Essay: Lost

Reflection on Luke 2:41-52 (Revised Common Lectionary gospel text
for December 29, 2024)

My vestments were found.
My kid looks lost.

My worship vestments had been missing for nearly a year, including my alb, a multi-colored stole that worked for every season of the church year, and a sealskin cross made for me by an Inupiat (Alaska Native) elder. I had been working in a denominational office; I was basically a traveling preacher and I’d left my vestments somewhere – but where? Multiple and slightly embarrassing calls to congregations over several months yielded nothing. 

I lamented this loss at a clergy gathering. The pastor at my home congregation – where my family and I worship when I’m not traveling – overheard and said she’d seen an alb, stole and cross of that description hanging in her office. “You looked everywhere, and here it was, at home!” she exclaimed.

A lost item is frustrating; a lost person is terrifying. I’m a child of the 1980s, an era when dairy producers put photos and descriptions of missing children on milk cartons; we ingested messages about stranger danger with our morning cereal. I can imagine Mary and Joseph’s fear when they found their son had gone missing.

Families often traveled in large groups in Jesus’ time, so it wasn’t unusual that Mary and Joseph didn’t find Jesus right away. When they finally realized Jesus was gone, a frantic search ensued. Picture Mary and Joseph quizzing merchants, acquaintances, strangers and maybe even Roman soldiers. Imagine them asking walking the city street by street, staying up late, fearing the worst. The stakes are enormous for any parent in this situation, but for Mary and Joseph there is also this: they have lost the son of God.

Then, suddenly, there Jesus was – at home! By way of explanation, Jesus offered: “Didn’t you know that I must be in my father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). I imagine Mary snapping back with something like: “Obviously not!”

Perhaps we have searched for God in places where we assumed the divine would show up. Maybe we have found God there, or maybe not. For some seekers, the last place they’d think to look is inside the walls of a church. It is too simplistic to turn this Bible story into a tidy moral lesson: “Looking for God? Check the church building!” This text isn’t about us, anyway, it’s about Jesus. Jesus shows up in unexpected places, following the will of the God who sent him.

At times, we struggle to perceive Jesus in the heartbreaking experiences of our lives, and maybe even in the soul-crushing mundane moments, too. But I can’t help but notice the Easter parallels here: Jesus was missing for three days and then showed up, alive and well in a place no one expected. This kind of resurrection good news reminds me that Jesus is never lost to us. Even when we can’t perceive him, we can trust where he’s going to end up – leading us to the eternal home of God, a place God promises to meet us.