The Lectionary takes us on a strange journey this year. Having just celebrated the birth of Christ, we now fast forward to the one story in the Scriptures from Jesus’ childhood – when his parents forgot him in the Temple. Then, with next week being Epiphany, we go back in time again, to the visit of the magi. The difference is that, while Christmas seeks to explore the event of the incarnation, Epiphany begins to tease out the meaning of the incarnation. The season that follows Epiphany leads us still deeper into an understanding of Jesus through the eyes of those who encountered him, while also showing the different ways that God’s glory was manifest through Christ. That means that we are still seeking to gain some grasp of the incarnation itself in this Sunday after Christmas.
The clue in the Lectionary this week is in the reading from 1 Samuel which forms a kind of parallel with the Gospel. Both Samuel and Jesus were at home in the temple from a very young age. Both had parents who valued and visited the Temple. Both became teachers and leaders of God’s people. And both were completely human. As such, both had to learn and grow and be nurtured into their ministries. In a similar way, the Psalm speaks of God as the one who strengthens all of creation – which responds in praise. Finally, in Colossians, God’s people are also called to learn and grow into the life of following Christ – a life of compassion, harmony and peace.
So, as much as we celebrate the divinity of Christ, and acknowledge that in him God has become flesh, the focus this week is on how the humanity of Jesus enabled him to understand and experience life as we do, and made it possible for him to be an example for us to follow. This means that we can’t use the divinity of Jesus as an excuse to accept lower standards for our lives than those embodied in his. His call for us to follow him is based in the truth that his life was completely human, and therefore completely accessible for us. It also means that as we follow Jesus, we do so with the same need to grow, learn, change, fail and develop as Jesus did. Our faith is a pathway that enables us to journey through our humanity with deeper meaning, understanding and connectedness. The implications of following a human Christ will be the focus of our worship this week.