With the advent of Advent, I find myself thinking of Mary and Joseph. But not the young couple making their weary way to Bethlehem with a pregnant Mary astride a donkey without air bags or, heaven help her, a seat warmer. Not the Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt only to escape again into Nazareth.

This Advent, the Mary and Joseph on my mind are not the parents of the infant Jesus but the parents of Jesus the boy. The holy couple who somehow lose sight of their precocious 12-year-old amidst the crush of the Passover crowds. Luke concludes the infancy narratives with this story, but the twist always seems to get lost.

I think it's because the story is embarrassing. Sure, Jesus does OK. He finds his way to the temple and for three days mystifies scholars with his incredible knowledge. We like this part. But hold on -- Jesus was missing for three days? How did Joseph and Mary let this happen? What kind of parents could allow this to happen?

In today's atmosphere of hypervigilance, we freak out if parents allow children to walk to a local park by themselves for an hour. Jesus was AWOL for three days? My mom loves to tell my kids that when I was 4 I took my Big Wheel, crossed a busy street that was explicitly forbidden and pedaled to my older brother's elementary school. When she found me there, I was laughing and said, "I bet you thought I was lost, Mommy!" With the same mix of relief and anger Mary expresses in Luke's Gospel, my unamused mother escorted me home and placed my Big Wheel on the highest shelf in the garage. She didn't take it down for what felt like an eternity.

As a father of three and a working pastor, I have to say that I kind of love Mary and Joseph's lack of parental perfection. They show us what British pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott called "good-enough" parenting. After observing thousands of parents, Winnicott concluded that children benefit when their parents fail them in small, safe ways rather than hovering over them to meet every need.