Leaving Jesus Behind

“When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in
Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him.” (Luke 2:43)

What parent cannot appreciate the fright that took hold of Joseph and Mary the Theotokos when they realized that Jesus was nowhere among the Galilean group that had gone with them to and from the festival in Jerusalem. They assumed he was with other boys of His age. Who knows what might have happened to Him? Was He sick and left lying somewhere along the way without anybody knowing of it? Had they passed through the region of Samaria where harm may have come from their enemies? The blood rises to the head, the mind loses rational thinking, all sorts of fears surge up to clog up sound thought; and panic sets in.

Finally, deciding He was nowhere to be found among the pilgrims, they returned rapidly, confused and confounded, to Jerusalem. And there He was, sitting among the elders in the temple courtyard, pondering the great themes of the Bible. And like any parents “letting off steam,” releasing their pent-up emotions, they demanded: “How could you do this to us?” And He calmly responded: “Did not you realize I had to be about My Father’s business [in My Father’s house]?”

Consider what it means for us. A recent motion picture, Left Behind, is about a lad somehow forgotten on a family trip to Europe and left to fend for himself. We can all identify with the situation. But to leave Jesus our Lord behind is a trauma worthy of a deep meditation.

What happens after you venerate the Cross and get to the parking lot before the rush? How long does it take to forget about whatever you may have experienced in the Divine Liturgy? You had “laid aside all earthly cares,” but how long does it take for you to pick them up once more? What goes on in your mind by the time you get to the vestibule—How many cars are ahead of you out of the driveway? What’s for dinner? Who is playing this afternoon on TV?

We can appreciate the plight of modern people. Our times are broken into parts. We have only so much time to spend in church, then we rush home and on to whatever we are committed to doing and wherever we will be spending the remainder of the day. We are victims of our situation. Time is out of our control—or at least we act as though it were so.

What can it mean to heed the advice of our clergy that we are to keep the image of our Lord Jesus before us and within us always? Many of our parishioners even wrap prayer ropes around their wrists. We presume they know why they do and how to use them, but they and we are caught up in a whirlwind of obligations, appointments and commitments. Either we ourselves or those in our immediate families have promised to be somewhere, meet somebody or do something that involves not only him or her, but the whole family in one way or another.

I don’t intend to sing a hymn of bygone days when it was different, when Sunday was indeed a day of rest, when nobody did anything but attend church, enjoy a slow family meal and relax until sunset and bedtime. And I really have no antidote to the changing times we now both enjoy and endure, only to remind us all that we have a commitment to Christ Jesus. Each one of us is called to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, not excusing ourselves by reference to the time and state of affairs we live in. Salvation never was a simple task, and our times demand from us attention to the priority of living a life in and with Christ.