Guess Who

This past week, I spent a few days at my parents’ home in Little Rock visiting with out-of-town family, including my niece who is four and my nephew who is two. As a priest, without a family of my own, my home life is relatively quiet and uneventful and so I really enjoy those rare chances to be around the hustle and bustle most families experience every day – cooking and cleaning, games and toys, the joys and dramas that surround meal time, play time, bed time, etc.

One particular experience that marked much of my week was the game “Guess Who?” It’s a two-player children’s game, in which each player takes turns asking questions about the character card of the other player, things like: “Does your person have glasses?”, “Is your person wearing a hat?” Eventually one player makes a guess about the identity of the other player’s card. My siblings and I had this game as kids, and my sister gave it to her daughter (my niece), thinking she would enjoy it. Boy, did she ever! I think I’ve played more games of “Guess Who?” in the last few days than I have in the last 25 years combined. Of course, I loved every minute of it.

Our Gospel today also describes an episode of domestic life, but one not nearly as tranquil as playing games at home. Instead, we are told of the rather fraught experience of Mary and Joseph searching for the 12-year-old Christ, believing him to be lost, and then finding him somewhere completely unexpected. Why do we have this story on this Feast of the Holy Family, instead of something more peaceful and joyful, something set in the tranquil setting of the home at Nazareth? Because this story helps us discover again who Jesus really is. We might even say that the Gospel writer Luke presents this Gospel episode to us as a kind of “Guess Who?” exercise, in which the details of the story act as clues to Christ’s true identity.

Let’s look again at the story, but this time looking for hints about what the Evangelist might be trying to tell us about Jesus:

• Jesus goes up to Jerusalem with his parents to celebrate the feast of Passover. This tells us that the family of Jesus are faithful Jews, doing that which God had commanded the nation of Israel to do each year to mark their freedom from slavery in Egypt. But Jesus is not just any 12-year-old; he is the Messiah, the heir of David, and thus by entering Jerusalem, he enters into his own city, the city of which he is the rightful king. Luke accentuates this point when he tells us that, when his parents began the return trip to Galilee, “Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem.” 

• Mary and Joseph search for the seemingly lost Jesus for a period of three days. This length of time is not accidental. Throughout Scripture, a period of three days is understood as a time of trial after which God intervenes and restores the one who is suffering to fullness of life. There are too many examples to list here, but this idea can be found in the Book of Hosea, in the Psalms, and in the story of Jonah. Of course, all of them – including this instance here – foreshadow the period of three days between Christ’s death on the Cross and his Resurrection. 

• And finally, we have the most important part of the Gospel, when Mary and Joseph find Jesus in the Temple and confront him. They ask him, very understandably, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” But Jesus’ response explains the whole episode. The Temple was understood as the place of God’s presence, and Jesus – as the literal Presence of God become Flesh – takes up his place in his Father’s house. He reminds his mother and foster father that he is not just any “Son” – he is truly the Son of his heavenly “Father.” Through his presence in it, the Temple has truly become the “Father’s house.” 

Taken together, these clues from St. Luke answer the question of just who this boy Jesus is. He is the son of Mary and Joseph. He is a precocious 12-year-old. But he is also the Incarnate Word, the Son of the heavenly Father born into our time and reality. 

The Finding of the Savior in the Temple (1860) by William Holman Hunt

And this is Good News not just for Mary and Joseph, but also for us, because this Son has been born for us as much as for them. If Jesus has shared every part of our earthly life – including the realities of family, home life, and all of the joys and challenges therein, – then that means every aspect of our earthly lives can also be means of encountering him, of deepening the relationship we have with Christ in the here and now. We all know that the joys of family life can be one of the primary ways we encounter God’s love. But think also about the parts of your home and family life that are challenging: care for children and loved ones, the mundane tasks of the day-to-day, the rhythm and grind of work and family, even the sorrows that inevitably come. In the light of the Incarnation, those become opportunities for grace, avenues by which we can find the Lord’s presence among us, if only we look to find him.

This also means that, in light of who the Holy Family is, we have to view our own lives and families differently. Jesus desired to share our reality so completely that he became a part of a human family. We, in turn, must desire to make our human families part of his heavenly Family, participating each day in the divine life of God. In many ways, family life – the life lived at home – is the locus of our daily sanctification, the very place by which we learn how to place our trust in Jesus. We all want the best for our children, our loved ones, our families. Only Jesus truly gives that to us. As we saw in the Gospel, without him, we are lost and dismayed. It is only with his presence among us that we are at peace. How important it is for parents and grandparents and children and everyone who is part of a family to understand again how there can be no true happiness at home if Jesus is not known.

Friends, perhaps in this Christmas season the Lord is inviting us to realize not just his true identity but ours as well. Guess who? To be adopted sons and daughters of the Father, heirs to God’s divine life. Jesus shared our human life in order to make it possible for us to share in the communion of love that is eternal life. By his grace, he makes it possible for us to begin to experience that life even now, especially in the holy duties of the family. In the Eucharist we will soon share, may we find with eyes of faith the One who nourishes us, dwells among us, and grants us peace.