On Finding Fullness in the Incomplete
January 12, 2025
Traceymay Kalvaitis
Isaiah 43: 1
“But now, this is what the LORD says— he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.’”
Luke 2: 42-50
“Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents were unaware of this. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished, and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.’ He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them, and his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor.”
20 years later…
Luke 3:15-16, 21-22
As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
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Today’s sermon is titled On Finding Fullness in the Incomplete.
I wish I had enough small mirrors so that you could each have one in your hand right now because you will probably want to test what I am about to tell you next. When looking in a mirror and moving the focus from left to right and back again in rapid succession, we can not actually see our eyes moving as they move. I learned this while reading a journal article published through the Royal Society of Medicine in England; I had to get up from my desk and go find a mirror right away to test it out.
In my research this past week, I was trying to stand in the 20 year information gap in our biblical literature and wade through centuries of hypotheses about what Jesus could have possibly been doing between the ages of 12 and 30. The more deeply I delved, the more apparent it became that we, as humans, are generally desperate to fill in the gaps. In wondering why that is, I looked to neuroscience for answers and I ran across the article titled, “How the Brain Decides What We See”* I already told you about the first experiment, with the mirror. There was a second experiment the authors reported: I will quote for you how it was described in the paper: “Scientists took two photographs, one of a monkey’s face and the second of a leafy tropical jungle. They converted these into two collages, each composed of portions of each photo so that in the location where one photo showed part of a monkey’s face the other showed leafy jungle. Then each collage was shown separately to each retina so that retinal rivalry occurred. Under these circumstances, the subject did not see what was actually there—i.e., the two collages alternating—but rather a complete monkey face alternating with a complete leafy jungle.” The brain overrode the messages the eyes were sending in order to make sense of the images.
Apparently, our brains are constantly filling in the gaps. It’s a little frightening, actually, but underlying this tendency to fill in the gaps, even if it is with erroneous information, it becomes undeniable that we as humans are constantly seeking wholeness; we are constantly creating a narrative that we can identify with.
Some people have difficulty accepting that there is such a large gap in information about the early life of Jesus. After so many miraculous circumstances around the conception and birth of Jesus and his cousin John, all we have to bridge infancy with adulthood is our story from the second chapter of Luke where Jesus stays behind in the Temple, questioning the Rabbis.
Today I’d like to travel with you through two possible scenarios of what Jesus’s life could have been like in the intervening years from age 12 to approximately age 30 when he was baptized and began his public ministry. Remember, we have no way of knowing for sure. If more information did exist at some point in history, we have no access to it any longer, so please do not mistake any of this for scholarship.
According to the neuroscientists, even when our eyes are registering the improbable, our brains tend to construct the most probable scenarios. So the most probable scenario is this: Upon the Holy family’s return from their forced immigration to Egypt, probably when Jesus was between four and six years old, they settled in Nazareth. The scriptures in Matthew 13:55 indicate that there were more children to follow, at least four brothers (James, Joseph, Simon and Judas) and sisters who are unnamed in the literature. Knowing that Jesus was part of a large family makes it more plausible that his parents could have left Jerusalem and traveled a day’s journey before realizing that Jesus was not among them in the caravan of travelers. Mary and Joseph were relieved to find Jesus in the Temple and the story concludes with the following: “Jesus went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them, and his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor.” If Jesus stayed in his village of Nazareth, it is very likely that he learned a trade, but we also know that he learned to read Hebrew. In Matthew 13, Jesus is referred to as “the carpenter’s son” but the translation here is incorrect. The Greek word in the scriptures was tecton. This would be more accurately translated as “builder” and the medium would have been mostly stone. Wood was scarce and only used for roof supports, doors and furniture. Jesus would most likely have worked in the city of Sephoris, which was an hour and a half walk each way, because that is where most of the work was. Such a life would have given Jesus plenty to ponder as he built his theological understandings based on the perspective of someone who was barely above the status of a slave. Jesus’s revolutionary message of hope for the oppressed would have grown organically from such an existence. In Luke 6 we read, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.” Was it a life of hard labor, living in an occupied land, under authoritarian rule that shaped Jesus’s teaching? We can only guess.
Another persistent theory about how Jesus spent his formative years arose in the late 1800’s when a Russian journalist, Nicholas Notovitch, published a book titled The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ. Notovitch had travelled to Ladakh in Tibet and gained access to information about a Saint Issa; Notovitch was convinced that Saint Issa was Jesus of Nazareth. The document detailing the life of Saint Issa was held in a monastery in Ladakh and no one has been able to verify its existence. The document was originally written in the ancient language of Pali, then rewritten in Tibetan and deciphered by a translator into Russian. You can imagine the impact such a book had as it could be widely published and translated in 1894. You can also imagine the critics, then and now. Jesus studying with Hindus, Jains and Buddhists? The one way that this seems plausible, aside from the universality of Jesus’s teachings, is that he would have returned to his homeland, with a wealth of knowledge and experience that would have made him a very interesting teacher and preacher.
In closing we can see that with either trajectory, Jesus would have gained invaluable experience that surely shaped his ministry. Did he bring the perspective of a laborer, a servant and subject of Empire, chaffing against the injustice of inequality? Or did he bring a perspective of a student and a traveler, someone who gave himself over to study and spiritual practice in a far away land before returning home? There is no way to know for sure; we are just filling in the gaps as we are apt to do, searching and hopefully finding fullness, even in the incomplete. So be it. Amen.
*https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1079232/
Pastoral Prayer
Beloved God, I thank you for the precious gift we receive when we look to Christ as the embodiment of your highest wishes for us and for our fulfillment as human beings. Our inmost fears and our inmost joys are known to you before we can put them into words. You have gifted us with the ability to feel so many different emotions and it can, at times, be overwhelming. Empathy for our brothers and sisters and the struggles they face can be painful to bear, Lord, and yet through this deep feeling, we become more alive, we become more humane, and we come closer to the place within where you reside. Help us to remember the life and example of Jesus Christ, that we may learn to empathize without feeling depleted, and that we may learn to let the love of God flow through us to others. With willingness and devotion, I pray. Amen.
Benediction
I leave you with these words from the book of Colossians, chapter 3: “Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and forgive one another, as the Lord has forgiven you.” Amen.