When Jesus Got Lost in Jerusalem - A Lectionary Reflection for Christmas 1C (Luke 2)
Luke 2:41-52 New
Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
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 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?” 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, and in divine and human favor.
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I was about
twelve when my family visited Portland (Oregon) around Christmas. During our
visit to Lloyd’s Center, which was at the time the biggest shopping center in the state of Oregon, I got separated
from my family. You have to understand, we were from Klamath Falls, a much smaller city than Portland. The shopping center was full of people. I had wandered off, as I was apt to do, and had headed off to the toy department in the basement of J.C. Penney. Now, why my parents didn't think to look there is beyond me, but they were none too happy at my disappearance. I think I went to bed hungry that night!
Although it wasn’t three days, for me, apparently it was for Jesus when he got separated from his family. on a visit to Jerusalem. Here's the thing, Jesus was about the same age (twelve) as I was in that story when he
got separated from his parents. At least that’s the story that Luke tells. The only difference is that Jesus didn't spend his time away from his family in the toy department at J.C. Penneys!
According to Luke Jesus and his
family had traveled from Nazareth in Galilee to the big city of Jerusalem for Passover, as was their custom. While they were
in Jerusalem, Jesus wandered off, which seems to not be that big of a deal because it took a day before the family, who was on their way home, realized that Jesus wasn't with their caravan that was traveling
back to Nazareth. Apparently, they just assumed that he was in the group. You can imagine how panicked they must have been, but then it
seems mind-boggling to 21st century Westerners to think that it took
a day for them to realize Jesus wasn’t with them. Today, it many
parents find it difficult to let their children out of their sight (unless they know they’re
under the supervision of another adult). Figuring that he must be back in
Jerusalem Mary and Joseph left the caravan, returned to Jerusalem, and started their
search for the lost child.
Perhaps you’re wondering how we
jumped on this first Sunday after Christmas from the story of Jesus’ birth in a
Bethlehem stable to this scene some twelve years later? You might be wondering what happened to Jesus and his family during the intervening years between the story of
the stable and Jesus' reappearance at age twelve? We
don’t even get to hear about Anna and Simeon.
The so-called “missing years”
have long been a puzzle for followers of the Jesus story. But then it's good to
remember that Mark and John begin their versions of the Jesus story with his baptism by John. As for Matthew, he skips from the family's return to Nazareth from Egypt due to Herod's attack on Bethlehem to the baptism in the Jordan. Only Luke,
among the canonical Gospels, offers a brief snapshot of Jesus’ childhood, and therefore the moment of his transition from childhood to adulthood.
Age twelve has long been
the time when young people go through rites of passage, such as baptism,
confirmation, the bar and bath mitzvah. So, the timing is appropriate. As for
the missing years themselves, there have been many attempts at filling in the gaps,
many of which are rather fantastic. Some stories take him to England and others
to India. The canonical Gospels are rather temperate in contrast to these other
stories. My sense is that he spent his pre-baptism years in Nazareth, growing up as Luke summarizes, in wisdom and years. Maybe he even took up the family
business as a builder of sorts. It's possible that he and Joseph went over to work on the Galilean city of Sepphoris
(a major city never mentioned by the New Testament, even though it was only a
few miles from Nazareth). I really like James McGrath's imaginative suggestion that his grandparents, Mary's parents, might have lived in Sepphoris, and Jesus could have spent time with Grandma, learning from her. As McGrath writes, "There is certainly nothing implausible about the traditions depicting Mary's parents (named Anna and Joachim in sources outside the New Testament) as living at least long enough to see Jesus as a child, and perhaps even (as Anna is often portrayed as doing in paintings) to read to him" (What Jesus Learned from Women, p. 49). Whatever is the case regarding the "missing years," the next time Jesus appears in Luke's story, it is at
his baptism, the event that launches his public ministry.
