Most parents, at some time or another, have had the experience of thinking they have lost their child. It happened to us when our children were small. We were in the Disney Store at the mall. As we got ready to leave the store, we suddenly realized our middle son, Jon, was not with us. He was probably 5 years old or younger at the time. We looked all around the store. He was nowhere to be found. Then we stepped outside the store and looked in every direction. Finally, we saw him, one store down, standing with a security guard. What relief!
Well, I think almost every parent can identify. And the story we are going to read today from the Gospel of Luke is a story about two parents losing their son and finding him again. But the story is also about so much more. Listen for God’s word to you from Luke 2:41-52…
41 Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. 43 When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. 44 Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search 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 When his parents[a] saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” 49 He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”[b] 50 But they did not understand what he said to them. 51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.
52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years,[c] and in divine and human favor.
The Story Behind the Story
This story, along with the birth narratives of Jesus that precede it, raise the question: where did Luke get his story? I believe that Bible scholar Michael Wilcock answers this question well when he writes:
We can be fairly certain of the circumstances in which Luke learned of these events. Having come to Jerusalem with Paul just before the latter was arrested, (Acts 21:17 ff.) and being on hand to accompany him again when he was eventually sent away from Caesarea on the voyage to Rome, (Acts 27:1) Luke presumably stayed in Palestine for the two-year period of his friend’s imprisonment, and without doubt used the opportunity to gather material for his Gospel. Behind chapters 1 and 2 in particular there must surely lie long conversations between him and Mary.
Of all her countless memories of her first-born Son, some were obviously more memorable than others, so that what she kept and pondered (2:19) can only have been a selection. Of the incidents she recounted to Luke, he in turn had to select those which were most suitable for his Gospel.
Jesus was raised in a pious home
The first thing we see in the story itself, is that Jesus was raised in a pious home. Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. According to New Testament scholar Joachim Jeremias, “every male Israelite and full proselyte who could make the journey [to Jerusalem], was obliged to do so for the three main feasts [including Passover]; but certain concessions had grown up for those living at a distance.”
So, even though Mary and Joseph lived at a distance, they went up to Jerusalem every year for the Passover. And Mary went up even though she was not required to do so. And Jesus was taken to Jerusalem for the Passover at age twelve, though he was not required by law to go. It was a way of preparing Jesus for the following year, when he would turn thirteen and become a son of the law.
Mary and Joseph set a great example for us of godly parenting. They were obviously doing everything in their power to bring up Jesus in what Paul later called “the nurture and admonition of the Lord”. In fact, they were going above and beyond the call of duty. I think this is a pertinent and positive example for parents in our time who often view church attendance as an optional extra if they can fit it into their schedule.
Parents have more opportunity to shape the spiritual lives of their children than anyone else. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Several years ago, I was on a train from London to Watford, England to give some lectures on C. S. Lewis and evangelism at the Centre for Missional Leadership. There were hundreds of people on the train and hundreds more at each stop. I got to wondering, “How would I go about it if I wanted to reach all these hundreds of thousands of people in London with the good news of Jesus Christ? What would get their attention?” Sitting next to me on the train was a Muslim woman with her very well-behaved little son. I interacted with them as much as I could, though the woman did not speak English. When the mother and her son got off at their stop and disappeared into the hordes of people, it was as if the Lord said to me, “Here is my method for training the next generation to know me: parents bringing up their children in the way.”
So, I ask you to consider today: are each of us doing all we can to train up our children and grandchildren in the way they should go? Are we following the example of Mary and Joseph and going above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to raising our children and grandchildren in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?
Finding the Jesus that You Thought You Lost
The next thing we see in this little story in Luke’s Gospel is Jesus being left behind in Jerusalem and then later being found by his parents in the Temple.
As I said earlier, Luke is telling us a story based upon interviews with eyewitnesses. I believe Luke got this story from Mary. But this does not mean that Luke does not add his own artistic and theological touches to the story. In fact, he does. This story connects to one Luke will tell at the end of his Gospel; he uses two stories as bookends for the main part of the story he wants to tell about what Jesus began to do and teach. The story we have read today is about two people on the way to Jerusalem who have lost Jesus, but they find him in the Temple. The other bookend story, at the end of the Gospel, is about two disciples on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, talking about the Jesus they have lost because he has been crucified.
Tom Wright has said about this,
…maybe Luke is wanting to tell us something about his gospel as a whole: maybe he is writing at one level at least, for people who may have some idea of Jesus but find he is more elusive than they had imagined.
