Leaving Jesus Behind

Leaving Jesus Behind

Luke 2:41-52

There is a story told of a couple in a rural area that met, dated, fell in love, and got married. Whenever they went anywhere in their pickup truck, he would drive and she would sit right next to him. But after some time had gone by, one day she noticed that she was sitting over by the passenger door. She looked at her husband and asked, “What happened to you? You used to sit so close to me.” The husband, reflecting the wisdom of a farmer, replied, “Honey, I’m not the one who moved.”

Isn’t that how it is sometimes in our relationship with God? We start our journey of faith so close and in love, but over time we slowly move away from God, and then we blame God for being distant. That is one way to understand what is happening in our reading for today. For twelve years, Mary and Joseph have been responsible for watching over Jesus. Yet, on this Passover trip, they have moved on with their other family and friends. They have left Jesus behind, and then they get upset that Jesus is not right there with them.

Physically, it is just a short distance out of Jerusalem before Mary and Joseph would have been considered to be in the wilderness. The wilderness, though, was less about the lack of people in a place, and more about the perceived lack of God. And in a life without God, the place was necessarily believed to be filled with the demons and evil spirits.

Being in the wilderness is also how John Wesley described being separated from Jesus after having known Jesus. For example, many people this past week felt very close to God as they celebrated the great festival of Christmas. But now many of them have moved on, returning to the life they had before the celebration. They have taken down the decorations, and stored them away for next year. They may also be wondering why they don’t feel that close to God the rest of the year, even as they settle back into their routine. They have moved from being in the presence of God-with-us to dwelling in the wilderness.

We are in the wildernesswhenever we have lost the faith that we once had in our heart. We are in the wilderness whenever we do not have that inward witness of the Holy Spirit that god loves us. We are in the wilderness whenever we do not have the light of Christ shining in and through our lives. And in that wilderness, it seems that we are surrounded by demons and evil spirits.

There have been great theological thinkers over the centuries who have declared that the wilderness state is a good and necessary step in our faith journey. They call the wilderness state “the dark night of the soul.” Today, we might rephrase that as “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” They would have us believe that God intends for us to feel abandoned before God will bless us with a final and dramatic re-assurance. They contend that this is simply God testing us to see if we truly love God, or if we just love the benefits of God.

I am not one of the great theological thinkers of all time, but I think John Wesley was. And it was his belief that it should be the ordinary experience of all Christians to know Christ’s presence in their life all the time. It was his belief that this assurance of God-with-usis not something reserved for only those who had been sufficiently and thoroughly tested as being worthy of the experience.

Wesley believed this because Jesus’ birth was announced to shepherds, not to priests. He believed this because Jesus’ disciples were fishermen who worked for a living, not monks who lived in cloisters. He believed this because Jesus’ followers were tax collectors, and lepers, and demoniacs, and plain common folk dealing with the challenges of life, not spiritual seekers who had the leisure and time for an extended spirit quest. He believed this because he knew it to be true in his own life, and in the life of his brother, and in the lives of those common people who were part of the Methodist revival. It is my witness that I believe it, too, and I know that Christ is present with me.

So how do we get separated from God? How do we get to the place where we feel like God has abandoned us? Well, it isn’t because God moves away from us. God will never move away from us. Not after coming as one of us. Not after suffering for us. Not after dying for us. Not after defeating death for us. Not after promising us the Holy Spirit to be with us always. God has promised, and is faithful to that promise, to never forget us or to forsake us.

If God has not moved away from us, then we have moved away from God. It is not something that just happens and it is no one’s fault – it is our fault. In our sin, we don’t want it to be our fault. We would rather blame it on God, or on the preacher who pointed out our sin, or on the church member who hurt our feelings, or on any of a thousand other excuses that cry out, “It’s not my fault.”

It doesn’t have to be something dramatic that separates us from God. It may be just as simple as how Mary and Joseph got separated from Jesus. They assumed someone else was watching him. They assumed someone else would be responsible for him. They assumed someone else would take care of what he needed. Or maybe, they just assumed that Jesus didn’t need them, that he could take care of himself.

There are some who wonder if the wilderness state is really nothing more than accepting that life is hard, and that it is up to us to find a way to just deal with it. After all, sociologists tell us that Christians are statistically just as likely as non-Christians to abuse alcohol, or to cheat on their spouse, or to get angry out of frustration. Maybe John Wesley was wrong or delusional, and the wilderness state is simply part of being human. Maybe we should just accept that Christmas and Easter really are the only times we can know that Jesus is with us.

Wesley, however, pointed out the dangers of accepting the wilderness state as ordinary, of accepting being separated from Jesus as normal. He saw that living in the wilderness state leads us into a downward spiral. He noted that with the loss of faith that Jesus is with us comes the loss of love. If we do not know the love of God, we cannot know the love for our neighbor, since love begins with God.

