified.

Actually, parents would be horrified if they find their child busy lecturing the Temple authorities. You would probably be pretty appalled. We tend to think of astonished in a positive sense, but actually this is not the immediate sense of that.

Let's look at a curious place where that word appears, because it seems to have something to do with our text: Ecclesiastes 7:15-17.

15 In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness. 16 Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise — why destroy [BE APPALLED] yourself? 17 Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool — why die before your time? 18 It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.

So here we have the suggestion that Jesus is doing something before his time. He's putting himself at great risk and danger, but that is what in fact is going to happen later on.

He is going to come up before the Temple authority, he is going to answer them and he's going to be killed for it.

So here we have a very well hidden little prophecy of what's going on.

48 His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been ANXIOUSLY searching for you.”

It's a quote from the prophet Zechariah 12:10.

10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit[a] of grace and supplication. They will look on[b] me, the one they have pierced, and they will MOURN for him as one MOURNS for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

Something which we usually get in Lent.

So literally it's the same verb, but here is translated as mourned: in searching for you in GREAT ANXIETY being 'searching for you with mourning', as if we lost our only child.

That's the verbal resonance that's captured here: if we've lost the firstborn.

So again, a prophecy of the fulfilment of Zechariah's prophecy.

Here she comes up and she's so anxious that she mourns the firstborn.

49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

So that's referring both to the Temple and, of course, to the trajectory of his life in which he is going to open up the Father's house to us and sit in it. And that's the whole of his family life trajectory.

50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So no wonder they don't really get it: but they did not understand what he said to them.

51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

So, end of hijinks, end of this extraordinary little glimpse, this prophetic glimpse of what is to happen.

51 But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

Over time maybe she started to realise what it was that she had felt, and how it fits in with other things, and how all of this was prophetic of something that was to come.

And Joseph who, like Samuel, was to replace the whole of the Temple structure of with Eli and the bad priest, his sons Phineas and Hofney - all of that was due to be replaced.

First of all, one of the background texts to these scenes from Jesus's infancy is the scene from Hannah, the mother of Samuel, which we have in our first reading.

Samuel is traditionally held to have been 12 years old when he heard the voice in the Temple.

Hannah, whose song when she's told that she's going to bring forth her son, is very similar to Mary's Magnificat.

Hannah takes her child to the Temple. And of course, the child is received.

It's not known at the time by Eli, the priest, and those who are there that Samuel is going to replace them, that Eli and his family are going to be rejected.

Here we have the new assignment: the definitive great High Priest, the one who's actually going to bring to an end the whole of the Temple.

The very last phrase of our Gospel today is:

52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

Which is almost exactly a quote from what is said twice about Samuel:

1 Samuel 2:26 And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with people.

So here we have a scene that's supposed to be reminiscent of Eli but with the hint that the Temple which we're seeing here is a temple that's not long for this world.

Jesus grew in wisdom like the wisdom from the Book of Ecclesiastes where he wasn't going to die too soon, but at the right time, and in divine and human favour.

So how do we add to this for our celebration of this feast, the feast of the Holy Family?

I think it's a reminder that of all the difficult things that God does in order to bring us to life he even comes into a family.

This is not necessarily a happy, sweet, kitsch, perfect porcelain reality.

It can be a difficult, tense, complicated reality full of all sorts of hidden things and unspoken things, and tensions, and dramas and yet it was in the midst of a family and dealing with all those things that God wanted to come into our midst so as to open up the possibility that we might become God's family.

So let's rejoice with the Virgin at what she saw.

Remember, how little she understood about it.

Rejoice to think that our family screwups, our family misadventures may also be blessed and have another meaning than the one we're currently able to give them.

And that there may be a far far happier and richer fulfilment of them than we can imagine.