Journey with Jesus

This is the first sermon in a series entitled The Road We Travel. I preached this sermon on January 4, 2009.

Text: Luke 2:41-52

Introduction: Some of my favorite holiday movies is the home alone series. You know the large McCallister family takes off on a trip and accidentally leaves their son at home, while they fly to France. Hard to imagine anyone leaving their child like that.
When I was a youth minister I remember one particular Sunday when we were closing up the church after the morning services I found a young boy about 10 years old in the hallway. “Have you seen my parents?” he asked. Now I had seen his parents at the end of service heading out the door. So I walked him to the front parking lot and looked. Only my car out there. We walked to the back parking lot and looked. Only the pastor’s car back there. His parents had left him! So we got on the phone and called his home. The mother took it pretty calm, I would have been panicking. Come to find out the parents drove different cars and thought their son was with the other parent. And this wasn’t the first time it had happened. Of course, this sly kid used it to his advantage to talk about how bad his parents were for always leaving him at church.
In today’s text we see that Joseph and Mary left Jesus in Jerusalem. Now they are not bad parents, it looks like they had a communication problem.
The scripture tells us that Joseph and Mary went up to the Passover, as they would do each year, to Jerusalem. Now traveling as such they didn’t simply travel as a family, but would travel as a caravan with other families, most of whom would be friends and family. It was customary for the women and children to lead the way and the men and young men would follow. In such a case, Jesus could have traveled with Mary or Joseph or other children.
I can imagine when the first night of the caravan journey had ended and they were making camp that Joseph went looking for Jesus and couldn’t find him. As many of us here are parents we can imagine the distress Joseph and Mary must feel. They were a day’s journey out of Jerusalem and so had a days’ journey back to try and find Jesus.
Mary and Joseph inadvertently left Jesus behind, and they were traveling the road home without Jesus. Suddenly, aware they were without Jesus they panicked.
All of us today are traveling life’s road. Some of us today are traveling this road without Jesus. Even many Christians have gotten ahead of Jesus and left him behind. When crisis comes, when trouble comes we realize we panic because we realize we left Jesus behind. But as we travel life’s road each of us need Jesus for the Journey.

Jesus is our Companion for the Road we Travel
They should have kept Jesus close, not just in company. You could probably have asked Joseph “Where is Jesus?” Oh he is with his mother, I’m not concerned, as long as Mary has Jesus, likely would have been his reply. You could have asked the same to Mary, Oh, he is with his father, I’m not concerned as long as Joseph has Jesus. People often are the same today. “Do you know Jesus?” someone might ask. Oh my wife is a Christian, she goes to church. She is taking care of that. As long as she has Jesus everything is OK. But it is not!
Joseph or Mary either one might have replied oh Jesus is with some of the children. How many people send their children to church as if it is the child who needs church, who needs Jesus, but not the parent?
We must keep Jesus close, not just in company

Jesus is our Navigator on the Road we Travel
Jesus is willing to navigate you through the storms of life, through the valleys of life. Jesus is your way
Joseph and Mary frantically searched for Jesus (vs 48). Jesus was right where he ought to be, he was in the Father’s house – can mean that he was immersed in the things of the Father. They found Jesus in the temple, and were surprised to find him there (any parent probably would identify with that, who would expect a 12 year old boy to willingly and voluntarily go to church?) and he was surprised that they would have had any trouble finding him.
When we have lost the way, when a crisis occurs the house of God ought to be the first place we look. You too should be “in the things” of God

Jesus is the Captain for the Road we Travel
Jesus was subject to his parents, and we often want to do the same. Make Jesus subject to us. We must be subject to him, not trying to have him subject to us
-Jesus was surprised because they didn’t know, his surprise was not merely because they didn’t know where to look but his surprise was because they didn’t understand just who Jesus is.
God is not my co-pilot, but my pilot.