Our trees still stand tall and majestic at either side of the altar. I got here very early this morning and sat in the acolyte pew for a few moments, and it was as if i were in a rain forest. I heard the needles fall gently upon the carpet. It still looks and smells like Christmas, But if you caught the tone of our Gospel text you recognize that the Church of Jesus Christ does not choose to linger at the stable ... at least in terms of our Gospel selection this morning. The worship of Christmas turns into the work of Christmas - sharing the light of Christ with a world too often dwelling in the shadows.

On this, the third day of Christmas, we have skipped twelve years in the life of Jesus. When last we saw Mary and Joseph, they were kneeling at the manger bed of their child, awestruck that God has blessed the two of them with a boy like him.

Now we catch up with the parents, heading home to Nazareth, and now retracing steps back to Jerusalem, feeling not awestruck but awful. The old children's poem about Mary's little lamb has it that "everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go." This Lamb of God, however, obviously did not go where Mary and Joseph were going. On this third day of Christmas, they are not three, two parents and a child, because the child, as they say, has gone missing. Their son was lost and they did not know where to find him. If you have ever been "lost" as a child, you know the panicked feeling. If you as an adult, have ever "lost" a child ... panicked only begins to describe the anxiety which overwhelms you. This may sound facetious, but I do not intend it to be: the last thing Mary and Joseph needed in life was to see their son's picture on a milk carton: "have you seen this child of God?"

Now, the question in the minds of many people when they hear this Gospel account is, "how could Jesus have been missing a full day before his parents were aware of it?" And the answer is that they assumed Jesus was with his friends in the group of travelers heading back to Nazareth - ninety dusty miles to the north. Jesus is twelve, now, a time when Jewish boys take the first strong steps from childhood to manhood. The apron strings are loosened, then untied. Of course he was old enough to be with his friends. But evening came and Jesus didn't. Mary and Joseph frantically searched among the travelers; when no one had seen their son, they returned to Jerusalem. For three days they searched, knocking on doors, peering intently into the shops along the main streets and the corners of the dark alleys. Jesus had never given them trouble, before ... and they were frantic with fear. They have no star - no star to guide them to their son.

Ever sit up late, worried that a daughter or soon is not home on time? Sure you have. A granddaughter or grandson, a brother or sister? The fear begins to gnaw at you. You want the phone to ring. You do NOT want the phone to ring. And then the profound relief when the car pulls into the driveway. And you cannot wait to put your arms around them ... to wring their little necks! Isn't it amazing? One parent expressed it like this to me: "You hope that they come home safely so you can kill 'em!" I understood!

Well, when Mary and Joseph find Jesus, finally, in the temple of all places, Mary's anger is apparent if - you read between Luke's lines: "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety."

One of the reasons Christmas is so attractive to us is that we can all relate to the tender story of a father and mother and child ... seemingly alone against the world. It is the picture of a family, together. The dependence of a baby upon mother and father; the love of that mother and father freely given to the child. Is not that the highest love and loyalty in all the world: the family unit? Well, no. And this is the additional purpose in Luke's story. Luke wants us to travel from the Bethlehem notion that the family is the end-all-and-be-all of human loyalty to the Jerusalem tension that tells us that sooner or later in life, mother and father need to let go. In healthy families, indeed, parents may need to nudge a son or a daughter from the comfort of the nest that he or she might find the independent self we all need to cultivate. Further, in this case of our Gospel, we see the tension of a child defying a protective parent in order to be obedient to a higher vision.

"A person cannot serve two masters," taught Jesus some years later. Perhaps he was thinking of a day in Jerusalem when he had to gently remind his own parents, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" And both Mary and Joseph knew Jesus was not taking about a carpenter shop in Nazareth! This can be a disturbing text, especially so, as many of us have just experienced the joy of family reunion.

Yes. Christmas is almost over! And this is as it should be. We cannot remain at the manger - even the lectionary, the texts chosen for this day, won't allow for it. We cannot remain at the manger ... and also do the work of Christmas. Even the shepherds knew that, as they left the manger, praising God for all they had seen and heard. The shepherds shouts echoed throughout the hills of Judea ... and echo down to this very day: "Unto us is born this day ... a Savior."

As the poet (Ann Weems) so beautifully puts it about the shepherds, "Later, after the angels, after the stable, after the Child, (the shepherds) went back ... as we always must, back to the world that doesn't understand our talk of angels and stars and especially not (our talk of) the Child. We go back complaining that (Christmas) doesn't last. They went back singing praises to God! We do have to go back into the world, and leave Christmas behind. But we can take the elusive Christmas Spirit with us; we can still chorus the Hallelujahs!

Even so this morning: On some level you felt you needed to be at your Father's house. And in a short time, we leave our Father's house, that we might be about our Father's business.