Without love, we then lose any sense of mercy or compassion for the souls of the lost. Instead of seeking to restore the lost in meekness with the gentle truth of the gospel, we can be overcome with anger at their sinfulness and their failure to accept that life is hard. We become impatient with their lack of faith. We return evil for evil, by withholding from them forgiveness and community.

With the loss of faith and love, we spiral down to the loss of joy in the Holy Spirit. When we lose the assurance of forgiveness, when we lose that connection with God, there is no reason for joy. Without joy, we have no reason to hope that life is anything more than despair and frustration and loneliness until we die and it all ends.

With the loss of faith, love, joy, and hope, we spiral down to the loss of the peace that passes all understanding. Painful doubt returns, and we doubt whether we ever did, or ever will, believe. We doubt the testimony we once received. With the doubt comes the return of fear: the fear of the wrath of God, the fear of being cast away by God, and the fear of death.

With the loss of faith, love, joy, hope, and peace, we spiral down to the loss of power. We lose the power over sin, evil tempers, and desires, and we begin to think that this is who we really are. We may struggle with these sins, but we cannot overcome them, and we are in bondage to sin again. We lose our glory, we lose our place in God’s kingdom, and we lose any sense of righteousness other than “it seems right to me.”

Living in the wilderness state has a devastating effect on us, and upon the world around us. As disciples, then, it is important to know how we got into this wilderness state, as well as how we can get out.

Wesley noted that we might begin this downward spiral through a sin of omission. It’s not so much something we have done wrong that separates us from Jesus – we just haven’t done anything to keep the relationship strong. For example, we may neglect our relationship with our neighbors whom we are called to love. We may see something going on in our world that we know is not for God’s glory, and we excuse it or rationalize it in the name of acceptance and tolerance and diversity.

Or, our sins of omission may have to do with our relationship with God. We skip our time of prayer and devotion. We may skip gathering with the community of faith to worship. We may omit an offering to the church. We just neglect our relationship with God, and we get separated and lost.

Sometimes, though, we find ourselves on this downward spiral through sins of commission. We choose to be separated from God. We don’t want God to know what we are doing. Wetake little steps away from the path of righteousness, making choices based on expediency or comfort or pride. We go with the flow, we follow the crowd, we just do what other people are doing, even when we know that this does not bring glory to God.

Or, our sins of commission are taken as bold steps in the name of faith. We choose the force of anger over the influence of love, and then declare that it is the will of God. We follow the direction of the culture to find the crowds, rather than follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to find the kingdom of God.

Whether it is by sins of commission or omission, we can end up in the wilderness state. So how do we get reconnected to God? How do we find our way back to a life of faithfulness, a life of joy, and hope, and peace? Wesley counseled that the answer depends on how we got separated. After all, it would not have done Mary and Joseph any good to look for Jesus where Jesus can’t be found. They didn’t head to the after-Passover sales, hoping to find Jesus seeking a good deal. They didn’t sit in front of their television watching football games hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus in the crowds. No, they retraced their steps and headed back to where they last saw Jesus.

That’s what we need to do, as well. We need to retrace our steps, re-examine our lives, and re-discover again where it has been that we have known Jesus. If we have neglected our prayers, then we need to pray. If we have been irregular in our worship, we need to make the commitment to come as often as we can, and to come prepared to meet humbly with God. If we have been remiss in our giving, then we need to be intentional and sacrificial in giving our first fruits to the Lord. If we have failed to serve those who are in need, then we need to consider again their needs ahead of our comforts. If we have sinned against another, we need to repent and make things right.

Sometimes, even when we may be doing everything right, everything spiritual, everything we should be doing, we still get separated from Jesus. Wesley tell us that, in those cases, God may have put it on our heart that we need to repent of a sin we are not aware of, or a sin we may have forgotten about. It is then that being in a covenant or accountability group can be helpful in making us aware of the places we stepped off the path of faith. Or, it may be that we are so proud of our goodness and piety that we have quit depending on God for direction. We get lost because we attempt to travel through life by our own light and wisdom. In any case, we need to humble ourselves before God. We need to quit seeking our own will. We need to seek the presence of Christ.

If we find ourselves in the wilderness state, we can get back to a relationship with God where we are very close. We just have to remember that God isn’t the one who moves away. We are the ones who have moved, and because God is constant in love, we are the ones who can find our ways back again.

If we want to make sure that we know that Christ is always with us, then we need to make sure that our hearts are prepared to receive him. Let us ask Jesus into our hearts this day, so that Jesus will always be near!

Faith We Sing 2100Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne