Growing Up
Luke 2: 21-24
January 7, 2007
Jesus was born into a whole lot! He was the firstborn child and male. This means he could have been consecrated to the temple. He was special. He was select. But, an offering was made instead to take him home again. This was needed by poor families. They needed their children at home, to work. Jesus was born into a poor family. This is even said in code in the gospel of Luke, because of the offering his parents were allowed to give at the Temple. But, they were righteous parents. They were interested in living according to the tenants of their faith. They were following the Law of Moses and took this new born son to the Temple to make offerings to God. Jesus was born into a gender, a birth order, a family, an economic status, a faith, a culture, a role. Jesus was born into a lot.
Isn’t it something to think about his growing up story? We’ve left the gospel of Matthew after chewing on what Matt thought about all this for a year, with the new year in Advent we leapt into the gospel of Luke. Luke brings us right into this story with an introduction to a Greek. Luke is the only gospel that names the cultural context of the author bringing in Jerusalem and Bethlehem but also Rome and Greece. Luke is very clear that he and the person Theophilus have been born into a socio-economic cultural context. And, that God is still speaking and working in that time through both of them and many more. We meet Luke here today. Unpacking Emanuel, God with us. Unpacking how we have a God, that wants so much to be in relationship with us, to free us from our fears and doubts that he comes here to relate to us in Jesus. Jesus is nothing for Luke but a big arrow pointing back to God. So God is such a being, that the One brings the Godhead into our lives through a poor couple. A poor couple comprised of an older man and a young girl. A young girl who is pregnant outside of marriage. This is something to be killed over in their cultural context. And, this girl is devout and righteous. She names the child, just as she promised the angel she would. Even in the midst of her poverty, her shunning, her engagement, her gender, her family, her fiancé, she names him just as she promised the angel.
The key element for righteousness between the Jews and God was this idea of covenant. A covenant is a sacred promise between yourself and God. Or it can be between God and a community of faith, God and a nation. It’s a holy promise that you and God participate in. The word for covenant in Hebrew is the same word for circumcision. To be circumcised as Jesus was, on the appropriate day according to their tradition. He was marked. He was brought into the nation of Israel. He was brought into the covenant. The promise. That he would be God’s and God would be his God. And, that the nation of Israel, would live in covenant with this God because he would now do his part to ensure it as a member of the tribe. Once one was marked, each day would be spent learning and understanding how it was one grew within their station, their location and held their place within the covenant. Jesus was born into this covenant it was a big deal.
In Greek the word for covenant is testament. The New Testament should actually be called the Book of the New Covenant. We don’t use the Law of Moses, even though Jesus followed it, instead we are marked another way. Any guesses? Yes, through baptism. We are marked by baptism. The understanding is the same, an outward sign of an inward process. The adults that have us baptized or the adults that ask for baptism are bringing us into the new covenantal promise with God. That God will be our God and that we will be God’s people.
But, even today, we are still born into most of this. We are born into a gender. We are born into a family. We are born into a religious tradition or not. We are born into a socio economic status. So what does it mean for us to have this early story of Jesus getting circumcised and the parents getting purified.
God with us came into the world and into the covenant through the least likely place, in the least likely way. There was nothing easy, pretty, nice about this whole experience from Mary to the empire ruling the world at the time. The whole story is difficult. And, our God, the one who is calling us into covenant from our birth and through our baptism, this God comes into the story right there. In a weak, poor, powerless, shaky family unit. God with us, that is really our covenantal God came into our world, in that very place that we often times hesitate to see. Wherever it is we are born into, God is with us in those places and calls us into covenant. No one is left out of the promise anyone from anywhere can be accepted in the covenant.
God with us came into the world where it says that THEY needed to go and get purified. Now the Law of Moses never actually says this. Mary would have needed purification after giving birth. But, Joseph should have needed no purification. Jesus should have needed no purification. So who are they? And, the offering it is suggested that they give. It is an alternate offering according to the Law that a woman could give after childbirth if she were poor. But, interestingly enough, it could also be an offering given for forgiveness of sin. What sin did they need to erase, Joseph and Mary. What sin did the virginal, yet unmarried Mary need to be forgiven for? And, how about that silent Joseph? What did he do that needed forgiveness? Some scholars remind that the author Luke, he was a Palestinian Gentile, he probably didn’t understand Judaism enough to get the facts right and it’s just an error in pronoun. Other scholars say that Luke got lazy and decided to combine both Mary’s purification for giving birth, the offering of the firstborn son, and the naming ceremony all into one trip which proves he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But, what if they are there to make an offering for forgiveness of sin. Doesn’t that make things even better. If both of them, outside of marriage conceive the Son of God? That God comes into this world through the culturally unacceptable matching of Mary and Joseph. What if the whole betrothal thing is an after thought. It’s what happened to clean up “this mess”. What if God with us comes into this world in the darkest of nights, on the darkest of days when Mary was taken. When love was alive but rules wouldn’t allow. Maybe this is what happens to Joseph and why he is so silent. He was not following the rule of God. What if God with us can come out of some of the most brutalizing terror that can be done to a person? How does it change the moments of torture and despair when knowing God is with us even in those places. Even when a virgin conceives. Even when families hide her away at a relatives. Even when she’s so ashamed she goes the 90 miles by herself, out in the wilderness. Used and unprotected. And, then, what if they both go to ask forgiveness from God together, at the Temple with this tiny new life. What would Mary be pondering and considering quietly in her heart. Perhaps it is the power of a covenant with God. Oh the places we are born into.
We are born into all sorts of places, but God is there. There is not one place that is outside of the possibility of God. All of creation is good. And, all of God’s good creation is blessed. Blessed indeed. We historically can not understand nor accept this and constantly try to add in the buts. Seeing this truth, God breaks into our lives in a new way. And, this new way is a new covenant. And, this covenant is available to all who wish to receive it. This covenant is available to all who want to bring a life into it. This covenant is available and ready for any time we are willing to open to it.
These early stories of Jesus may be completely made up. None of the gospels tell the same tale if any early Jesus is included. But the stories we have are all placed here to point us to something beyond the story. Luke is pointing us to God. God loves us so much that we meet God in a form just like ourselves. God loves us so much that Luke is reminding us that there is another way, that we can believe in our created selves and that’s by participating in the Covenant. For when we live as a people in covenant we are never alone. It doesn’t matter if our work keeps us out all night. It doesn’t matter if we have to walk hundreds of miles to work. It doesn’t matter if we are ostracized by our families our location our world. God is with us! Everywhere that we are born into. And God covenants that we will always be God’s people. Let us pray.