Jesus Grew up fast!

Amazing that in only 6 days Jesus went from being born to turning 12! In only 2 weeks he will be thirty and getting baptized! My how he grows up fast. Celebrating the milestones in Jesus early life go quickly, both in the bible and in our liturgical calender, yet we can absorb much from them. The gospel reading for today was Luke 2:41-52, when Jesus was left in Jerusalem when he was 12, then his parents returned to find him at the temple impressing the people with his knowledge and answers. The questions and answers he gave at only 12 years old! Already it appears he had become a prodigy of scripture and reasoning. Lighten up on that prodigy in youth group! It is good for older children to have such knowledge at the time hormones start kicking in. 

What I like most about this passage is that it is the only one that describes Jesus during adolescence. I must admit, I have always felt a bit ripped off, especially as a youth minister, that this is all we know of Jesus between birth and 30 years old.

^"40 And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him."

Left in Jerusalem story, then:

^"51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. ⁵² And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."NIV, Luke 2

 This is it! Some things about his life we can gather from cultural history, that he would have had schooling including religious studies up until around this point of his life when he would have entered into something like a trade school to be a carpenter/craftsman like his father. What a great inspiration and goal for any youth: to be obedient to their parents! Not only that, but to grow in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and man! That will be the source of inspiration for my relations with youth for years to come.

 I love the opportunity to teach them Christianity from a wide variety of perspectives as they choose how to pursue faith in Christ in a way that fits their unique personalities. I feel so blessed to have been gifted with the experience of being taught how to pursue faith in Jesus despite cultural and sectarian differences. What a life mission for us, to share our faith with others as we grow in wisdom and stature, in the sight of God and men. 

Accepting a real humility from God in this life of faith may be one of the most difficult things to do.

Living like Luther is an interesting and novel idea. His pursuit of the truth and desire to set things right will always be remembered  He is one of those people who dared speak against the status quo, and had great success challenge the machine the church had become in his time. Some amount of thought has to go into what he would think of what has since transpired, with so many denominations and types of Christianity. He simply wanted to correct some errors.

Sadness overcomes my heart more that anything upon pondering the fragmented state of the body of Christ. Sometimes we split over really small things, sometimes over huge important topics and sometimes just to do it. I am one who has a certain set of beliefs, but at the same time I see myself constantly reviewing what I believe and why. There are a couple things I know that I know the truth on, the rest I would say hold variable degrees of questions or doubts. The most solid truth is contained in my own personal experiences of God, and some of the very rare insights I have been gifted to see.

At the same time, I do hold myself accountable to not being so in the know that I cannot learn from others, or seem in a world by myself because of what I believe. Accepting a real humility from God in this life of faith may be one of the most difficult things to do. I certainly cannot be the only one God reveals the truth to, and would actually say that perhaps God reveals certain aspects of faith in great detail to each if us, and when we are gathered together we can then get a fullness to these revelations, always confirming the truths established in the Bible. No one human could grasp the fullness of truth as it applies to our world today, and I believe that is one principal we see displayed in out differences, that many times we have different focuses and different cultures, pursuing the same God and Father of us all. Let our uniqueness shine bright as we join with all others in the one common faith.

After... devotion...you are to go to your work joyfully.

This morning, for the first time in it's entirety, I did what Martin Luther suggested in the Small Catechism for the morning blessing.

I made the sign of the cross, and asked God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to watch over me.
I then said aloud the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer, before reciting his suggested prayer:

"I give thanks to you, heavenly Father,
through Jesus Christ your dear Son,
that you have protected me through the night
from all harm and danger.
I ask that you would also protect me today
from sin and all evil,
so that my life and actions may please you.
Into your hands I commend myself:
my body, my soul, and all that is mine.
Let your holy angel be with me,
so that the wicked foe
may have no power over me.
Amen."

Having claimed myself as a person of faith, asked for protection and guidance, having proclaimed my faith aloud, I felt ready to attack the day. Luther makes a point in his instructions which I am going to take as literal as possible. He says after the above prayer, "After singing a hymn, or whatever else may serve your devotion, you are to go to your work joyfully."

...you are to go to your work joyfully! So that I did! I enjoyed a slow morning at home, did a few things around the church, had a great conversation with my new mentor (we have agreed to read the bible through in 2013 and discuss it weekly) and visited some people. At around the time I wanted to be done, I found that I had joyfully completed my tasks for the day. I then enjoyed some family time and make a great connection with our teen. The best day I have had in a while, truly.

I honestly feel like somehow I admitted my weakness and accepted God's help this morning, and also proclaimed my beliefs out loud. Tomorrow I plan to do it as soon as I get out of bed, as Luther suggested, since I ran into several issues this morning just trying to get my coffe and be arranged for morning prayer. 

