Welcome to a Cup of Joseph – Receive the Gift of Music!
I’ve been thinking about what it must be to send a child away whether that’s to camp or to boarding school or to college.
I went to boarding school for one term in the UK. I loved it. I begged my parents to send me back. My dad wouldn’t entertain the notion. It was too expensive. It was too far away. “And anyway, I would miss my fishing buddy!” I’ve always suspected that the latter notion was the real answer.
You don’t have to go very far into the life of Jesus to see that the Bible is wholly unsentimental when it comes to the realities of parenting – and in a dramatic way. In Luke 2, the infant Jesus is presented in the Temple “according to the Law of Moses.” This was a fairly procedural event in the life of a Jewish infant, but in Jesus’ case an extremely odd thing happens.
A man named Simeon is led to the Temple that day, but the Holy Spirit. “It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.” (v.26) Upon seeing the baby Jesus, Simeon grabs the infant, Rafiki style, and says these words:
Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation
that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.
Then Luke says this:
And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
That’s an emotional rollercoaster if there ever was one. Simeon goes from elatedly hailing Jesus as Israel’s Christ to warning Mary that “a sword will pierce your soul too.” But I think anyone who has a child knows what is going on here. Simeon is naming the fact that a child’s highs are a parents’ highs and a child’s lows are a parent’s lows. Mary will be crucified and resurrected in her own way.
The boys don’t get this. How could they? But the truth is that if you send your child to boarding school, in a way you send yourself also.
I think there is incredible comfort in knowing that God knows this. God knows the heart of a parent – it is why he is called Father. He knows what it means to send a child far away because he sent his own Son to earth.
This morning if you need some words to pray, you might find help in these words from the Book of Common Prayer.
God our Father, you see your children growing up in an unsteady and confusing world: Show them that your ways give more life than the ways of the world, and that following you is better than chasing after selfish goals. Help them to take failure, not as a measure of their worth, but as a chance for a new start. Give them strength to hold their faith in you, and to keep alive their joy in your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.