“After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.”
Luke 2:46-47 (RSV)
Jesus is not much different today, than when He was twelve. He still sits in a temple each day, hoping to talk with us. The Bible says that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:19)
His Spirit dwells in us, waiting to have a talk each day, even if we are unaware or preoccupied with other thoughts. He is patiently waiting and hoping we will talk with Him, or meditate about Him, and maybe even ask and answer questions with Him.
Temple talks give Jesus a place of honor in our lives, by taking us to a deeper place in our relationship with Him. He gave us gifts and talents, and in our temple talks He shows us how He wants us to use those gifts. He may bring a person to our mind and ask us to pray for them or call them. Temple talks lead us to use our God given skills for the good of others, as in the following story.
Edward Stone was an ordained minister/priest in England, in the 18th century. He had a curiosity to explore herbal medicine cures.
As an ordained clergyman, he probably had a daily temple talk with Jesus, which inspired him to do some research. In 1763, he published a research paper on Willow tree bark that proved to reduce fevers in patients with Malaria.
Hippocrates wrote about tree bark’s usage in curing fevers back in the 4th century, but it wasn’t widely recognized until Edward Stone documented and published it. He dried tree bark, ground it into powder, tried it out himself and then fed it to 50 patients with fever and pain. Their fevers were lowered and their pain relieved.
He was the first to publish the results that tree bark was a successful treatment for pain and fever.
He laid the groundwork for others who found a way to refine the active ingredient in the tree bark, which is ‘salicylic acid’ or what we now know as ‘aspirin’. It became the breakthrough drug of the day. A temple talk with Jesus can turn a thought into an action, and some actions end up impacting the whole world.
Jesus’ parents found Him in the Temple after they searched for Him three days. Maybe He still wants us to search for Him each day through a temple talk, where we ask or answer His questions, or listen in amazement to what He has to say. He shines His light on us by inspiring us to use the gifts and talents we were given. Then He shows us how to take what was given and go into the world to make a difference.
Lord, help us to always search for you in a temple talk each day and enlighten us on how we can make a difference in the world around us. Amen
