"And the Child Grew"

“And the Child Grew”

Luke 2:40

            I have spent a lot of time this past two months thinking about Jesus and his family.  It’s always appropriate to do that during Advent and Christmas, but they have been on my mind even more than usual since I have been preaching and writing about them—the main characters in the Christmas story.  I’ve even broadened the idea of family to include Herod and the Magi.  You can’t get much broader than that.

            Matthew skips right from the birth story (well, the relocation to Nazareth) to the adult John the Baptist.  John moves to the same place right after his prologue.  Mark introduces us immediately to the adult Jesus as he begins his ministry.  Luke lingers for a few verses, giving us a look—however brief—into Jesus’ childhood.  We read about his circumcision, his visit to the temple with his parents to complete the process of Mary’s post-pregnancy purification, and his trip to Jerusalem with his family for Passover at age twelve. 

Left unaddressed is one of the great questions:  When did Jesus become aware that he was divine?  While there are many legends about his childhood that are based on that awareness, there is nothing in Scripture that lets us know when the boy Jesus knew his real parentage and his destiny.  Luke gives us a hint:  Jesus knew by the time he was twelve.

Luke says, “And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.”  (2:40)

We know that most children grow and become strong.  Thanks to good nutrition, the natural exercise of childhood, and the shepherding of parents and other family members, most children grow to adulthood with reasonable good health and strength.  Children who have the privilege of attending good schools also become filled with wisdom—at least with knowledge which, with the proper encouragement can grow into wisdom.  Wisdom is really the application of the knowledge we accumulate throughout our lives.

“And the favor of God was upon him.”  While we believe that all children belong to God, and are therefore loved and favored, Christians believe that God blessed Jesus in a way that was different from the way all other children are regarded.  In some mysterious way that we can’t completely understand, the essence of God was poured into this child at the moment of conception. 

We call this the Incarnation—God made flesh.  The child Jesus grew into the man Jesus who lived to show us how God wants us to live; who died to redeem us and reconcile us to God; and who was raised to give all humanity the promise of eternal life with God.  No other child can make that claim.  As C. S. Lewis said, either Jesus Christ was who he says he was, or he was a madman or a charlatan.  There is no middle ground.

But what about those children who don’t grow?  Those whose lives are cut short by disease, or disaster, or bullets or other untimely deaths?  What about those children who attend schools so hopelessly inadequate that there is no chance of an education that can lead to knowledge and wisdom?  What about those children who are abused physically or emotionally by parents or other adults who take out their frustrations, inadequacies, or terrible upbringings on ones who are helpless to fight back?  What about those children who are exploited to slake the desires of the adults who should be protecting them?  Aren’t these children favored by God?

The answer, of course is that all children deserve the chance to grow, and learn, and become healthy, loving, caring adults.  We must do all we can to insure that this happens because God cares for every one of them.