Lessons from Rwanda and the Boy Jesus: A Sermon about Humility, Patience, and Restraint

So back in 2004, I had a wonderful opportunity to travel to Rwanda with some others from my church for a short-term mission trip.  It was my first time to Africa and though I had traveled to some pretty far-off places before, I still marveled at how relatively painless and quick a trip it was.  A few-hour flight from D.C. to London and then a long’s day travel from there to Kenya, then another quick flight to Kigali, and finally a couple-hour trip by van, and I was to my destination.  And then I was there.

While I was in the midst of one of my flights to Rwanda, while enjoying an air conditioned and a nice meal while flying over places like the Sahara Desert, I found myself reading a very interesting book called the “Land of a Thousand Hills”.  Now this book was a biography of an American women named Rosamond Carr who traveled to Rwanda in the 1950s, settled there for the rest of her life, and developed a great love for this country and its people.

What I found out from the book is that Rosamond did some pretty amazing things during her years in Rwanda, like opening up an orphanage after the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, and I very much enjoyed reading about her fascinating life while flying.  However, as I was flying to my destination, what struck me the most from the book at that very moment was not the details of her life, but the stark contrast between my trip to Rwanda and Rosamond’s trip.  How different they were!  This is why I remember this all these years later.

My trip was extremely comfortable and took only a couple of days while her trip involved a great deal of discomfort and took months to get there.  Before she had arrived, Rosamond had traveled by ship, train, steamboat, and pick-up truck through all kinds of terrain.  The heat, humidity, flies, and food she encountered throughout the trip were often unbearable, and the trip dragged on.

In contrast, I sat in a very comfortable plane seat and was pretty happy the whole time.

As I reflected on my own travels, I couldn’t believe how fortunate I was to be able to visit the same beautiful country that Rosamond did, but so easily and quickly.  The technological advances that allowed for this ease of travel were truly amazing, and I was truly grateful.

My gratefulness did not end here on the plane trip, however.  Once I landed in Rwanda, I was also excited by other technological advances that had taken place at the time, advances which much improved upon my visit.

Firstly, I was thankful for my digital camera – it was the first one I had ever owned and it allowed me for the first time in my lifetime to take all my pictures on one photo card and to see all my photos instantaneously, a pretty miraculous feat indeed for me at the time.   Secondly, I was thankful for the local Internet Café in a remote spot of Africa that allowed me to converse with my family quite quickly and easily and sometimes instantaneously.

Life for an American visiting Rwanda in 2004 was certainly so much easier and convenient than it had been for a person like Rosamond Carr who had traveled there in the 50s.   Thank goodness for technology.

And that friends was 2004. We all know how much technology has advanced since my trip back then.  Not only have our travel experiences often become easier – think how Uber helps us to get to our destinations quickly and easily in about 60 nations – but many other aspects of our lives have also become easier and faster, as well.

In 2018, my computer runs much faster and so does my Internet connection.  I can now download movies, music, and books instantaneously. I can check email from my phone instead of waiting until I get back to my computer.  I can text message people and often get an immediate response.

I can even quickly learn some subject matter and thus in my mind become an immediate expert (whether that is true or not is another story and is up for debate) by accessing all kinds of information online at the drop of the hat.

In 2018, I live with a large degree of instant gratification in my life, a situation that was not even possible just a short time ago.

In many ways, I have to admit that I love what technology has brought me over this last decade and a half.   I love the convenience of it all.  Yet, I have started to have some serious misgivings.

You see, one of the Fruit of the Holy Spirit that Christians are called to cultivate is patience, yet I find that as I embrace a technological world that makes my journeys relatively quick and painless and a technological world that sets me up to expect immediate responses and rewards, that my cultivation of patience sometimes goes by the wayside, not just in my engagement with the technology itself, but in all aspects my life, including those that are most important to me – my relationships with others, my work and ministry, and even my relationship with God and my expectations of Him.

I can become impatient or frustrated when people or things or even God Himself move on a slower timeline than I think they should.  I can begin to think that I know better and press ahead on some matter when what I am actually called to do is just wait.  I can press ahead in my timing when God’s timing actually is must slower.

And yet, I know deep down in my heart that this impatient frustration is not what God is calling me to. What God is calling me to do is embrace a life where I patiently and humbly learn and receive the unfolding “unforced rhythms of grace” (to use a phrase of Eugene Peterson) in all aspects of my relationships, my life, my work, and yes, even my ministry.  What God is calling me to is a life of radical patience and humility, a life that is opposite to a culture that so often celebrates immediate gratification and an attitude of “I know it all”.