Finding him, of course, will normally involve a surprise. Jesus doesn’t do or say what Mary and Joseph, or the two on the road, were expecting. It will be like that with us, too. Every time we relax and think we’ve really understood him, he will be up ahead, or perhaps staying behind while we go on without thinking. Discipleship always involves the unexpected…
We may want to reflect on whether we have taken Jesus himself for granted; if Mary and Joseph could do it, there is every reason to suppose that we can too. We mustn’t assume he is accompanying us as we go off on our own business. But if and when we sense the lack of his presence, we must be prepared to hunt for him, to search for him in prayer, in the scriptures, in the sacraments, and not to give up until we find him again.
We must expect, too, that when we do meet him again he will not say or do what we expect. He must be busy with his father’s work. So must we.
I think that is a wonderful way to look at this story. It is all about finding the Jesus you thought you lost.
Have you been there? Have you had the experience of finding Jesus, or having him find you, and then, seemingly, losing him? I imagine many people have felt that.
I have never had the experience of feeling that I lost Jesus and found him again, though I have had my times of wandering. Still, I have had the experience of Jesus growing larger, as I grow older.
There is this wonderful scene in C. S. Lewis’ children’s story, Prince Caspian, where a child from our world named Lucy gets into the magical land of Narnia for a second time, and she sees again the Christ-figure of the story, the great lion Aslan, after not having seen him for a long time.
“Aslan” said Lucy “you’re bigger”.
“That is because you are older, little one” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
I believe there is always a new opportunity, just around the corner, to find the Jesus we thought we had lost, and to find him bigger, more powerful, more loving than ever before.
The Experience of Awe
And when we do find Jesus, or he finds us, it is an experience of awe. Awe, or what Rudolf Otto called “the numinous” pervades this story.
I imagine Luke and Mary must both have had the experience of touching the “mysterium tremendum”. Luke must have asked Mary, “Do you remember Jesus doing or saying anything unusual while he was growing up?” Luke certainly did not know how Mary would answer. So, when this story tumbled out of her, perhaps with tears and a sense of wonder, Luke must have felt like he found the Holy Grail. And Mary must have had a similar feeling when she found Jesus in the Temple and he spoke as he did. She must have been overcome with awe. Of course, that was no new experience for Mary. It happened when the angel came to her and explained she was pregnant with Jesus. It happened again when she met her cousin Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s baby, John, leapt in her womb. And it happened yet again, while Mary and Joseph and the baby were staying in that stable in Bethlehem and the shepherds arrived to worship the baby Jesus.
Some people ask, “Well why didn’t Mary and Joseph understand what Jesus said to them in the Temple? After all, an angel explained to both of them who Jesus was.” Yes, that is true. But the full reality of Jesus’ identity is too great for any of us to take in all at once. Though Mary and Joseph had many revelations of Jesus, I am sure that their awareness of Jesus’ identity was a growing thing.
What child is this?
That leads us to the key question that is raised by this whole story. The question that is put so beautifully in the carol we sang earlier, namely: “What child is this?” What child is this 12-year-old boy who says to his mother and father: “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
Here Jesus was in Yahweh’s Temple and he calls it his Father’s house. I can think of no example of any Jewish person in all of history calling God his or her Father up to this point in time. It was unthinkable. The Jewish people simply did not think of their relationship with God in those terms. But Jesus does. He calls God his Father. Later on, in the Gospel story, Jesus will go even further and call God his Abba, or Daddy. (Mark 14:36)
Sometimes I think the people who say Jesus never claimed to be God simply do not know what they are talking about. If you removed every explicit and implicit claim to Jesus’ divinity in the Gospels, you would have very little left to the whole story.
What child is this? Indeed.
Jesus’ Growth and Ours
And is it not stunning, that though Jesus, even at the age of twelve, sensed that he was the Son of God, yet he went home to Nazareth and was obedient to his parents. What an example to every teenager who has ever lived down through the ages!
And wouldn’t we love to know how Jesus handled the things we all have to handle going through adolescence? Burgeoning sexuality? Peer pressure? You name it. Wouldn’t we like to know?
Mary knew. And Luke tells us that she treasured each memory in her heart.
The final thing I would like to say about this passage is: what a wonderful statement of Jesus’ human growth we have in Luke 2:52! “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” That is to say that Jesus grew intellectually, physically, spiritually, and socially. He grew in all dimensions of his life. He was a fully human being, as well as being fully God. And when we invite Jesus into our lives, he helps us to become fully human, as well as, in some mysterious way, sharing in divinity. After all, if Jesus comes and lives within us, then we have something of the divine in us. Jesus says, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23) If Jesus comes to live in us, he will help us to grow in all dimensions of our life just as he grew.
For many years I used Luke 2:52 as a prayer for my sons. “Lord, help James and Jon and Josh grow in wisdom and in stature, in favor with you and others.”
Maybe I prayed this prayer too much because all of them are very tall now! But I still think it is a wonderful prayer that we can pray for our children.
Let’s pray together now…
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