Home Alone? Hug a tree.

Remember Home Alone?  Sure you do.  Great film.  It's the one that both made Macauly Culkin into a star, and simultaneously killed his stardom with typecasting.  Anyhoo, Macaulay Culkin played a small child who was left behind by his parents when they went with all the family to Paris for Christmas.  Great film, but it doesn't hold up so well under inspection these days.  It doesn't hold up too well based on two salient and preposterous plot points.

Firstly, the idea that two criminals, career criminals, hardened criminals, could be perpetually foiled by

a small child using household tools as weapons.  This is the ultimate child fantasy, one in which you can outsmart adults, be the coolest kid around, and single-handedly defend your home against rampaging invaders.  It is extremely unlikely, though, that in any way shape or form, you would find that a small child could repel invaders who wanted to get in, or that you would find invaders who would still be interested in breaking in if they know you're home.

Secondly, that a family could not only leave the house, but get to an airport, board an airplane, and be in the air by the time the realized that they had one child too few.

Of course those plot points are preposterous, but that second one deserves special mention, given that it is, shall we say, quite salient for today.  You see, the story from the Gospels for this weekend is the story of the boy Jesus in the temple.  And his parents look for him like crazy all over the place because they'd lost him, left Jerusalem, and had to find him in an absolute panic.  And so they searched everywhere for him, and finally found him after three days, exactly where he knew he was all along.

Now, hold on a second here.  This theme of searching for Jesus, and finding him should be of some familiarity to us, shouldn't it?  The other time that someone searched for Jesus was when he had died, and was buried, and placed in a tomb.  And on the third day, when they went to go and anoint his body, they found that he wasn't there.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and told them that they should not be seeking the living among the dead.

And this cuts to the heart of the problem, doesn't it?  This is the big issue that we have to deal with when it comes to faith and especially how we approach and deal with God.  You see, the human experience is one big long story of looking for God in the stupidest places, trying to find him where he isn't, desperately searching for him all over the place, and getting more and more lost.  This is the experience that started way back in the days of Cain and Abel, in which Cain was sure that he had access to God, that he'd found the right way, and when it was revealed that he didn't, he committed murther.  And this, right here, is an example, and there are many many more, of how people get into more and more of a fix.  They wander off searching for God.

But the thing that they had to realize back in the temple, and at the tomb, was that it isn't God who is lost.  He found them, those who were lost.  This happens constantly with those who are lost, who wander away trying to be found, is that they just get more and more lost.  What is difficult to understand or to appreciate, is that when it comes to us and God, we are the ones who are lost, not him.  We are the ones who have wandered away, and who are fumbling in the darkness, not God.  He's fine.

And when you understand that, then the incarnation makes a whole new set of sense.  Jesus' parents find him in the temple, and ask how he could have treated them so, as they'd been searching in great distress.  And Jesus asks why they were looking all over the place, and informs them that they should have known that he'd be in his father's house.  Obviously.

But he didn't stay in the Temple, he went home with them in all submission and obedience.  In other words, he went where they were going.  He left where he was, and went where they were going.  And this is what the incarnation is all about.  It's about Jesus not waiting for you to find him, it's about him leaving heaven, the temple, life, the tomb, to find you.

So, knowing that you're lost, what is the wisdom?  How do you get unlost?  Well, the conventional wisdom told to us as fourth graders was that if we were ever lost in the wilderness, to hug a tree.

The idea is that if you are lost, stay put, and those who are not lost will find you.  If you keep moving, you will make it impossible for you to be found.  And more than anyone else, Christians should remember this advice, the advice for survival.  If you're a lost sinner, if you're a lost child, if you're lost and deserving of hellfire and damnation, then the best thing you can do is to hug a tree.  Which tree?

This tree.  The tree of the cross.  The tree that Jesus was hanged upon, bearing our sins upon him.  This is the deal, is that the more we try to find God, the more we try to figure it out, the more effort we expend trying to make stuff happen, the worse things get.  You're lost, so hug a tree.  Hug that tree, hug the tree of the cross of Christ.  Hug that tree for all you're worth, cling fast to it, for that is where salvation is.  It is in his wounds where he poured out his precious blood for us.  It is in the tree that he carried, in the nails that pierced him, in the spear that ran him through, in the crown of thorns, in all those things that were borne for you, so that you might live.  

When you find yourself running into people, religious people, who drive you crazy, who make things awkward, who use their faith to make everything worse, ask yourself how much of that is Jesus, and how much is them.  It's incumbent on us to stop adding these things to the faith, to not add anything to the book of Christ, but instead of allowing him to find us, to stop running, to stop flailing, and to just hug that tree.  All we need to do is to stop and be found.  God's not lost, you are the one who is lost.  Stop fleeing, stop getting more lost, and be found by him.  That's what the incarnation is all about.  Jesus coming to save sinners.  Not waiting for them to find him, but him finding them.

Enjoy the new year.  Enjoy the incarnation.  Enjoy your faith.

PJ.