And it is for this reason, that I am so thankful for the example of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus always lived in a way that was in tune with the Father’s will and with the Father’s timing.  He never let other people’s anxieties or expectations (or even perhaps his own desires and expectations) move him into action before the right time.  Jesus was the epitome of patience, humility, and restraint, and today’s Scripture reading is a great example of this.

So this morning, I would like us to spend a little time thinking through today’s passage (Luke 2:41-52) and particularly asking us what it can teach us about the virtues of patience, humility, and restraint, three qualities that I think go hand in hand.

Well, in today’s reading, we have the only account of Jesus’ childhood that is found in all the Gospels – it is the story of twelve-year old Jesus remaining in Jerusalem after the Feast of the Passover to the great consternation of his parents.

Before this story, we heard of Jesus’ dedication in the Temple when he was a baby, and after this story, we will hear of Jesus’ Baptism by John when he was in his thirties.  So this is it when it comes to Jesus’ childhood, and the picture that we get of Jesus as a child is both completely ordinary and amazingly extraordinary at the same time.

It is ordinary because there is nothing miraculous that Jesus did in this account.  In extra-Biblical accounts of Jesus that were written in the first centuries after Jesus’ death and resurrection, people tried to say that the boy Jesus did extraordinary things like breathe life into clay birds, heal others, change the color of fabric dyes, or even unfortunately, in a much darker direction, strike people blind or dead on occasion.

Yet, these accounts of fanciful happenings in Jesus’ childhood did not come from Jesus’ first followers or from his eyewitnesses like Mary who we are told repeatedly by Luke treasured marvelous happenings in Jesus’ life in her heart (and then they were recorded later).   No, these stories were simply made-up narratives that were never considered authentic by the Church.

In contrast, the picture we get of the real Jesus in Luke’s Gospel is one of an ordinary boy who did not do unusual things that stood out to his parents, a boy who was was normally trustworthy and obedient to his parents.   In fact, we are told that after the incident where Jesus lingered in the Temple and then his parents found him, he traveled back to Nazareth with his parents and was submissive to them.  He was submissive to them because I believe this was Jesus’ modus operandi.

The fact that his parents could travel a whole day after the festival without noticing his absence suggests that he was normally a trustworthy and obedient kid.  You see it was normal back in those days to travel up to Jerusalem and back home in a large caravan of people with the women, children, and men all traveling separately.  Joseph and Mary would have assumed that Jesus was traveling with the other children and would have not worried about him.  After all, Jesus would have presumably done this many times before this year, so there was no reason to think that this time around anything would be different – that Jesus would out of the blue stray from the crowd. Thus, Mary and Joseph felt no need to keep an eye on him.

Of course, as we know, this time was different than the other times, but rather than showing that Jesus was all of sudden a flighty, rebellious or untrustworthy adolescent, this incident showed that Jesus had an extraordinary side to him.

At the age of twelve, that time in a boy’s life in Israel where one began to transition into adulthood and into increasing religious commitment, Jesus showed his extraordinary side by demonstrating a self-awareness of who he was.  He did this by answering the teachers in the Temple in ways that amazed them.  He also did this by acknowledging who is real Father was.

When Mary said to him, “your father and I have been looking for you,” he immediately answered, “Didn’t you know that it was necessary to be about my Father’s business” or as others translate it “in my Father’s house.”  At twelve years old, Jesus knew that Joseph was not his true father but that God was his true father.  Jesus already had a sense of who he was at this time.

This self-awareness that Jesus showed, however, was not all that was extraordinary about this situation and about this boy.  Also quite extraordinary was the fact that Jesus created a situation that pointed to what was going to happen to him nearly twenty years later.

Now, it may seem inconsiderate that Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem without telling his parents what he was doing, and it is clear that his parents were upset and did not understand the situation at hand, but for us reading this account, we must know that everything that Jesus did at this time was purposeful.  In fact, everything that happened was a sign of what was to come years later – Jesus was of course one day to be involved in discussion and debate with the religious leaders in the Temple but even more significant than that, Jesus was to one day become the new and improved Temple – the presence of God on earth, the place where people’s sins were forgiven.

