Where on earth’s Jesus? Rev. Neil Urquhart

Most parents have been through the emotional wringer of losing a child at the supermarket, in a crowd, on a beach, etc. At the Sunderland Airshow, among 200,000+ folk I took my eye of eight year old Sandy for a split second, and he was gone! The cold sweat & heartfelt arrow prayers were soon followed by a steely determination to find our boy. He wasn’t at the organisers’ tent, nor in the vicinity of where he disappeared. As worst-case scenarios clamoured for attention we focussed on the faith & belief that he’d show up and eventually found him near the beach’s lighthouse-like point where we’d told our kids to head for should they get lost. Phew! What relief & gratitude! 

Mary & Joe didn’t realise twelve year old Jesus wasn’t among the community carts & caravans heading home to Nazareth from Jerusalem till a day down the road. It was three days till they eventually found him back in Jerusalem’s Temple Courts questioning & sharing with the religious leaders. I imagine Jesus’ mum & stepdad ever so slightly infuriated as Jesus responded to their perspiration & exasperation with, “Where’d you think I would be, but in my Father’s House?”  

Thirty+ year old Jesus’ mum & brothers came looking for him again as he taught, healed, & demonstrated his divinity, wanting to stop the stir he was creating & take him home. Again Jesus told them that he was intimately involved in His Father’s Family Business. 

Indeed, it’s a gracious loving, caring, healing, comforting, energising, good news sharing business which Jesus calls us all to join Him in.

It’s still a great question to ask, “Where on earth is Jesus!?” He can be found in the faces of the least, last, lost, & lonely; found among the carers, sharers, & neighbour lovers; found in the voices of people speaking up for the dispossessed & silenced; found in places of service & sacrifice; found in the many ways we can point people to Jesus in prayer, word & deed.

I asked Fullarton’s kids yesterday, “Where’s Jesus?” 2 beautiful answers quickly came, “In Heaven” & “In our hearts”. Truth is that Jesus is everywhere by His invisible Spirit loving people and calling us all to join in, but beware thinking you have Jesus in your pocket, or just where you want Him to be. He’s skilled at disturbing the comfortable as well as comforting the disturbed.

The poem ‘Footprints in the Sand’ beautifully describes the way Jesus can carry us through difficult & troubled times, when the one set of footprints we think are ours turn out to be those of Jesus, as He carries & coories us. However, there’s another courser version of the poem which can jolt us out of our worship of comfort & cries for an ‘easy life’. 

One night I had a wondrous dream, One set of footprints there was seen,

    The footprints of my precious Lord, But mine were not along the shore.

 But then some stranger prints appeared, And I asked the Lord, “What have we here?”

    Those prints are large and round and neat, “But Lord, they are too big for feet.”

“My child,” He said in sombre tones, “For miles I carried you alone.

    I challenged you to walk in faith, But you refused and made me wait.”

“You disobeyed, you would not grow, The walk of faith, you would not know,

    So I got tired, I got fed up, And there I dropped you on your butt.” 

“Because in life, there comes a time, When one must fight, and one must climb,

    When one must rise and take a stand, Or leave their butt prints in the sand.”

It’s a great question to ask as we enter 2025, “Where is Jesus?” Let’s keep our eyes, ears, heads, hearts, hands, & souls alert & open to where it points & leads! Happy New Year!