I was reading Luke 2:41-49 in which Jesus is about twelve. The whole wider family has all gone to Jerusalem for Passover and on coming home, when they stop for the night, Mary and Joseph notice Jesus isn’t with them so they travel back to get him.
Now I’ve heard sermons about this which say that because Jesus was now twelve he would have been traveling with the men and no longer with the women and children so Mary wouldn’t have been keeping an eye on him. But this sort of shifts the blame then to Joseph for not keeping an eye on him. Almost back to that thing you hear about fathers “baby sitting” their own children. I like to think that Joseph was better than that. I mean after all he gave up when Jesus was born – not just his reputation by marrying a girl who was pregnant, but also going into exile in Egypt and probably losing his business and having to restart when the family returned to Nazareth – would he really have forgotten to keep an eye on his eldest who had now entered the company of the men? I don’t think so.
I’m suspecting as all good parents we would have just presumed our lad was hanging out with his mates and would join us when he was hungry. And that’s where my next point comes in – so it says that they’d travelled for a day before they noticed he was missing and then when they got back to Jerusalem it took them three days to find Jesus. The throwaway line is that he was “sitting amongst the teachers and asking them questions” – for the whole time? Really?
We are told that Jesus was fully human, well I remember my son, his friends and teenager boys of my friends and they never seem to stop eating. My son would eat a whole meal then sneak tins of baked beans into his room or eat a whole block of cheese. I’ve known others who can demolish a packed of Cornflakes in an evening or a whole loaf of bread. If Jesus really was fully human then he would have needed food. Also where did he sleep? Was the temple open all night? Did someone take pity on his and take him home when it got dark? Did he really really sit for three or four whole days with nothing to eat and no sleep asking questions all the time?
Also was it the same learned men he spoke to or did they come and go? And were any of those learned men still alive twenty years later when Jesus was doing his ministry? Was one of those learned men in the temple back then Nicodemus which is why he chose to follow Jesus?
And what were those questions? Was he doing what he then did in later life and asking questions that challenged and made people think?
Then I always wonder when Mary and Joseph find him what was his tone of voice when he responds? I know how my teenage son would have responded to an obvious question – with a touch of sarcasm. I’m hoping Jesus’ response was compassionate and that he was sorry he’d upset his parents even though he did need to be in the temple but we aren’t told.
There are so many details that are left out. Why? I often wonder if the Bible had been written by women instead of men would it have had more details in, more of those day to day things that I’d like to know? I remember using the bible once to try to do a kid’s writing workshop and in the end felt that it has so many plot holes and details missed out it made it hard work to use.
Although I often think it is these lack of details that give us space to ask God to help fill in the gaps and lead us to their truth – though also can lead to disagreements over the whole argument of “this is what the Bible REALLY means” – which people have killed and died for.
So as AI decides Jesus must have had a beard from boyhood we have to make up our own pictures of what went on, not just over those few days at Passover twenty odd years before Jesus died, but through so much of Jesus’ life.
Interesting aside – one of the few details is it took his parents three days to find him. Was this detail to correlate to the three days he was in the tomb from crucifixion to resurrection? Another question! Another detail missing!
actually we know they aren’t all like that but also we know this isn’t how they should be. Thanks to good old Facebook memories I was reminded of a picture I took from my window this time last year of the tree outside my window starting to blossom. This year it is still bare branches. Spring really is later this year.
about. Imagine not knowing the date? But also imagine not knowing for sure what would happen?
God. Christians on the other hand can get so fixated in Father God that they miss the nature side of things. Both Father and Mother are facets of God. And they are not the whole even when joined together.
Oh! I hope that’s not blasphemous. I’m not saying that God has been doing editing and changing and doesn’t know what’s going on. But I do think God works on growing things and changing and being in for the long haul. Even for what He is doing with me personally He has to be committed for the long haul and for things to edit and to change. I am not the same person I was when I first met with God 24 years ago. In fact I’m not the same person I was last week. Last week I was gathered with my Interweave friends and that always changes me. Yes one could say that because God is outside of time and space He knew where I’d be and how I’d been today but He did also give me free will to get to here as I chose. And I’m not sure if “here” is where He really wanted me or whether we are both just working with the material on offer at the moment 🙂
I have been reading lots of historic novels set in early Norman/Plantagenet times. This was a time when everyone believed God was sovereign and much of what went on was whether it was “God’s will” or not. But all the way through the characters will say things like “Christ’s teeth”, “Holy Mother of God” and other phrases that invoke God or Jesus in a way that would not be acceptable to many Christians now. In fact only the other day someone was saying to me that you could tell whether someone was really following God as to whether they “used God’s name in vain” was the phrase used.
reverence but were those Medieval characters doing that? I don’t think they were. In fact the Blasphemy Act of 1650 was only brought in to be used to persecute Catholics during the time of William of Orange and in fact for most of its time was only used to “keep Catholics in their place”. It had nothing to do with saying “Oh God” when either upset or happy about something. In fact this morning I was chatting with a fellow dog walker and he was using “Oh God” as a form of emphasising what he was saying. He wasn’t being disrespectful or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God. He just wanted to make a point stronger.
