He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was
obedient to them.
You would think that it would be pretty hard for
Our Lady and St. Joseph to misplace Jesus, especially after all that they had
heard and seen about his birth: The Annunciation, the dream of St. Joseph, the
angels and the shepherds, the flight into Egypt and the Presentation in the
Temple: But before you call Child
Protective Services you might consider the circumstances. There were convoys of
pilgrims, men in one company and women in another. Given the crowds and given
the fact that Mary could easily have thought Jesus was with Joseph and Joseph that
he was with Mary. But the real clue to what was going on was that it happened
in Jerusalem and it was the feast of the Passover. Jesus was separated from
them for three days. Jesus went down. You might begin to see the picture.
There will be another pilgrimage to Jerusalem
and another large crowd, enthusiastic one moment, deadly the next. The teachers
will say “that it is expedient that one man should die for the people, and that
the whole nation should not perish”. The child, when no longer a child, will be
lost again and buried three days in a tomb. But what Jesus said to his Mother at the Wedding in Cana,
he could say today: “My hour has not yet come.”
But still he says today “did you not know that I
must be in my Father’s house?” How could they not know: the old man had told
Mary ‘this child is for the rising and fall of many in Israel and a sign that
is spoken against” and ‘a sword will pierce your own heart.” The Gospel this
Sunday is a preparation for that hour. “After three days they found him in the
temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them
questions.”
In his human nature Jesus must learn from the
very men who will be responsible for his death, in the very place which he
cleanses by casting out the money-changers. “"The scribes and the
Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you,
but not what they do.” ‘Born under the law’, Jesus must learn the law. All
learning requires humility: to learn you have to listen and know what you do
not know, something which has been lost apparently in our universities of late.
He could have easily protested their teaching; what do they know anyway? What
they knew, never mind whether they lived it out or not, is the Word of God even
for Word of God himself.
Yet the real school Jesus attended is what Pope
Paul VI called ‘the school of Nazareth’. Because the Holy Family is a real
family, the place where above all love is incarnated, it is also a place of
sorrow. “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been
looking for you anxiously.” We can hardly imagine that these are the words of
hysterical, overly protective manipulative parents. This is burst of real
grief, the wound of love, which the Holy Family experiences like every family.
Nor can we attribute Jesus response as adolescent bravado: “did you not know
that I must be about my Father’s business?” We know this because St. Luke gives
us the result: “he
went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them”.
For Jesus God and obedience stand at the center
of his family and constitute the glue that holds it together, creating a bond
tighter even than the physical bond between the Mother and the Son. “Who is my
mother, and who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven
is my brother, and sister, and mother,” he will say later, knowing full well
his own Mother’s fiat: ‘be it unto be according to thy word.”
Such is the school of Nazareth, where we too
must learn. What we can learn there in the first place is to be hidden. After
the scene in the Gospel this Sunday the screen goes blank. We will not hear
again of Jesus until his baptism. Can we stand for even a few minutes, let
alone years, not to be the center of attention? From Jesus in the home of Mary
and Joseph we can learn to hear the Word, to be open to God, not only from reading the Bible, but by living
the Gospel in that most intimate of human circumstances, where no can hide. At Nazareth
we can learn that most unfashionable virtue, obedience, without which there can
be no following of Jesus, no holiness of life, and no real love. Above all else
at Nazareth we can learn to descend with Jesus.
He
went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them
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