Jesus would become this Temple, this “meeting place of God and sinners” as D.A. Carson says, by first becoming the Pascal Lamb.  At the end of his life, Jesus would enter into a dangerous situation in Jerusalem, knowing full well that the religious leaders would soon be seeking to kill him. Then during the Feast of the Passover, that religious festival when the Jews would remember God’s deliverance of them out of Egypt and would sacrifice a lamb, Jesus would become the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate deliverer as he died a horrible death on a cross.

Some of his followers would flee and go into hiding after the painful events of his death, but some of them would stick around and come to his tomb three days later only to find that his body was missing.  It would be missing of course because on that third day, Jesus would have risen from the dead, breaking the bondage of sin and death and offering up forgiveness to all who would believe.

His followers, however, wouldn’t initially know this or understand, and the whole experience – from the point when he died until the time that that his body went missing – would throw them all, including his mother Mary, into great confusion, fear, and agony.  And then the risen Jesus would appear to his disciples.  He would show them that he was indeed alive – that the Jesus they had thought they had lost for good had now been found.

One of the encounters the resurrected Jesus would have with some of his disciples would be on the road to Emmaus.  As the anguished followers would recount the events of Jesus’ death, Jesus would calmly respond, “was it not necessary that the Messiah must suffer and enter into his glory.”

Now friends, if you take all these future events in the life of Jesus and then overlay them on the story we just heard of the Boy Jesus in the Temple, you will begin to see the parallels and how this event in Jesus’ early life pointed to the final events in Jesus’ ministry.

Let’s briefly go over these stories again, just to make sure we have seen all the parallels clearly.

So the boy Jesus went up to Jerusalem with his parents at the time of Feast of the Passover, the same time period he would head there at the end of his life and die.   He then remained there without the knowledge of his parents, which created a potentially very dangerous situation for Jesus, because it was not good to be a child wandering alone around the city.  This danger mirrored the danger Jesus would one day experience in Jerusalem when people would seek out his life.

When Jesus’ parents discovered he was missing and likely still in Jerusalem and thus in potential danger, they then felt great agony and anguish over the situation, an agony similar to that which would be experienced by his followers one day when Jesus would be crucified and then his body would go missing.

Consequently, Jesus’ parents went straight back to Jerusalem to search for him, and thankfully three days later, they found him.  Three days – the same period of time that would later occur between Jesus’ crucifixion and his resurrection and his subsequent appearance to his disciples.

At this point, after Jesus’ parents found him, they confronted him, anxiously asking him why he had treated them like this, and Jesus calmly answered, “Didn’t you know that it was necessary that I be “in my Father’s house.”  Later on, Jesus would give a similar calm answer to the anguished disciples on the road to Emmaus and use the same Greek word for “it is necessary” when he would tell them it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer.

Finally, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus many years later, Mary and Joseph, face-to-face with Jesus,  did not understand the circumstances before them.

So friends there you have it.  Hopefully the parallels are now clear.

So what we find is that the first and of course only story recorded of Jesus when he was a child, was a story of a self-aware boy who was lost and then found, pointing to the climax of his boy’s life when he would again be lost and found in the events of the crucifixion and resurrection.

I don’t know about you, but I find the boy Jesus to be pretty extraordinary.  Whether or not he fully knew at the time that this situation would be a sign of what was to come, He clearly was so in sync with the Father’s will that this situation did become a sign of what was to come, a sign that would be later recognized by his followers.  I find that to be pretty awesome.

Do you what else I also find to be pretty awesome.  It’s that the boy Jesus knew who he was, yet was so in tune with the Father’s will that He demonstrated great restraint, patience, and humility at that moment in time and then for the next twenty-something years of his life.

How so, you ask? Well, just think about the circumstances on hand in this story and the fact that we don’t hear again about Jesus until He is in His thirties.

Remember those fanciful extra-biblical accounts of the boy Jesus I mentioned before in which he wielded his power for good and for ill.  Well in contrast, here the real boy Jesus not only didn’t wield power to do miraculous deeds, he didn’t even teach the religious leaders when he had the chance, and we all know that the religious leaders had much to learn.  Now yes, it is true that he did answer their questions when they directed them to him, and yes his answers made them marvel, however, Jesus wasn’t there to teach.  He was there to be a student, who took on a posture of learning from the religious teachers.

