Trinity Teenager - Luke 2:40-52; John 1:1-18

“Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” (Luke 2:52)

If the idea of God as a baby sounds far-fetched to you, then the notion of God as a teenager might sound cosmically irresponsible.  Jesus had to navigate puberty, spots, hormones, siblings and parents just like we all did.  He certainly gave his parents a few sleepless nights.  Like the time he got lost on a trip to the capital city, Jerusalem.  He went missing for three days.  Imagine Mary and Joseph’s level of guilt: having been given the responsibility to parent God, they lost him in a crowd!  When his exhausted, angst-ridden mother finally found him, Jesus didn’t seem bothered in the slightest.  Teenagers, eh?  What can you do?  Yet in all this, Jesus never sinned.  Gently, he taught Mary and Joseph as LOVE incarnate even as they parented him – now that’s a tricky relationship.

Jesus may have been a genius boy-wonder but his down-to-earth Dad wanted him to have a proper skill too.  I doubt that Joseph was trying to give him something to fall back on in case the “Saviour of the World” thing didn’t work out.  I think Joseph knew that LOVE uses hard work to form healthy and godly character and discipline in us all.  We must not seek to avoid it.  Joseph taught Jesus his trade: carpentry.  Jesus must have been quite good at that too, because his reputation as “Jesus the Carpenter” spread all around the nearby towns.  Today, theologians are kept awake at night wondering if Jesus ever used his miraculous powers when he cut the odd table leg a bit short.

John’s gospel is written by the disciple who was one of Jesus’ closest friends and became a great theologian and prophet.  The gospel of John starts in a very different way to the other three “synoptic” gospels (sharing a single perspective as more general summaries).  From a theological point of view, John 1 almost restarts the Biblical narrative – note how similar the opening verses are to Genesis 1 – this time portraying Jesus as the creator LOVE, the source and centre of it all.

As we pray, we need to hold on to two great truths about Jesus.  He’s 100% human – he came as a baby, grew up as a teenager and lived as an adult.  He’s also 100% God – he made the world and is the true light that gives lives light to everyone (John 1:9).  We do not believe one or the other to be true.  We must believe both to be true. 

We can thank Jesus that he understands everything about being human.  He knows exactly what it’s like to be us from the inside-out.  He shares our joys, hopes, burdens, sufferings, frustrations and illnesses.  We can also thank Jesus that he is all-powerful, all-knowing and able to create new things out of nothing and renew everything that is old.  Today let’s simply enjoy the depths of these truths and worship Jesus for who he is.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God…Through him all things were made…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:1,2,14)