A few years ago, I was asked to be a contributing author for a children’s Bible storybook, and as I accepted the job offer, I wondered what stories I’d be assigned. I thought about some favorites, and I thought about the…thousands of stories I would be embarrassed to not be immediately familiar with. And then I saw, whew, I got assigned the Christmas stories. But…then I see Luke 2:22-40, Anna and Simeon, and I…was not sure I could have told you too much about these two pieces of the Christmas story before this project. In fact, looking at calendars and schedules during this time of year, it seems almost as if coming to church this first Sunday of Christmas really just encroaches on all the plans of traveling and celebrating (well, maybe not this year). In fact, there’s a running joke amongst associates at large churches that this Sunday…is associate pastor Sunday.

So, as I was reading this story over the last couple of weeks to prepare, I have had to ask myself: why is this story one that is not one that is cemented in my mind, and I would guess yours, as well, as a culmination of the nativity narrative?

Many lifetimes ago, when I was seventeen, just after my first semester of college, I traveled on a study abroad trip to London, UK, where our small group of students studied sacred space and how it influenced religious practice. I could spend far too much of your time telling you all about this trip – it included my first introduction to Methodism, for one. It was my first trip abroad and my first big trip without family, and I stumbled around in a daze for most of it, I’m sure, but I remember getting to London on December 27 and everyone was wishing each other Merry Christmas. It seems silly now to think about it, but I absolutely couldn’t figure out to save my life why anyone was wishing me Merry Christmas, as I had left Christmas at home in the States with my family.

It took me a few days to realize that the people I met were celebrating the twelve days of Christmas, something I really didn’t know existed beyond that song about all the birds. Oftentimes, it can feel like we accelerate at an alarming rate towards Christmas beginning in November and then come to a screeching halt with Jesus in the manger and gifts under the tree. In a flash, it’s over. Jesus is born and in just a mere few weeks, we’ll begin the forty days in the desert and the long, hard walk to Holy Week. But, on that trip in London, it didn’t seem that frantic or that final. Christmas – the birth of Christ – wasn’t just a day that got ticked off the calendar – it was a joyous season of celebration that extended beyond the sometimes delightful sometimes obligatory barrage of family visits. Christmas existed in its own right, just as Advent came before and Epiphany follows, with this story of duty, ritual, hope, faith and perseverance sandwiched right in the middle of Christmas.

Looking back to early chapters in Luke that offer us the beginnings of the word-made-flesh, Immanuel, perhaps we’re left wanting a fuller biography. We have so few glimpses into what Christ’s childhood must have been like. We have the narrative provided in Luke of the nativity – the angels and the choruses of no rooms to be found and the shepherds and the miraculous birth of the Christ-child.

Then, eight days later, we arrive at our text for today, and after this story, there’s really no more news of Christ until he’s twelve, arriving back at the temple for the Passover festival. We’re just given this little nugget of foreshadowing: “The child grew up and became strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God’s favor was on him.”

I have an endless number of questions I have for God whenever I get to meet God. Whenever children ask me questions about God, I often tell them I have a notebook I keep these questions in. There are some of the big existential questions in there, and there are questions out of my own curiosity about small details. As someone who loves children and cherishes the f