go and make a careful search for the child

“…the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem,
but they were unaware of it.
Thinking he was in their company,
they traveled on for a day.”
Luke 2

An entire day passed before Joseph and Mary realized Jesus was no longer with them, before the silence of absence spoke up and got their attention. Neither was he among their friends or relatives. And for what it’s worth, it seemed as far as they could tell that the plans were fairly simple, clear and straight-forward: they were to go to the feast and when it was over, they were to return home, together. Somewhere along the way, what Jesus had in mind and what his parents had in mind were not the same.

As this nightmare materializes; as they come to grips with the reality of what has happened, Joseph and Mary leave the company of travelers and hurry back to Jerusalem to search for him. Fortunately, only one day had gone by before they discovered Jesus’ absence. And possibly it was not Jesus who was absent. Perhaps Jesus was where he was supposed to be all along. Maybe Mary and Joseph were the ones who did the leaving? Perhaps they wandered off from where Jesus was.

It is a parent’s worst nightmare: to be in a crowded place and suddenly realize that your child is not with you. Seconds upon realizing that your child is missing, you immediately and hastily scan in every direction, hoping to catch a quick glimpse. You begin to shake. Words have no place here because you have lost the ability to speak. You spin around and look again, knowing that every second that goes by means they may be further and further away. Fists of questions begin pounding on the big wooden doors of your mind:

Have they wandered off?
Did somebody take them?
How long?
Where?
Are they safe?
Why?
How did this happen?

As worthy as these questions are, still the matter of first importance is to find your child. To discover how it happened is secondary. You can get to that later.

“Go and make a careful search for the child.”
—King Herod

Although, these statements were made with evil intentions, they do have something to say to us. Those words are worth listening to. And I think they may even be more relevant to us today. “Go and make a careful search for the child.”

The same goes with our lives. Some of us need to go and make a careful search for our lives. The life we are leading may not be the life you had dreamed of. You may even smirk at the thought of even calling what you are doing a life. You may not feel like what you are doing is living. Perhaps it feels more like survival, struggle, or just getting through the day. A life lived simply to survive is no life lived at all. A day lived with the hopes of just getting through it and putting it behind you is no day worth living.

How do we move from simply surviving the day to living a life that is fully alive? And what does that even mean? Our culture has become more and more saturated with the idea of living a life that is fully alive. And I think the reason for that is that more and more people are realizing that they are a good ways from doing so. It’s as if we have all been awakened to the fact that we are living a pace of life that is killing us. We are distracted and hurried at every turn. There is no peace. There is no stillness. There is no life. We are learning this. And in this learning we are beginning to declare louder and louder that we want off this wheel. We want out of this race of rats.

I strongly believe that this life we are looking for is tied tightly to the person of Jesus. Jesus was the Master of living life. Nobody lived life like Jesus did. And if we are going to find life, I’d suggest we start looking a little more closely for Jesus. Not Christianity, not religion, not morality, but looking for Jesus. It is not about learning to smile no matter what or to try to be as nice as you can be. It’s about looking for life and life is about Jesus. Jesus is life. The life we desire so desperately is wrapped up in the person of Jesus.

For some of us it has been longer than a day since we last saw Jesus, or even thought about him. For some of us it has been days, months, years, or even entire lifetimes. In the rushing flow of our days, in all of the noise, busyness, and productivity of life, maybe we just forgot about him. And one day you look up and consider the distance between the two of you. How long has it been for you since you last noticed the presence of Jesus in your life? Perhaps you should leave and hurry back to Jerusalem and search for him.

Hurry. Run! There is no time to lose.