Now this is pretty extraordinary – that even as the self-aware Son of God, Jesus needed to learn and to grow in wisdom before it was time for him to teach others or to do miraculous things like turn water into wine or heal the sick.  And just as importantly, Jesus needed to be in tune with the Father’s timing, which meant he had to wait to do ministry for twenty years.

His restraint in this moment reminds me of that moment later on in his life when Mary would ask him to do something at the wedding where the wine had run out, and Jesus would answer, “my hour has not yet come.”

As a boy, Jesus was self-aware of who He was but his hour had not come.  Thus, for the next twenty-something years, Jesus lived as an ordinary boy and then an ordinary man who worked as carpenter.  He grew in wisdom and stature, was submissive to his parents, and learned from others.  He was even baptized by John with all the sinners when he himself had never sinned. Jesus lived like everyone else

It wasn’t until his last three years of his life that he began to teach, to heal others, and to preach the Kingdom of God.  And even then, we must admit that when he did teach and heal, he only reached a relatively small amount of people.

In the end, he only had twelve close disciples, and one of them betrayed him and many others scattered when he was arrested and crucified.  Jesus was not very successful from the world’s standards.  It wasn’t until after Jesus died, rose, and ascended back to the Father, that real fruit came forth from his life and ministry.

When I think on all these realities about Jesus’ life, this demonstrates to me just how humble and patient Jesus was. To know what he knew about himself and his relationship to the Father, yet to wait for two decades, to submit to others along the way and to learn from them, and then to have a pretty tumultuous last three years is just amazing to me.

I know I have a lot to learn from this Jesus, and I know that all of us in the Body of Christ have a lot to learn.   It is important for us to learn to be patient, humble, and restrained in our lives and relationships just as Jesus was.  This is particularly true in the ministries to which God has called us each one of us, whether we ordained or laypeople.  This is especially crucial given that our current instantaneous gratification, success-driven, “know-it-all” culture pushes us in an opposite direction.

It is certainly an exciting thing when we catch on to a vision that God has given us about who we are to be or what we are do on behalf of the kingdom.  This is a great priviledge that is hard to fathom.  However, we must not never forget to submit that vision and all the steps to reach that vision to God’s ways and God’s timing. We must not forget to hold all our plans out to God with open hands and to continue to grow in wisdom and humility. We must not forget that in some shape or form, we will all carry some kind of cross in the ministries entrusted to us.

It is interesting when I reflect back on Rosamond’s Carr’s long journey to Rwanda – the one I told you about at the beginning of this sermon.  I can’t but help wonder if her difficult journey to Rwanda and then the difficult situations she faced throughout her life in that country were part of the reason she developed such a great love for Rwanda and its people, a love which led her among many other things, to open up an orphanage for many children who were victims of the horrific 1994 genocide.    Her life journey certainly came at a great cost at times, and sometimes involve times of waiting, but in the end, it seems that it all enlarged her heart for the people around her.

When we reflect upon own life journeys, can we say the same things about ourselves?

Friends, as we close our time here together this morning, I think it would be good to ask ourselves some questions to help us ascertain how well we are doing in the areas of patience, humility, and restraint, especially in the area of ministry.

So here are three questions.

First, are we willing to embrace a life journey that will lead us into maturity and wisdom and will enlarge our hearts for the people around us, even if that journey takes time and comes with costs?

Second, throughout our journey, are we willing to submit to and learn from others along the way, even others who from all appearances should be learning from us?

Finally, throughout our journey, are we willing to patiently embrace the unfolding unforced rhythms of God’s grace, trusting that God will bring about fruitfulness from our faithfulness, even if that fruitfulness comes later on in our lifetimes or even after our deaths?

My prayer of course, friends, is that we would be willing to do all these things, but I do know that in order for that to happen, we will all need to be open to the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, because we can’t do any of this in the strength of our own wills.

And in addition, we are going to have apply a different set of metrics to our ministries than the world gives us. What looks like success in the world at large (often large numbers of people and resources) may or may not be what success looks like in our ministries.   Success may have a different appearance.

And success is not really what we are after anyway, so let me end our time together this morning with my personal favorite quote – it comes from Mother Teresa – she says, “God doesn’t call us to success; he calls us to faithfulness.”

So, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we leave this place this mornings, may we be like the boy Jesus, who was ever faithful to His Father in heaven, and in that faithfulness, exhibited great humility, patience, and restraint along the way, and in that faithfulness opened up the door to great fruitfulness in God’s timing.  May it be so.  Amen.