Luke 2:41-52: When Young Jesus Astonished His Parents

INTRODUCTION

When I was a child our family belonged to an unusual sort of church.

Our belief was the same as other Bible-believing churches, but we had some unusual customs.

One of our unusual customs was that every Christmas, we all went to a Bible conference in Kansas City. People from meetings like ours from maybe 150 miles around came together for this annual Christmas conference.

They really looked forward to this time.

We lived in Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City was about 50 miles away.

The conference lasted for three days and included Christmas.

So we got our Christmas presents early because on Christmas Day we would be at the conference.

The program of the Kansas City conference was very simple. We listened to sermons all day long—one preacher after another—and occasionally sang hymns. And we ate together.

I suppose children nowadays would find this boring, but we didn’t mind it. We could see friends who we saw only once a year.

And we had a special responsibility—waiting at tables during the meals.

We children sat in the balcony. We were supposed to listen, and we did listen to some of the speakers—especially when they told stories. But mostly we just sat with our friends, whispered to each other, and drew pictures to while away the time.

Jesus’ family also had a yearly event, something like the Bible conference of my youth.

Every year, at Passover time, Mary and Joseph took their family to Jerusalem.

They would go to the Temple and listen to the prayers, sing psalms together, and watch the priests offer the sacrifices.

They then would gather in small family groups and eat the Passover meal.

It appears that they also took time to gather in small groups under the colonnades and as the rabbis taught them from the Bible.

But Jesus took this Passover trip more seriously than we did the Bible conferences of my youth.

The only story we know about the boy Jesus from the Bible is the account about the time when his family went to Jerusalem to the Passover when he was 12 years old.

It is an interesting story and it not only embodies a truth about who Jesus is, but it also contains some valuable lessons for us.

Here is the story (Luke 2:41-52):

Now Jesus’s parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to the custom; and when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the company, they went a day’s journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances; and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking him

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.

And when they saw him, they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so. Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.”

And he said to them, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them.

And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.

I. Twelve years old was an important time in the life of a Jewish boy.

A. Since his first years Joseph would have been teaching his son the Law as written in the first books of the Old Testament.

We can be sure Mary also had a part in teaching Jesus about love and obedience and the knowledge of God.

Twelve years old: this was the final year of his preparation for assuming the responsibilities of a man in the religious life of the synagogue.

At his 13th birthday he would become a Bar Mitzvah; that means “a son of the law.”

B. I have taught 12-year-olds, and we have had 12-year-old children in our own family. I know about 12-year-olds.

This is an important age, an age when children begin to make decisions for themselves about what kind of people they will grow up to be.

Sometimes it is a time when children begin to behave in ways that leave parents scratching their heads.

Jesus was no different. Even though Joseph and Mary remembered the remarkable events that surrounded the birth of Jesus—the angels and the shepherds and the wise men and the prophecies pronounced over the child by old Simeon and Anna in the Temple, they weren’t prepared for the streak of independence that Jesus showed at this time.

II. Let’s look again at the story.

A. After the festivities at of the Passover the family started home.

In those days the family would have gone up to the Passover in a group with their friends and relatives from Nazareth.

Walking 15 miles a day from Nazareth to Jerusalem—would have taken 4 or 5 days.

It was important to go with a group for relatives and neighbors because traveling was dangerous in those days. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan.

That Joseph and Mary set off for home without checking where Jesus was tells us that Jesus had always been a responsible child. They assumed that he was with his cousins and the other children in the company.

We who are parents can understand how upset Mary and Joseph were. After they had walked for a day, they discovered that their son wasn’t in the company.

So they started back to Jerusalem. That would have taken them a day.

Then they spent at least two days in Jerusalem searching everywhere, wondering and worrying about what might have happened to their precious child. As they searched all the places where they could imagine he might be, they may have wondered if he was even still alive. Maybe he had fallen into a well or been abducted by slave traders!

Can you imagine the anxious thoughts that must have gone through their heads?

We can imagine their relief and their annoyance when they found him in the Temple, oblivious to their anxiety.

B. When his parents found him in the Temple, the boy was sitting among the teachers listening to them and asking questions.

I picture him sitting under one of the colonnades, in the midst of a group of old men, who were both startled and pleased by the interest and insight of the child.

