Luke 2:41-52--The Boy Jesus in the Temple

Luke 2:41-52
English Standard Version

The Boy Jesus in the Temple
41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. 43 And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, 44 but supposing him to be in the group they went a day's journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, 45 and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 And when his parents 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 searching for you in great distress.” 49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?” 50 And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. 51 And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

​52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

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I previewed this passage a tiny bit yesterday, but let's try to dig into it today.  Jesus was still legally a child here and under the authority of His parents.  Notice how the passage talks about how they went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Passover together, as was their custom.  This was one of the pilgrimages feasts (there are three of them) when all Israel was to gather together to worship and remember what the LORD had done for them.  We have studied all of these feasts as we studied the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy already.  So, the city is jam-packed with Jews from all over Israel (all of them should be living in their land that had been given to them and their families, but some may have moved away from Israel and returned for the feast, like we see the Apostle Paul trying to do in the book of Acts when he returns to Jerusalem knowing that if he returns, he will be arrested, but he wants to keep this pilgrimage feast anyways).

When the Feast of Passover was over, and it was time for them to return to Nazareth, they were travelling with other relatives and they assumed that Jesus was with other family members, but He had actually stayed behind in Jerusalem and was in the Temple talking about the finer points of the Law and the Prophets with the scribes and teachers of the Law (no one this age should have this level of education and knowledge yet, as typically they would have still been studying the Torah--the books of the Law--and they wouldn't study the Prophets or the Writings unless they went to the equivalent of our seminaries.  So, you can imagine why these religious leaders were astounded that He could answer so well and knew so much at such a young age, for they had given their whole lives to studying these texts and they did not know the meaning as well as He did, for He is God in the flesh--of course He knows His own Word, and everything that is meant and not meant by it.

Mary and Joseph had gone about a day's journey before they realized that Jesus was not with the group.  Again, this does not make them bad parents, it's pretty typical for cousins to want to spend time together and travelling in big groups like this, it would make sense that everyone would mix together with their friends and family members, but they would all get back together with their own family units before it was time for them to lodge for the night or time for them to split from the group to head their separate ways to go home.  When they realized Jesus wasn't with them, they turned around and went back to Jerusalem to look for Him, and after searching for Him for three days (it's not clear if that means three days after the Passover so one day out, one day back and then found Him the next day, or if that means three days after them getting back to Jerusalem which would be five days total), they found Him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them, and asking them questions--this is important to understand what this means.

The Jewish culture was the opposite of ours in that typically all of us sit down to listen to the one speaking and that person stands to speak.  In the Jewish culture the teacher sits down to teach, so He is sitting with them meaning that they have accepted Him as a teacher, and while He is listening to them, notice that He is asking them questions and they are answering His questions.  Typically this would never happen with a child, but the religious leaders had to have noticed something was different about Him, in fact, they will say as much here very soon.

Luke says that all who heard Jesus, both the teachers and those who were standing around being taught, were amazed by His understanding and His ability to give answers.  This should not surprise us because we know who He is, but this would be shocking for all of them--even His own parents were amazed when they found Him, yet they did not understand the significance of what was going on, even though they had had all the special revelation that we just read about, but remember that was 12 years ago for them.

When Mary found Jesus, I think it's fair to day that she was embarrassed and a little beside herself.  She does not recognize Jesus' position of authority like everyone else in the Temple that day did, but instead rebukes Him for causing "your father and I" to worry.

Jesus gives a soft correction reminding Mary that God is His Father, not Joseph, and that they both should have known that He must be about His Father's business and would be in His Father's house (the Temple).  We will see this dynamic play out at almost every feast during Jesus' ministry as He will return to Jerusalem, come to the Temple and will teach with authority, and the the people will be in awe and listen, but the teachers of the Law will no longer listen to Him like they did when He was 12 years old, but instead will be offended by what He has to say, and will plot how they might discredit Him and later, when that doesn't work, they plot to kill Him (eventually using politics to get the Romans to help them).

Luke lets us know that Mary and Joseph did not understand Jesus' saying about being in His Father's house and being about His Father's work, but Jesus did not rebel against the authority He had been placed under.  He went back to Nazareth with them and was submissive to them.  His mother treasured these things up in her heart, probably in the "my boy is special" kind of way that many mothers think to themselves and talk to others about their children.

We won't see or hear anything else from Jesus for the next 18 years, when Jesus' three-year ministry will get kicked off by His baptism by John the Baptist.  All of those 18 years are summarized by a few words here by Luke, "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man."  These are very similar to the words in verse 40 regarding the time that He was in Nazareth before we see Him in the Temple in today's passage, but this time Luke indicates that He is growing not only in wisdom and strength, but in stature (he was literally "growing up" and also in favor with men as they were taking notice of Him now and how He was different, yet it wasn't obvious to anyone yet, not even His own "siblings" (the full-blooded children of Joseph and Mary) who He was or why He was here.

We still have a little bit of "preliminaries" before we get to Jesus' baptism--we will first look at the ministry of John the Baptist and his interactions with these same religious leaders that Jesus was just talking to, and then we will look at the genealogy of Jesus (it appears this one is through Mary as it is His actual family tree as opposed to the one in Matthew which is his legal family tree that would go through Joseph as He was basically adopted into Joseph's family).  Hopefully I remember to discuss why it is important to talk about why there would be two different genealogies given--it's not a contradiction, just Matthew intentionally focuses on some of the more sordid characters in Jesus' family tree while Luke gives the straight genealogy because his audience wouldn't know all the background of names like Rahab and Tamar.