Would you look at us? We are in the meantime. Post Christmas, pre New Year, here we are worshiping the Savior together. Truth be known, I feel a bit torn precisely because I don’t know what to feel this first Sunday of Christmas. We are less than 72 hours past the party. Heaven has kissed earth and we have a glorious baby to show for it; I’ve seen the sparkling angels and haggard shepherds with a beleaguered Mary and bewildered Joseph. And I’m fighting the blahs…or just feeling a bit blasé.

Look back and see the revelation: the nativity fully set, baby boy bundled in hay. Look forward and sense the surprise: a new year with Jesus again. Look here, and what do you see…we’re neither here nor there. Anticlimactic is the last emotion I want to feel or convey. But, I’m in the rut between festivities and frivolities of mirth and mistletoe, and football at every turn.

Perhaps it’s my first and only taste of postpartum depression. But, I did not ever get to hold baby Jesus in his blanket, rock him to sleep, kiss his soft cheek.

I want to sing, Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O…But do I mean that bit about rejoicing? I know that I didn’t miss the miracle, but do I miss Christ’s enduring effect? Old year meets New Year…Christ child born…but when will we see him again? Blink and he’s all grown up: just like what your grandmom tells you when she sees you struggling to Velcro your 3 yr old’s shoe on his chubby foot.

We are in that meantime between times; and so is Luke. Thank God for that middle man, Luke—the kindest of gospel writers to give us the goodnews in between. Not Matthew, not Mark, not even John gives us what Luke does: a full glimpse into the years between Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ baptism. Here’s the Christ no longer a babe, not yet a man. Luke just tells us about a boy in the meantime. [Look both ways, says Luke, and you’ll see a marvelous God who meets us coming and going.]

Do you see that Mary and Joseph are looking for the Divine? Through Advent, George has urged us to do the same: to look within, to look around, look up and look out—looking for God’s grace active in our presence. Mary and Joseph are surely looking every which way for their God boy. I wonder how much the tears of frustration liquefied there view and salted their cheeks. It is hard to see when you’re so scared, so mad, so anxious.

I remember looking everywhere. The only time that I’ve really felt solidarity with Jesus at 12 was in May 1996: my granddad, Gangy, had died. My whole family, the Hogewood side, gathered together for the funeral at St John’s Baptist Church, downtown Charlotte NC. The funeral was…nice, fitting service for my dad’s dad. We closed singing A Mighty Fortress, then hugs for the family and the crowd disperses into the mildly magnificent spring afternoon. I, 26 and a conscientious seminarian, wanted to say a word of thanks to Dr Richard Kremer, my Gangy’s pastor. I catch him in the corridor behind the sanctuary. We exchange sentiments; “Nice to meet you, Jay,” he says. “Your grandfather sure was proud of all his grandchildren.” “I know,” I respond, “thanks for the good word of faith and for remembering him so well.” We talk for a good while walking back to his study. I notice the time, “Well, thanks and blessings to you.” Back out to the sanctuary I go, looking for my brother, Mark, sure that he’d be waiting for me. No Mark. No…anybody. So, I scamper up to the narthex. No Mark, no Hogewoods, no body. I cannot believe this. Over 30 Hogewoods in one church, and not one remembers me! I of course had forgotten my aunt and uncle’s phone number and the church office is now locked. And…it only took my family 75 minutes to realize that they’d left me. They were all eating that after-funeral-family-feast, and just sort of noticed that I hadn’t made it through the buffet yet…1 hour 15 minutes later for crying out loud!

Well: How could Mary and Joseph let this happen!? Were they fit for parenting; were they lazy, too caught up in the festivities to notice that there first child had slipped away? And as for that holy chip off the divine block: where did Jesus stay? Did he have anything to eat? How could he have been so sassy to his folks anyhow? The story is not meant to wonder over these things. It is hard enough, Luke observes, just to understand who Jesus is, who’s timeframe he’s on…

This gospel writer is just fine leaving us and our questions in the lurch. He is not so concerned about our notions of motherhood or fatherhood. Luke is quite concerned about Jesus’ sonship though. Here is God’s Son, the world’s small Savior, knowing and doing what he must: beginning with his end in mind. Luke is looking back to spring forward: Jesus at 12 in Jerusalem bumping up against the religious institution. In the meantime of Jesus’ life, Luke shows us what our Lord is bound for…controversy to the cross.