Jesus wasn’t showing off his knowledge or his wit; he was asking questions.

These old rabbis were delighted with this bright, young student. There is nothing that pleases a teacher more than a student who asks intelligent questions.

Jesus knew that we learn by asking questions and by listening.

When I read the Bible my mind is full of questions. Jesus also must have wondered about many things. I can imagine some of he questions he must have asked.

A famous philosopher (Francis Bacon) said, “A wise question is already half the answer.”

That is why, that, though that Jesus was asking questions, the rabbis were surprised by his answers.

C. The distressed parents let Jesus know how put out they were with him:

Mary says, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.”

And the boy says, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?

Or it may be just as well translated: “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” That’s the way it is in the King James Bible.

The Greek simply says, “Did you not know that I must be about the things of my Father?”

I don’t think Jesus was being insensitive or rude. He was genuinely surprised. Jesus was becoming very much aware that he had an uncommon destiny. God called himself the “Father” of his people in the Old Testament, and the boy had taken to heart this truth that he had two fathers, and his heavenly Father was the one who held the greatest claim on his life.

These are the first words Jesus speaks in Luke’s gospel, and they are especially important because they tell us that even at 12-years-old Jesus realized that he had a special relationship with God, his Father, and that God was calling him to a special destiny.

It is a mistake to suppose that God just poured into Jesus’ brain everything he needed to know.

Jesus was a human child. He grew, he learned, he made choices, he learned to love God, he learned to live by faith.

Jesus learned from his teachers, even though soon he would surpass all of them in his insight into the ways of God.

D. Notice how considerate Jesus was with his parents.

Even though the boy recognized his higher loyalty to God, he didn’t presume on that relationship.

I think he took to heart the grief he had caused his parents because, we read, “he went down with his parents and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.”

We can be sure that on the many future trips the family took to Jerusalem for Passover, Mary and Joseph were more attentive to where their son was.

And Jesus also would not again have become so absorbed in his opportunities to learn that he was oblivious to the consternation he might cause his parents.

E. And lastly, notice that “his mother kept all these things in her heart.”

When our children were little we kept a notebook in which we recorded the funny or interesting things our children said.

Mary kept her notebook in her heart. We read that after the shepherds returned “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (2.19) And here we read (v51): “…and his mother kept all these things in her heart.”

And that is how we have the story. Mary either told the stories to Luke, who wrote them down, or she told them to someone who told them to Luke, and so they were preserved for us.

III. So what does this story tell us that is so important? I see two things:

A. Jesus loved scripture, and, even as a child, he was hungry to learn more and more.

It is astonishing that so many faithful church-goers have little interest in knowing more of the Bible than they have learned as children in Sunday school.

They think: I know all I need to know; now all I need now is to do the right thing.

They don’t realize that God’s Word is the food for their souls.

But it’s not enough to know what we should do; we need motivation to make us want to do it.

We need God’s Word in our hearts stir our emotions and our wills to love and obey.

Do you remember that when Jesus was tempted by the devil, he resisted each temptation with a saying from scripture?

If Jesus needed a mind stored full of scripture, we do too.

And here we see Jesus—even as a boy—storing away God’s Word in his heart.

B. The second lesson we can take away from this story is the priority Jesus placed on being in the house of his Father: the Temple represented above all the presence of God.

When we pray, when we meditate on scripture, when we worship and give thanks, we are, in a sense, in the Temple of God.

God has left us on this earth to live in his presence and to make it our business to do his will.

We are intended to live in the presence of God, whether we are reading our Bibles, or worshiping in church, or praying, or lying quietly in bed, or sitting in our chair reading a book.

God intends that we are to feel ourselves to be in his presence in our everyday activities—with our friends—in our pleasures—or in our solitude—always in the heavenly temple—always in the presence of God.

The Curé d’Ars was a French saint of the 18th century. Often, when he went into the church he would see an old peasant sitting in the church quietly, seemingly not praying. One day he asked the old peasant what he was doing there.

The peasant answered, “I look at God and he looks at me and we are happy together.”

But whether we are in a cathedral, or in our living room, or in the public dining room, we can always be in “God’s house,” always in the presence of God.

Our Lord has told us, “I will never leave you of forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

So “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).