Losing the Lamb. When Jesus was the little lamb of God, Mary and Joseph lost Jesus. So, they left the caravan of their relatives and acquaintances and went looking for the lamb of God who they lost. The Bible does not tell us how many people were in this caravan of Mary and Joseph’s relatives and acquaintances, but I bet I know how many people there were … 99.
You see, when Jesus tells us as an adult later in the Gospel of Luke that if you lose a sheep, you should leave the 99 and go after the lost sheep until you find it, he is not sharing with us a cute theoretical parable. Jesus is sharing with us what Mary and Joseph actually did for him when he was the lamb of God who they lost.
I take great consolation in knowing that Mary and Joseph were not perfect. Because it means that I as a fellow imperfectionist have a chance of being a part of a holy family too.
Mary and Joseph went a day without talking with their 12-year-old son Jesus before they realized they lost him. When I go a day without praying to Jesus, I know I am in good company because Mary and Joseph went a day without talking to their 12-year-old son Jesus before they realized they left him behind. This goes to show us that our family becomes less holy when we mistakenly think that it is someone else’s responsibility to keep Jesus close to us. If they and we go a day without talking with Jesus and don’t pray, we too increase the likelihood of going astray, of leaving Jesus behind, and losing Jesus.
The simple fact is that if Mary and Joseph would have talked to Jesus more often, they wouldn’t have been separated from him for four days. The further we go away from Jesus and God’s house, the less holy our family becomes. The more often we pray, the less likely we are to go astray.
Before Mary and Joseph go any further astray, they model for us what we should do by leaving the caravan of relatives and acquaintances and turning around to move closer to the Jesus we lost. When we have lost Jesus in our lives, we too should stop going off in our own direction and instead we should turn around to find him.
That’s exactly what Mary and Joseph do, and they were searching after Jesus for three days. In the Bible, the number three represents completeness. Mary and Joseph had looked completely everywhere for Jesus. Mary and Joseph had completed their looking for Jesus everywhere they thought they could find him before they come looking for Jesus in God’s house. How often do we go looking in all the wrong places for the peace, joy, and fulfillment that can only come from being with Jesus? Even if we have been looking in all the wrong places, a holy family is a family that keeps searching for Jesus.
To their eternal credit, Mary and Joseph didn’t stop looking and didn’t give up until they found Jesus. Mary and Joseph finally go to God’s house when they had nowhere else left to turn. Sometimes, when we feel like Jesus left us, coming to God’s house is the last place we go searching for him, even though it should be the first place we go to find Jesus.
When Mary finally finds Jesus, she starts blaming him asking him why he did this to them. When we like Mary and Joseph are without Jesus and have great anxiety, do we also mistakenly think that Jesus left us? Jesus reminds Mary and each of us, that it was not he who left us, but it was us each of us who left him behind. Even when we’ve gone just about as far away from him as we can, if we just take a moment to listen, we can hear Jesus calling out to us saying, “When you are done with going your own way, I’m here in God’s house. I’m here when you’re ready.” For all those times in our lives when we’ve followed the crowd and left Jesus behind to go our own way, let us turn back to pursue him.
Jesus reminds her and each of us that our home after all is not in Nazareth. Our home is where Jesus is. Each and every time we’ve left Jesus behind; we can find him here in his Father’s House in the Eucharist. This side of Eden and this side of heaven, Mass is the closest we can get to experiencing what it is like to be a reunited holy family.
I believe the reason this is the only story we get about 26 years of Jesus’ life between when he was about four years old returning from Egypt with Mary and Joseph and when he was baptized at age 30 to start his public ministry is because it illustrates the ways in which Mary and Joseph were the first teachers of the faith for Jesus and because this story is foundational to Jesus being the Good Shepherd. After Mary and Joseph lost the lamb of God, they left the others in their flock to look for him, and found him, we are told that Mary kept all these things in her heart. At some point during the following 18 hidden years of Jesus’ life, I imagine Mary said to Jesus, “you remember how I left the 99 to go after the lamb of God who we lost? I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
What Mary and Joseph did in coming after Jesus so they could be a reunited holy family, Jesus does for you and me when we have left Jesus behind and are lost. As we gather together today in the father’s house, we turn our hearts to our father and say, “Here we are father, your kids who desire to be the lost sheep your son puts on his shoulders with a smile on his face.” When Jesus is holding us with this smile on his face, he is smiling not because we’ve done anything right, not because we’ve done anything to deserve it, but because Jesus loves us as his brother and sister who was lost and now is found. He is bringing us back with him to his father’s fold so that we may rejoice together.
We lost sheep might come here today feeling that God is mad at us, that God might be disappointed in us, that God might think we are too far gone or might think we are too small to care about. Jesus comes here today, picks us lost sheep up on his shoulders with a smile on his face and says to us, “no matter how little you are, no matter how many times you’ve turned your back on me and walked away from me, no matter how long gone you are, I won’t give up on you.” You are the whole reason he came here. Jesus is not giving up until you are found.
Brothers and sisters, a holy family is simply a family that is willing to leave our 99 relatives and acquaintances to go find Jesus when we’ve left him behind and to gather together in our father’s house with Jesus. The holy family that is the Body of Christ is not complete without you.