Three days

After Luke 2:41-52 

The travel group is large,

men and women, old

and young, children and

the elderly, parents and

grandparents, many

related, all known

to each other, all knowing

they’d watch out for each

other and the children.

They travel a day before

the couple realize their

son, their oldest, is not

with the group, Panic

seizes their hearts;

they hurry back to the city,

to Jerusalem. They look

everywhere, searching,

asking everyone if they’d

seen the boy, panic rising

in their hearts as they visit

and revisit every place

they’d seen and visited and 

rested. After three days, 

three days of imagining

the worst, three days 

of panic and anxiety, 

three days of growing

fear and despondency,

three days of looking

everywhere except,

perhaps, the least and

the most obvious,

the temple, the house 

of God. Three days, 

and the boy they feared

was dead, was found,

as if he’d risen again

in their hearts.

 

Photograph by Cole Keister via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Face We All Look For – Ami Wickiser at Gospel-Centered Discipleship.

 

Delicious Life – Elizabeth Stice at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

A Shepherd’s Heart: Honest Conversations when Members Leave Upset – Dan Reiland.