March 16 – Reading Luke 2:41-52

Read and believe in Jesus.

“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Luke 2:49

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The Gospel according to Luke 2:41-52

We ended last week’s study after the dedication of the baby Jesus in the temple, Simeon’s prophecy, and Anna’s testimony. The family then returned to Nazareth, where Jesus grew and matured.  (Luke does not cover the Magi or the family’s flight to Egypt.) We pick up this time with Jesus as a twelve-year-old.

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Vss. 41-45.

It’s the time of the Passover celebration.  This is one of the Feasts that the Lord required all Jewish men to attend in Jerusalem.  Joseph took his family, including Jesus, who was “about to be a man” when he turned thirteen.  They spent the days of the Festival in Jerusalem, including sacrificing a lamb and eating the “Passover meal” together as Moses commanded Israel when they were freed from Pharaoh’s slavery in Egypt.

The family had traveled to Jerusalem in a larger group of friends/family for both safety and fellowship. After the Festival ended, they all headed back to Nazareth, with fathers and older teens at the front and women and kids behind. In this case, both Joseph and Mary “assumed” that Jesus was with the other.  But He was neither.  The boy Jesus had stayed behind in Jerusalem.

After a full day of travel, when the family began looking for lodging, they realized that Jesus was not with the other parent.  He was not with any of the group’s members.

Can’t you imagine a panic taking hold?  Have you ever lost a child in a big crowd?  Then you know.

Early the next morning, Joseph and Mary set out on a daylong trek back to Jerusalem.  And the following day, they searched the city from top to bottom, asking one and all if they’d seen Jesus.

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Vss. 45-50.

Finally, they found Him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions.  All the learned men who heard Him were amazed at His understanding of the law and his answers.

You wonder what Jesus did during the two nights He was absent from Mary and Joseph.  Did the scholars take Him in?

Of course, Mary and Joseph were astonished.  (But Jesus had done what any child should do when separated from his parents.  He remained in a public place in the presence of trusted adults, where his parents might be expected to find him.)

Do you know that feeling after finding a lost child?  Relief at finding him and anger at his being separated. This was Mary.

“Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress,” Mary fired at Him.

Then came the gentle rebuke by the child to His mother, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”   (It seemed such a natural thing for a child to be separated from his parents in Jerusalem to go to the temple!  And … there was that gentle acknowledgement that Jesus, “the Son of God,” which Mary knew, would be with His true “Father,” in His Father’s house.)

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Vss. 51-52.

They all left Jerusalem and again headed back to Nazareth.  Jesus was submissive to them, as He should.  And “Mary treasured up all these things in her heart.”  (THE Son of God…  the SON of GOD.  ‘Immanuel,’ Gabriel had said.)

And all that covers Jesus’ teenage years and His twenties is … “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.”