One of the ways I have recently investigated religion is to read some of the works of Martin Luther, the great reformer. Basically, before him every Christian was Catholic. They were the Christian religion. Along his journey, Martin Luther got a hold of an entire bible, and was deeply enlightened when he was able to read the whole thing, not just the selected portions read during mass. He found some inconsistencies, 95 of them actually, between what the bible said and what the church was doing. He was also greatly appalled a the lack of knowledge among believers and even some pastors. He eventually became responsible for us being able to have copies of the bibles ourselves, instead of them only residing in the church.

One of the ways he desired to change things was to assemble a set of simple biblical doctrines that every believer should be taught. These were put together in the small catechism. It contains The Ten Commandments, The Apostles' Creed, The Lord's Prayer, sections on baptism, confession Eucharist (communion), sample morning and evening prayers, and a blessing for meals. It has explanations and commentary on each of these things. It is quite an in depth yet simple manual on how live in faith. It has endured since the 1500's and is still taught today in many churches, as basically, "Christianity 101", and is often a prerequisite for official church membership.

With all the discussions and situations in society today, an in-depth study of the essential elements of faith such as Luther's is time well spent. Every person who has faith in Jesus Christ would due well to study up on the small catechism, and consider the implications of the moral doctrines contained  in it.

 Small Catechism

From the small amount I have spent studying them thus far, I am amazed at how it has drawn me closer to God by pondering what I believe and why. I have also found Luther's directions for the head of households to teach these principals their family to be a great motivation for making that a priority in our home. They will continue to challenge me for some time, and they are a subject I wish to write about frequently in this blog. I have found thus far that following his instructions precisely can make for a simple joyous experience of faith. 

Perhaps my fascination with these religious things is do to not growing up in church, by I also know it is comforting to realize I am joining with the church of the past, present and future in these things. Humility is good in this life of faith, and today I can join with millions of others as we study the basics of faith.

While I recognize that a traditional commentary on the liturgical calender would start in the beginning of December with Advent, it's my blog and I'll start it anytime i want! I actually love that it was started on Christ's birthday, with the start of a life that forever changed the world, which I am sure no one was truly ready for and I would doubt any of us are ready for today, if we are honest. 

So this whole religion thing has gotten some press recently, and it seems far more would be beneficial.  After hearing and being taught how 'bad' religion is, upon further investigation I have found it to be more of what I need. Who doesn't need more discipline in their life of faith? How many of us actually do devotions every morning? How many of us actually live out the things we so passionately sing about and get taught every Sunday? When we say "I'll pray for you", then do we actually do it? Our follow through on relationships, especially with our Savior, often suffers in our fast-paced technology laced society. 

It is my precise purpose in this blog to reconcile all of us back to our God, and also back to his church; past, present and future. It's seems for us to move forward in maturity as "Christians" we must embrace all that is Christ's. I know it frequently seems easier to deny being allied with traditional religion, it's inherent baggage,  and try to then demonstrate these ways that our type of faith is superior or somehow easier than the rest. In attempting these tactics  we also water down the true message of the gospel. 

We commit the greatest sin by refusing to acknowledged our alliance with Christ's entire church! This not only causing a tremendous amount of confusion to outsiders but a tremendous amount as well to those proclaiming faith. Perhaps the greatest ironic truth is found in this battle we wage against each other as God's people, in direct rebellion to the unifying effect the Holy Spirit brings! The message of Christmas, "peace on earth and goodwill to men" most certainly applies to us. I'll be love to any and all others whom I share faith with, don't share faith with and all others too. 

Taking the time to blog this year, as a priority, and it occurred to me there could be several benefits to blogging about this religious experience I have been having. It seems in my life of faith I have gone from no religion  to more religion, to just plain religious  and back again. While I spent a part of my early adulthood talking against organized religion, eventually I became part of a couple very interesting churches. While I would never have desired to become solely religious, many times I have come to realize that is just what I became. At times this made me proud, but more often it simply meant that I was in a groove of just going through the motions.

I don't actually think anyone can be a true Christian and not get religious, at least to some degree  This whole business of throwing religion and all the word implies under the bus at every turn has got to stop. I myself have certainly been guilty of this, and at one point would intentionally react to being called religious with such a sourness that it was apparent to everyone nearby that was an offensive term to me. And yet the people asking, usually non-Christians, would stare at me like I was insane. You seem they already knew of my faith, church attendance etc... so this reaction would be a total shock.

Follow me on this journey of liturgy, lectionary and Luther. I am still working to absorb and live in this new-to-me world of traditional church. May this journey will be fun, educational and enlightening to us all.