{"id":10847,"date":"2024-12-29T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-28T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?p=10847"},"modified":"2024-12-28T22:12:13","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T11:12:13","slug":"finding-jesus-finding-ourselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?p=10847","title":{"rendered":"Finding Jesus – Finding ourselves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sermon based on Gospel of Luke 2: 41-52<\/strong> and Letter to Colossians 3: 12-17 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Geoff Serpell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we delve into today\u2019s readings, the last Sunday of the year 2024, let me reflect on our year at Leighmoor<\/strong> in transition. Despite diminishing sources of income, we \u2018ve upgraded our Minister\u2019s manse and celebrated 170 years of worship here, in contact with or in person with dear friends from far and wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will our legacy grow<\/strong> or reduce at Leighmoor is a big question we here cannot answer. All we can do presently is plan for 2025, shining our small lights in this corner of the world doing our very best, using our limited resources and being guided by the Holy Spirit and through constant prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further afield we must accept that wars continue in the world as do increasing climate change<\/strong> events of natural flood, bush fires and drought with the increasing warming of our oceans and atmosphere. As one consequence, the price of home and business insurance has in many cases become impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of us know firsthand what it is like to be desperately searching for a lost child<\/strong> or something like the house or car keys. Perhaps it was a lost file you needed to get an assignment finished. Maybe it was a cat or dog which disappeared down the busy road. We had experienced Gary our second son nicking off three times, during his younger childhood. Once in Marysville to buy an icy pole, once in Rosebud where we were camping and once here in Highett when he headed off to his grandmother at Sunshine before our wonderful neighbour brought him back home hand in hand. Perhaps, like what Joseph and Mary experienced in Jerusalem, you too have been down a similar road with a chill and dread as to what might happen to a lost child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of you too know the feeling of searching for yourself<\/strong> and trying to dig through the layers of baggage you have accumulated during a lifetime trying to find your true self-who you really are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be a lifetime quest<\/strong> and for some more acute and difficult, loaded up with\u201d should and ought\u2019s\u201d and fears and expectations that we have only the most flimsy and fragile sense of who we are under all that of \u201cwho we are in our silence\u201d when the noise of everyday events is gone and we stand in the silence of God where we are known for who we really are in the depth of our being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leo Buscaglia<\/strong> wrote about this in his book, \u201cPersonhood, the art of being fully human\u201d where he states: \u201cIn essence, then, fully functioning mature persons are continually growing, they realize that maturity is not a goal, but rather a process; that the essence of maturity lies in creative and responsible choices. They have a flexible but nonconformist sense of identity, an accepting and vivid sense of who they are, what they can be and where their powers lie. Fundamental to the mature person is the ability to form deep, intimate, meaningful relationships based on an unconditional regard for the uniqueness of others.  They\u2019re loving and sexually responsive, they\u2019re productive workers & dedicated to their labours. They embrace change for the improvement of themselves and others, as well as all of society in which they live. They are well determined, inventive, good humored, and comfortable in their world, with themselves and with others.\u201d   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gospel<\/strong> has elements of two quests in it. Mary and Joseph have lost their child and are frantically searching for him, but meanwhile, the twelve-year-old is talking about some new steps in discovering who he really is and what his life is all about. Some thing else is going on in this story, as it is the gospel story in miniature. A foreshadowing of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. This is the story of the first of two trips<\/strong> to Jerusalem recounted in Luke\u2019s gospel. The other one starts in chapter nine when Jesus \u201csets his face toward Jerusalem\u201d. It is not until chapter nineteen that he gets there and when he does, he is lynched by a mob and strung up to die. Jewish boys celebrate their Bar Mitzvah at twelve years of age, their coming of age, and this Passover when Jesus can participate in with the status of a man. From Mary and Joseph\u2019s perspective, they go to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover with Jesus, but they lose him there. The one who is the centre of their lives is missing in Jerusalem. How long must their grief and fear exist before Jesus is found again? Three days. Later it is three days lost in the tomb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jesus is found in the temple<\/strong>, it is not the same as it earlier was. He does not define himself by his relationship with his parents. He defines himself by his relationship with God. He will not anymore go along with whatever his parents dictate. He is now attending his father\u2019s business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we mark the end of one year<\/strong> and the beginning of another, many of us find ourselves reflecting on what we need to leave behind and how we need to grow and change in the coming year to be people we were created to be. Some of this is to look for a role model. We may recognize attributes in others we wish to emulate. We just may find something in another that resonates so deeply and truly within us calling forth something good. In the letter to the Colossians, the Apostle, Paul, gives a lot of attention to this matter of imitating others, and in today\u2019s letter he urges us to model ourselves on Jesus, to forgive as he forgave, and to clothe ourselves \u2018in compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and \u2018with love which binds all together in perfect harmony\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colossians<\/strong> makes it clear that we are modelling ourselves on Jesus because, in doing so, is our salvation. We all have a decision to make to follow Jusus in obedience to the Father, and his offering himself in love and mercy as the Passover lamb, or to follow all the other things that demand our allegiance employing us in things other than what God requires. We find ourselves and are saved by following the right model or else we follow another model and lose ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Jesus the Messiah, we learn from him the way of handing ourselves over to the Father\u2019s business<\/strong>, absorbing bitterness and violence and returning only love and mercy. \u201cClothe yourself with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The signs of these things are already beginning to show in this story of the twelve-year-old Jesus<\/strong>, and even then, he is a model for us to follow, in giving our allegiance to God and God; s business before anything else, the call to love as Christ loves means loving our families too, and no one is disposable in the realm of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus is not the only role model for us in this story. Mary is also<\/strong>. I quote: \u201cMary treasured all these things in her heart\u201d. Paul urged us to:\u201d let the word of Christ dwell in you richly\u201d. We are called to ponder these things in our hearts and let them dwell in us richly. They are a mystery to be lived, as the core of our being to who we are in the eyes of God. In our hearts we will find our true selves, and Jesus, so that in real life decisions we will become people of love and truth<\/strong> who offer ourselves in Christ for the life of the world. [Refs: Nettleton, Bible commentaries & Love to the World]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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