Christ returning to his Parents - Simone Martini

Here’s a twelve-year old Jesus, arms folded across his chest: the familiar stance of the defiant adolescent. Joseph, his face dark with anger and pain, has a firm grip on his shoulder. ‘Your mother’s been worried sick about you’. Mary reaches out to her son, in rebuke or welcome, but Jesus makes no move towards her. We are in the middle of an unresolved family argument.

All the Gospels say that Jesus’ desire to be "about his Father’s business" caused Mary anguish, to the very end. So between the Nativity and the start of Jesus’s ministry, Luke places his story of a lost child (Luke 2:41-51). This picture captures its drama, and its pain.

God is known and served within the web of relationships, dependencies and obligations which make up human life. Love of God and love of neighbour are inseparable. Do we talk too glibly about commitment and calling, service and sacrifice, ignoring the complex choices they involve? Are churches too ready to assume first claim on people’s time and energy? The mature Jesus had harsh words for those who put piety before human sympathy. But he was clear too that the Kingdom overrides family ties. As we turn from Christmas towards Lent, Good Friday and Easter, this tension is a persistent thread in the story of Jesus, as it is in our own lives.

Elizabeth Moore, Thurston.