Luke seems to end his story of Jesus’ birth with the presentation of the baby Jesus in the Temple by his parents, crowned by the prophecies and blessings of Simeon and Anna. The Gospel according to Matthew, of course, records one more story: the visit of the magi, the astrologers from “the east” (possibly Nabatea, in Arabia, possibly Persia in what is now Syria or Iraq) whom we know as the “wise men.” Jesus is likely one or two years’ old at the time of their visit—given Herod’s later order to slay all male children two years’ old and under.
Luke himself, however, is not quite done with the child Jesus.
There is precisely one story in all the Bible of Jesus as a boy. It is easy to see it as just standing by itself, a little lonely island of narrative between Jesus’ birth and the baptism by John after which Jesus starts his public work. It is often taught that way in Sunday School: an odd little story about an odd young Jesus.
Perhaps it is better, however, to view this tale as Luke’s Nativity “postscript,” his “one more thing” to say at the end of the birth narrative. It is a story that links the whole previous narrative to the man at the centre of the rest of GLuke.
Luke 2:41–52:
Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom.
After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they travelled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him.
After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
“Why were you searching for me?’ he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
We could spend a lot of time on this well-told story of Luke’s. Today, let’s focus on just a couple of surprises.
First, this little tale starts with an ordinary event: Jesus’ family traveling down south from Nazareth to Jerusalem for the Passover—the great feast during which Jews remembered God liberating the nation of Israel under Moses from Egyptian slavery under Pharaoh. It would have been a time when every Israelite would think about salvation and freedom.
Jesus is described as being “twelve years old” and “the boy Jesus.” He is on the verge of his teenage years, incipient adulthood, but still very much under his parents’ protection and guidance.
He was old enough, however, that when Joseph and Mary started walking home to Nazareth, they assumed he was also walking home with friends or family. At day’s end, they were looking for him to settle down for the night.
Jesus, alas, wasn’t in sight—and couldn't be found.
Like any anxious parents, Mary and Joseph headed right back to the big city to look for him. And they spent three terrible days (and, likely, sleepless nights) until they did find him: in the temple courts, discussing matters with the religious leaders who were headquartered there.
Everyone was deeply impressed—even “amazed”—at his questions and answers. Jesus would “amaze” people frequently in his life, but we might well recall that people can be amazed and still not like or approve of whatever amazes them. His parents were “astonished” also—but they weren’t happy!
Mary doubtless was, like all good parents everywhere, hugely relieved to find her missing boy. But what she is recorded saying is a rebuke: “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
One other time in Luke’s Gospel Mary will expect Jesus to behave the way she wants him to, and he will surprise her (and, likely, everyone else) with his reply.
In Luke 8:19–21, Mary and Jesus' brothers stand outside a house in which he is teaching and ask for him to come outside to see them. It sounds like a legitimate request, just like the question she is posing to him here in the Temple sounds eminently reasonable.
Jesus replies to that request, however, with an implied rebuke of his own that sounds even a bit insulting: “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.” He realizes Mary and his brothers are not happy with him for some reason (not stated in the Gospel), they are not supporting his work, and he is setting them straight.
First things first, Jesus says. Obeying the commands of his heavenly Father—and their heavenly Father—must come ahead of any request of his earthly family, and especially of any request that implies he ought to be more concerned with them than with God.
Jesus does the same thing here, at twelve, as he replies to Mary: “Why were you searching for me?’ he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
The original Greek text of Jesus’ reply is interesting. It doesn’t contain the normal word for “house.” Other English translations say something like “Didn’t you know I had to be about my Father’s business?”
What happens in the Greek is a kind of verbal gap: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s?” Jesus is saying, “I had to be in my Father’s stuff, in his affairs, in his work, in his house. My priority is to be occupied with whatever is my heavenly Father’s. And in Jerusalem that’s going to be here, in the Temple.”
Then Jesus adds a rebuke of his own. Why didn’t you know that, Mother? “Why were you searching for me?” If I am not with you, then where on earth would I be? You know better!
But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.
Luke records that his parents were confused by his reply. Jesus was normally so obedient—as Luke makes clear that he continued to be. So the issue here wasn’t a preteen acting out. What else was going on?
“His mother treasured all these things in her heart.” That’s what Mary had done also, according to Luke, after the shepherds had arrived. And Mary’s heart showed up again in this account as Simeon promised that her own heart would be pierced by the sharp edge of Jesus' challenging people to decide whether they would join him in God’s work.
Here was the first press of that blade on her soul, a powerful experience she would never forget—three days anxiously searching for her twelve-year-old firstborn!
Again, Luke makes clear that “the boy Jesus” is not being disobedient or disrespectful, as Mary understandably thought he might be. In fact, Luke concludes his story, and concludes (I think) his Nativity account with these words: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” Jesus was faultless, in the eyes of both God and his fellow humans, as he grew up properly to take on his life’s work—the work that Luke records beginning in the very next chapter.
Mary and Joseph had been spoken to by Gabriel himself before Jesus was born. Elizabeth had blessed Mary with confirmation of the annunciation that God was the origin of the baby in Mary’s tummy.
In Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary received shepherds who testified to them also of an angelic message. Then the magi came a year or so later to confirm it all—a message confirmed darkly by the Holy Family's having to flee to Egypt for a while to escape a murderously jealous King Herod, who also believed the prophecies, or at least was afraid the Jewish people would.
Still, all of that compelling testimony had come to his parents a decade before the little family went up to Jerusalem for that extraordinary Passover celebration. Ten years of ordinary life. Ten years for the excitement to die away and Jesus to be enjoyed as just an extraordinarily good boy.
Then he can’t be found on the journey home. Then he can’t be found for three whole days in Jerusalem. Then he is found at the temple, of all places—and he isn’t apologetic! Instead, he tells his parents that they should have known where he was and implies that their anxiety is their own fault.
They ought to have known better, Jesus says. And so should we.
After all these days of Advent and Christmas, we should be sure by now that Jesus is the Lord. We should be sure that God has come to save us. And we should be sure that our hope for a good life now and in the world to come depends on him and how we relate to him.
If we have learned nothing else from all the surprises of Christmas, it should be this: to not be surprised when we are reminded that everything focuses on God, not on us; that our life must be centred on following Jesus, not on fulfilling our own little plans; and that we need the Spirit of Jesus every hour both to empower us to “grow in wisdom and stature” as Jesus did and to focus our attention on what always centrally matters: our Father’s business.
It was a tough surprise for Mary and Joseph to find Jesus after all that searching in the Temple. It was a tougher surprise to have him rebuke them for not remembering who he was and what he was born to do.
Let’s not forget what we have learned, either, but instead treasure up all these things in our hearts, as Mary did. That’s what Christmas (and Luke 2, as Charlie Brown’s friend Linus Van Pelt reminds us each year) is all about.