I’ve been pondering this word all week. I believe God has given me a picture of me being like sand on the sea bed after a storm and that I am just to wait until things settle, find peace in who I am and where I am. I love it but …
risen from the dead and that He says that by following Him they will be connected to God the Father. So … what was there to wait for? Again remember we know the end of the story they didn’t when they went to wait. They did not know that the Holy Spirit that would come then would give them the power to have the courage to go out and defy the authorities, to risk death for what they believed in. It is easy to say that this manifestation of the Holy Spirit helped them heal, etc but when Jesus sent the 77 out whilst he was still alive they came back saying that they had been able to heal and cast out demons. What more did they want? And yet 120 of them waited and …
the Navigator who set off on a peregrinatio, a journey with no direction just trusting that God would lead. In his journey he goes round in circles a lot and realise at the end that he has to let go of self to really see God, and of course sees God in where he is. Yet he sees more. He is hungry in his wanderings and his waitings and his going in circles to wait for what God will reveal.
beginnings of the Christian church, for me it has been a time of really looking at these amazing people who were willing to wait and wait for an undetermined time not knowing what would happen next. This waiting is not like waiting for Christmas, or your birthday, or a holiday. Then you know when the date will be. You can count down to it. What would it be like if you didn’t know when something was going to happen and then still waited?
I have just started reading “The History of God” by Karen Armstrong. I’ve been wanting to read it for ages but have been nervous about it in case it made me lose my faith in God. I have really only read the introduction and already it has strengthened my faith. Not because she talks about God in a way that makes one want to believe but from her opening paragraph which talks about the difference between belief and faith. She says how she believed in God, enough that for a while she was a nun, but she did not have faith in God, and that none of her studies ever brought her to that place. Even the Bible says that there are many that believe in God, even the devil believes in God, but he does not have faith to live for and with God. Until reading this book I had often pondered what that meant – the the devil to also believe and why Jesus was condemning about it. Now it makes sense.
due to the things I had to walk through from 2012 I have come to a place of faith in God. I wrote a piece back in January when I was struggling with all the moving stuff and said that I had reached a place where I could really trust in God. Yes true, but I also feel that that was where I went from believing in God to being willing to live a life of faith in God.
still be loved unconditionally by God, still be able to function. And you know it doesn’t matter if that person hurts me again because I’ve let my guard down, that’s ok. And it doesn’t matter if I do lose it again, reverting to that habit of temper tantrum, because God loves me unconditionally. I have faith that God loves me, but also I have faith in the fact that He doesn’t just love me because I’m ok, He loves me when I’m not ok. I have faith that if I didn’t ever change that would be ok.
said even the devil believes all those things. But how much faith do I have to trust in God? And I believe this is what I have been learning over the last few years – that it doesn’t really matter what I believe or not. In fact there could always come along something that shatters those beliefs. But am I willing to have the faith to live my life for God?
And I do wonder if that is the core issue with faith as opposed to believe. Believe is a mind thing that does move to the heart too, but Faith is a heart thing that has to move to the mind. I do have to have faith that God sees I’m doing my best as much as I have faith in Him to lead my life as I believe He would want me to lead it.
Easter Saturday, the space between death and resurrection life. The hard place to be. For those first followers of Jesus it must have been so awful because they did not know for sure that Jesus would rise again. We do so we go about our daily lives, do some DIY, go shopping, eat, drink, etc. For the Christian now I believe that Easter Saturday, and often even Good Friday, has lost its impetuous. But in our own lives Easter Saturday can be very real.
answer honestly “I’m not sure.” Yes we started our Airbnb rentals yesterday. Yes we have had friends and family up. Yes we have met up with some people here that could be friends. Yes I did feel my heart get majorly lifted and healed last week whilst we were praying about hearts in Ireland. Things did change. I do know something significant has happened, that I am in transition.
stress me out. Like with these first guests – it turns out that the radiator in the Airbnb room doesn’t work. Ian sorted them out, got them to move rooms, etc but I was upset by it all and couldn’t come up with a solution. I still feel weary; weary that I don’t want to do anything at the moment. I am down to start work with an agency doing temporary schools work, but I’m not sure if I should.
Christians waiting for the sun to come up, praying and declaring stuff over the whole of Ireland and a question someone asked me a while ago, connected to some of the atrocities in the world that are committed in Jesus’ name came to me: “How can you believe in God?” and was then followed by a “Don’t even try to tell me” comment. I deleted the email and then tried to forget about it. And was doing good till feeling slightly sleep deprived, hungry and a bit cold it came back into my head.
God loved me totally unconditionally and totally as I was there and then. It wasn’t a text book conversion. It took a long time, a lot of talking with God and Christians, a lot of reading both the Bible and study books, and even now it is still a journey which just involves me going deeper and deeper with God.
willing to turn and actually meet with God they will not know He exists. Once they have met with Him then they can ask Him all those questions; all the why questions. I believe that when I gather with my friends and pray across the hills as the sun comes up recreating something that happened hundreds of years ago things do get opened in the heavenlies, blind eyes get a chance to see, deaf ears a chance to hear, lives can be changed. S
Aspirational Adventures 