KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 19 January
They found him in the temple
This intriguing Gospel story was read in Chapel this week. It has a special relevance to our School and its history. There was once both the school and the university on this campus; the School founded in 1788 and the University of King’s College in 1789. Edgehill Church School for Girls was founded later in 1891 and in 1976 amalgamated with King’s Collegiate School to become King’s-Edgehill. But what about the University? In 1920, just after the devastations of the First World War and after the Spanish Flu epidemic, there was a fire and the main dorm burnt down. The University was forced to relocate to Halifax where it has been since 1923. So what does this have to do with Luke’s story about Jesus at the age of twelve being found in the Temple at Jerusalem?
The story has influenced the educational project of both School and College. It is one of the few Scriptural stories represented in the stained glass windows of the Chapels of both the School and the College. Why? Because of what the story signifies about education. In our Chapel, the last part of the story is depicted in the central window in the nave on the quad side. It is about Jesus stepping into the life of public service. In the College Chapel, the first part of the story of Jesus being in the midst of the doctors both hearing them and asking them questions is the central icon in the window above the altar; the emphasis is on teaching and learning. These are images that give us pause to reflect about the purpose of education, about teaching and learning and about service Deo Legi Regi Gregi, for God, the Law, the King and the people, the motto of the School and the College.
This story is an Epiphany on several different levels and one in which we are very much a part of its meaning, again on several different levels. The main Epiphany in the Christian understanding is Jesus as human student, on the one hand, and divine teacher, on the other hand. But it also makes known a central feature of education, namely, the seeking or desire to learn; in short, the love of learning. In the story, there are four references to the idea of seeking, the idea of wanting to know. Without that there can be no learning. What Jesus says here to Mary is particularly instructive. It is captured in the rhetorical question, a question which presupposes the answer, “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” meaning the heavenly Father. It highlights the making known of the purpose of the Incarnation. Human redemption is about learning what God seeks for us.
