temple – Aspirational Adventures

AI has created this angelic picture of Jesus as a boy in the temple. It seemed intent on making sure he had a beard. Perhaps for AI Jesus with born with a beard??? Who knows!

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!

Imbolc – 1st February

February 1^st-2^ndmarks a confluence of several feasts and occasions including: the Celtic feast of Imbolc, St. Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, Feast of the Presentation, and Groundhog Day! Of all these things what do we know to be fully true? Or what, like the stories of the Celtic Saints are not meant to be literal or historical, but spiritual, mythical, archetypal, and psychological, resonating with the deepest parts of our souls.

I wonder how often we fight to make things factual. Yes not necessarily “true”, whatever that means, but factual. I know I’ve said it before about someone, and I thought it was CS Lewis but can’t find the actual quote, who says that “the Bible is true” but not factual.

Imbolc is said to be the day when sheep start lambing and when the days start to get noticeably longer; Brigid was allegedly a powerful abbess showing that Celtic Christianity was pro-women; she is also connected with the pantheon of ancient Celtic gods and goddesses; Candlemas is celebrated as the day Jesus was present at the temple in Jerusalem and recognised by Anna and Simeon, yet also within the bible narrative he was in Egypt at this point; and Groundhog day is to do with the shadow of a groundhog and how long winter will last, although we use the meaning for “Groundhog day” more in keeping with Bill Murray’s movie.

But as one thinks over these feasts and occasions with their elements of “truth” we need to realise how much we need them. As women we need a powerful woman, whether saint or goddess, to encourage us as we deal with our homes, our children, partners, and the mundane of life, because no matter how you jazz it up housework, daily feeding of a family, etc are boring and repetitive. But to have a supernatural woman to turn to then it helps.

To have something like groundhog day when, as we step tentatively out of winter and into spring we are reminded that it may either getting better immediately or not. And not just the weather. As we step into another month of the ever extending lockdown here in the UK, I believe, it is good to be able to think that, at the turn of a groundhog’s shadow things could change rapidly or continue for longer. I am wondering if we need to put in some superstition to help us through this lockdown time, something we can turn to that might just help us keep on keeping on? Something that gives us hope but in a “well if it doesn’t happen then it will in time” type of hope.

Hope isn’t instant. Sometimes hope unfurls slowly and only when it has fully come to fruition do we recognise it for what it is. Sometimes what we are hoping for unfurls in a very different way to what we wanted. Which then leads us to Jesus being presented in the Temple and the two old people, who had been waiting their whole lives, recognised him for who he truly was. Factually he was a small baby, child of two not overly well-off parents, but these two old people knew him for what he truly was – the saviour of the world. But the only way they knew was because they had been praying their whole lives. Are we willing to pray our whole lives to see change? To see something amazing unfold?

Even though, as I saw that original sentence on the Abbey of The Arts newsletter I thought the events were unconnected as I have explored through this post I can see that they all fit together like a well-made glove. And this makes me willing to pray for the future. A future I may only glimpse that that will benefit the whole world.