“‘Why were you
searching for me?’ he asked.
‘Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?’” - Luke 2:49
‘Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?’” - Luke 2:49
This past
week I was thinking about my junior high years. I turned 12 a few months into
seventh grade, and if I remember correctly, I didn’t accomplish very much. I
got A’s and B’s in school, but so did many others. I played AYSO soccer, but so
did thousands of other kids. And like most other pre-teen boys I stumbled over
my own two feet, and my voice changed, and I picked on girls I liked. Nothing
earth-shattering—right?
Now,
consider some of the heroes of our faith in Scripture. It’s interesting that we
know very little about their childhoods. We know nothing about pre-teen Noah or
7th grader Abraham or junior high Paul. We read a little bit about
Samuel when he was a kid, and David might have been a teenager when he slayed
Goliath, but we can’t be sure. When it comes down to it, the Bible doesn’t tell
us very much about the childhood years of our Biblical heroes. But, as we see
in the second chapter of Luke Jesus is an exception to the rule.
When Jesus
was 12 years old, he went with his parents to the eight-day Feast of Passover.
After eight days, Joseph and Mary joined a caravan and began their long road
trip back home. But a funny thing happened on the way back to Nazareth : they misplaced Jesus.
In Luke 2:43-44, we read, “After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind inJerusalem , but they were unaware of it.
Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began
looking for him among their relatives and friends.” Now, from our 21st
century perspective, Mary and Joseph look completely negligent, don’t they? How
on earth could you leave your pre-teen son in a strange city and not even
realize it until the end of the day?
In Luke 2:43-44, we read, “After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in
Well,
before you call CPS on Mary and Joseph, you need to realize that at 12 years
old, Jesus was less than a year away from entering Jewish manhood. So, it’s not
like Mary and Joseph were leaving behind a 2nd grader. And because
Mary and Joseph were traveling in a large caravan, they probably weren’t
traveling side-by-side. Joseph probably assumed Jesus was with Mary and their
other younger kids in the front of
the caravan. But since Jesus was nearing male adulthood, Mary probably assumed
Jesus was with Joseph at the back of
the caravan. And their cell phone reception was really spotty, so they didn’t
compare notes until the end of the day.
But what’s
remarkable about this story is what they discovered when they returned to Jerusalem and found
Jesus. He wasn’t in the street kicking a ball with other kids his age. He
wasn’t panhandling from a food vendor in the marketplace. “After three days
they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to
them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his
understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:46-47). Jerusalem ’s best and brightest rabbis were
blown away by Jesus’ understanding of Scripture and theology. They knew they
were in the presence of some sort of child-savant with a spiritual
understanding well beyond his years.
And when Mary scolded him for
sending them on an anxious three-day search, Jesus’ response was a puzzler: “‘Why
were you searching for me?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t you know I had to be in my
Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he was saying to them” (vs.
49-50). It wasn’t just a matter of Jesus being a child genius. Simple genius
would have been easier to deal with. What Mary and Joseph couldn’t wrap their
minds around was the fact that their boy was not THEIR son. He was GOD’S son. From
Jesus’ perspective, he wasn’t on his way home to Nazareth ,
because he was already home in his Father’s house in Jerusalem .
It seems clear that when Jesus came
to earth, he emptied himself of most of his eternal power. When he was a kid he
wasn’t all-knowing or all-powerful. He allowed Himself to be born as a helpless
baby who needed to learn how to talk and walk and obey his parents just like
every other kid. But this appears to be the point in time when Jesus had an
awakening—here, at the age of 12, seems to be when he realized for the first
time that he was the Son of God, and His life’s purpose was to do the will of
the Father. Jesus understood these realities at the age of 12. But for Mary and
Joseph … that would take quite a while longer for them to grasp.
If any
12-year old was ever smart enough, spiritually mature enough and experienced
enough to call the shots in his home and rule over his parents, it was Jesus.
But Jesus modeled what God expects of kids and teenagers: He submitted to their
authority. We’re told in verse 51, “Then
he went down to Nazareth
with them and was obedient to them.” The Savior of the world humbly
obeyed his parents as he grew up physically, socially and spiritually.
So if you’ve closed your ears to the
truth, do what Jesus did—SIT, LISTEN, LEARN and OBEY. Let’s be honest: We’re
not very good at sitting down and listening. We close our ears to others’
opinions. We close our ears to others’ needs. We close our ears to our spouses
and to our kids and to our parents. We act as if we’re know-it-alls. But even
Jesus wasn’t a know-it-all. He sat and listened and learned and submitted to
the authorities God had placed in His life. So too should we.
Dane Davis is the Lead
Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com and join us Sundays at 10 a.m.
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