Prodigy and prodigal: such a slight difference between the two. Jesus plays the holy prodigal, staying behind where he feels most at home. Mary and Joseph’s boy seems a bit reckless—worrying his mom and dad like that…like any preadolescent who alone figures when to fit in and when to stand out. Here he is standing out. So, is this disregard for mom and dad? Or real regard for who and whose he is? Such the prodigy this Jesus.

Jesus learns his tradition to reorient the tradition to make it mean new things. In his father’s house or about his father’s business: the translation works either way. Location and vocation for Jesus’ ministry are tied together. Up he grows before our very eyes. Increasing in wisdom, in years, and so much favor: everyone he meets is drawn toward him. There’s something different about the boy…about his capacity for obedience—a rough, but necessary factor in the life of childhood, in the way of discipleship. Like Samuel long before him: Jesus is dedicated to the Lord from birth and growing in favor with God and others along the way. Obedient to God’s saving grace and dedicated to mature in it.

After 3 days they found him. Luke foreshadows. He leads us forward by drawing us back. Notice: Jesus, Jerusalem, religious establishment, Passover & unleavened bread, listening and asking, understanding and answering, amazement of the crowd, anxiety of a poor mother, to find him there. Seem familiar? Look both ways. You see where he’s been and where he’s going again.

We need a way to see both…at the same time. Like Janus the god of gates and doors in Roman mythology. Maybe you’ve seen him as a financial guru…poor little god has been reduced to a logo on a family of mutual funds. Janus is two faced, peering in opposite directions, the better to see what’s happened and about to happen. As the myth goes, Janus marks transitions and he gives us our word for January. He stands on the threshold and gazes on history while staring down the future. Such hindsight and foresight: Janus after a quick rinse in Christianity gives us an image of discipleship. Looking back to see what Jesus has done and looking ahead to see what he is up to next. (Information gathered from www.pantheon.org/articles/j/janus.html)

Luke shows us that Jesus’ whole earthly life is wrapped around Jerusalem, where he’ll engage the political and religious establishment—less child-like, but just as innocently. From temple to tomb there is life and life to come. Jesus knows where he’s been and where he’s going.

But nothing really gets past mom, treasuring these things in her heart.

Caught in the middle, in the meantime, Mary must be careful to mother a savior without mothering a son…looking both ways, back at his birth and forward to his ministry that is not her own. Look both ways and oh how time flies! It was just yesterday in that dingy manger with braying sheep. And, oh how the time passes! Tomorrow he’s off to temple then manhood and no wife, no children to make her happy; instead a celibate son who roams the countryside. A son who’s obedient to a larger plan, a bigger perspective.

Amid all the reflections of 2003—the best & worst—and all the predictions of 2004—good and bad, how do you find things with Jesus? How are you going to close the old year and open the new one?

Sighing or breathing deeply? With one we bid 2003 good riddance: whew, glad that year’s gone! With the other we welcome 2004: ahhh, can’t wait to get into this one! Which is it? Whew or ahhh? Tough times hit us this year: space shuttle Challenger explodes, Iraqi War for what, still looking for a job, mom broke her hip, a new major…a former boyfriend. Still new days are just ahead, hopes run high: a new raise with stock options, Saddam is captured, friends are swell, dad is well, school is super, love it!  Exhale to inhale, inhale to exhale; alas, to live we have to do both. It’s all part of breathing. And breathing is to life as looking is to faith.

Finding Jesus is not always so easy, is it? Even as I think he’s under my thumb.Sometimes I don’t know whether I’ve traveled ahead, leaving him behind. Or, he’s stayed behind and waits for me to realize I’m too far along. Jesus always knows where he needs to be. Times past, times to come: Jesus meets us coming and going, exhaling and inhaling.

The stakes are high today…in this in between-looking-both-ways time. Where are you looking for your Savior? Ahead of you? Behind you? God is breathing down your back and steaming toward your face. So this is the point of convergence. Always, now. Christ Jesus has entered our lives. He seeks to enter our life again and again. So, look both ways this year. To see our Savior about his business…finding us.