I have
long been intrigued by this story. Don’t you wonder what kind of child Jesus
was? What did he know and when did he know it? Did he think of himself as
special or different? The passage raises all kinds of questions about Jesus and
his own sense of identity. From this
little piece of the story offered by Luke, at the very least Jesus seems rather
precocious, and wise beyond his years. He seems to have been especially
sensitive to spiritual things. We’ve all known children like that. Some of them
grow up to be clergy, but not all of them. There’s another set of questions the
emerge, and those questions have to do with the task of parenting a child like
this. It’s possible that he was not the easiest child to raise. Maybe he asked
lots of questions, especially religious ones. Again, all we can do is
speculate. For those who emphasize the divinity of Jesus, what does it mean for
Jesus to grow in wisdom? What was it he needed to learn?
Here’s
what we do know, from Luke’s perspective: It took three days for Mary and Joseph to find Jesus—in the Temple—and
when they finally found Jesus sitting in the Temple, they discovered him talking theology with the teachers of Israel. Luke
says he was both listening and asking questions. What is more intriguing here
is that these teachers and their students were amazed at Jesus’ level of
knowledge.
So, when
his parents find him in the Temple, they, like most parents, ask for an
explanation. Why didn’t he stay with their traveling group? Why did he wander
away? When my parents found me in the toy department, I remember being disciplined.
In fact, I think my punishment was going to bed without dinner. They were none
too happy with me, and I paid for it. I’m assuming something of the same was in
store for Jesus. It’s not so much that the parents were angry. They were worried,
as most parents would be. So they ask him: “Child, why have you treated us like
this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” Indeed,
Jesus had caused his parents a lot of grief. After all, they were from a small
town in the north, and losing your child in the big city is definitely anxiety-producing. Most parents would expect their children to answer them by apologizing
for causing them so much distress. That would be honoring your parents,
wouldn’t it?
In answering his parents, Jesus didn’t apologize (I'm sure I did). Instead, he responded to their question
with one of his own: “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must
be in my Father’s house?” Jesus’ questions for his parents, at least on the
surface, sound rather insolent. This isn’t the kind of response that would
ingratiate me with my parents. I want to get back to the statement, which I
believe stands at the heart of the passage, but it’s important to note two
things. First, his parents don’t understand his questions. They’re mystified by
what he’s saying. The second is that he
returned home and was obedient to them. That is, from that point on he behaved
as was expected of a Jewish child living in first-century Palestine. He obeyed (honored) his
parents, as was required of him by the Torah. Luke says for a second time that
Mary “treasured these things in her heart.” Luke notes the same thing earlier,
while the Holy Family was in Bethlehem. Having returned home to Nazareth, Jesus continued his childhood movement
toward adult maturity. According to Luke, he continued growing in wisdom and
stature. He grew in favor with God and with his neighbors.
So,
back to Jesus’ original response: “Did
you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” What did he mean by
this? He seems confused by his parent’s anxiety and failure to understand where
he would be (how different his choice of place to be was from my own—Temple or
toy department?). The King James Version
puts it this way: “How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?”
Could it be that the KJV rendering is more to the point? It’s not just that
Jesus was in his Father’s house, but that he was in the Temple doing his
“Father’s business.” In other words, Luke has Jesus identifying himself not with
the Temple as a place of learning, but he was doing the work to which his “Father,”
that is God, had called him. In making this statement Jesus separates himself
from his human father (Joseph) and identifies himself with God (his Father). As Dennis Smith puts it: “he is, indeed, more
than an astute student or precocious child. He is manifesting his status as Son
of God. He is teaching the teachers” [Feasting on the Gospels – Luke, 1:61].
In this moment Luke gives us
another reminder that Jesus is fully human, but there is more here than meets
the eye. From the time of the visitation of the angel to Mary to the birth story
and then the encounters at the Temple at the time of his circumcision, all serve
as partial revelations of Jesus’ special mission. Here is but one more
sign.
Luke
doesn’t offer us a full-blown Chalcedonian Christology, but he does provide
material that can be used to develop a fuller Christology. His understanding of
the things of God confounds the wise. How is this possible? For Luke, it is
because Jesus is engaged in his “Father’s business.” He’s teaching. He’s
revealing God in his own person. The moment of revelation is brief. Then it’s
back to normal life as the maturing child of a Galilean family. So, when next we meet up
with him in Luke's gospel, he’s at the Jordan, seeking baptism from John. They do grow up so quickly, don't they?
Image attribution: Jesus Teaching in the Temple, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=51550 [retrieved December 21, 2021].
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