Something that most of us Christians do not think very much about is our belief that Jesus was fully God and fully human.  We repeat the phrases of the Creed – Jesus as the only begotten Son of the Father, adding in the Nicene Creed:  God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made – but I wonder how much of this truth penetrates our hearts or affects our attitudes and behaviour.  Christian thinkers in the first three centuries tried to understand who this Jesus of Nazareth was and how he could be Our Saviour.  Explanations often became heresies.  For example, one heresy held that because God could not suffer, then Jesus was only an appearance, not a flesh-and-blood human.  Other heresies tried to present him as an intermediary between God and humankind, that is  not fully God and not really human.  The statements of the Nicene and Apostles Creeds were composed to affirm the recognized truth about Jesus; he was fully God and fully human.

One of the insights about the humanity of Jesus has come to me from the Gospel of Luke and that is the one incident presented in the life of Jesus as a boy, his three days in the Temple in Jerusalem at the age of 12. The reason I find this so startlingly striking is often lost in the description of this incident as “The Finding of Jesus in the Temple” which suggests that the story is about Mary and Joseph.

However, if we review a few details of Luke’s account, we will first recognize that Jesus, as known by his apostles and his own family, was fully human.  Although we know next to nothing about the story of Jesus from the time of his birth until he begins his public ministry at the baptism of John, the description of Jesus in the Temple says, “…they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.  And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.”  Now remember:  this is a twelve-year-old boy that we are talking about!  Where did he get this knowledge and wisdom?

Generally, we think of Jesus’ so-called hidden years as a time of following his father as a carpenter.  But whatever Jesus did with Joseph, by the time he was 12 he was very familiar with the Scriptures:  The Torah or Law, the Psalms, the Prophets.  The Jewish Scriptures and the history of Israel were the nourishment of his identity.  And he was in love with God’s Word and God’s presence to this people.

In other words, probably from the time he could read, Jesus was searching for God’s Will for himself.  Recall for a moment the conversation he had with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus where he explained everything in the Scriptures that pointed to the Messiah.  In particular, I assume he spent considerable time explaining the Suffering Servant songs of the prophet Isaiah because that is where he found his calling from his Heavenly Father.  That is where he understood what was being asked of him as the Chosen One, the Messiah. I might point out here that in the Alpha program, a basic introduction to Christian faith, there is a moment where it is stated that there’s over 400 references in what we recognize as the Hebrew Scriptures which identify Jesus as the promised Messiah.

It is not hard to imagine that Jesus spent the years before his public ministry reading and seeking understanding in the Scriptures, being faithful to the Jewish practice of faith in the One God and spending countless hours in prayer from which his pathway became clear.  Indeed, think of the many times Jesus goes off by himself to pray; I believe he is discerning God’s Will for himself and asking for the courage to follow through with what he has discerned.  Thus, he chooses disciples and teaches them to follow the Way of God’s saving intervention through Jesus in human history.  In the Gospel of Mark, three times, Jesus tries to instruct them that the Messiah must suffer and die and then be raised but the disciples fail to understand.  Eventually, Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem knowing full well what his fate will be. 

Now all of this could be the story of a very clever religious manipulator, except for one thing, the reality of the Resurrection.  At that point, and with the strength of the Holy Spirit, the apostles and disciples began to understand all that he had taught them was true.  God has visited His people, has brought light into darkness, has affirmed that humanity is God’s beloved creation, and that God loves us even to the sacrifice of His Son.

Now, if we had time, we could explore the Christian Scriptures, what we call the New Testament, to see how the evangelists and early thinkers began to recognize that the ONLY way his salvation could be real was if Jesus was God and became human.  Gospel of Mark itself begins, “The Good News”, which is a translation of the word Gospel, “the Good News of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.”  Then in Philippians we read, “Though he was in the form of God he did not cling to his divinity but emptied himself and became human, even to the point of death, death on the Cross.”  For me, the most astonishing statement about the divinity of Jesus comes from the Gospel of John and we see that it comes from meditating on the divine nature of Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  John realizes that when God spoke, that is God’s Word, the world was created precisely by God’s Word.  And then later on we hear “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  Those early evangelizers were stunned to realize that God, in Jesus, had entered into our world as a human being, of whom John says in his First Letter:  We saw him, we heard him, we touched him.  The joy and astonishment of those first preachers and teachers of the Gospel should continue to thrill us today.

But let me return for a moment to the Temple and the 12-year-old Jesus because there are some lessons for us as well.  First, the Bible is God’s Word.  It is presented in human words and conditioned by the eras and cultures in which it was written.  But in it we will find guidance for our lives and, through prayer, our personal challenges from God.  Like the child Jesus, we need to spend time listening in this manner to God speaking to us.  And as Jesus understood this Word in the context of Jewish history and community, so we are called not to an individualistic interpretation of the Scriptures but to a community of faith that reads, prays, and questions them for our faithful living in community.

Secondly, I would invite you to return to the story of Mary and Joseph seeking Jesus.  After all the drama of the annunciation and birth of Jesus, they have spent 12 years raising their son.  When they find him in the Temple, they ask why he has treated them this way?  Jesus’ response tells another story: “Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?”  Jesus is now ready at this age to become an adult Jew, to believe as a member of the community.  And he is beginning to recognize God as His Father.

But his parents do not understand.  Their responsibility to him means that Jesus is to return home and be obedient to them; in other words, for them he is still a child and Jesus accepts that relationship.  But notice Mary’s reaction: “His mother treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.”  Three times in the infancy narrative of St. Luke, Mary is presented as pondering the ways of God in Gabriel, in the birth of her Son, and now in his stepping into adulthood.  I think that the Gospel of John then captures what all this prayer and pondering about her Son and God’s ways culminated in, namely, that she was present at the foot of the Cross.  What she fully understood remains in her heart; but what she knew at the Cross was that she was one with her Son in his suffering and death and then, ultimately, in his Resurrection.  She has spent eternity since then leading her own sons and daughters to her Son, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world.

All through his public ministry his disciples wondered who this man, this human being, was.  They listened, they observed, they followed, but when they saw Jesus die on the Cross, they felt utterly hopeless and even betrayed.  Then they were transformed at the Resurrection and through the gift of the Holy Spirit.  And they began to understand.

Now it is our turn.  For God’s Word became flesh and continues to live among us!

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.