Boy in the Temple

 Hello everyone.

We will finish off Luke 2, in verses 41-52, by looking at the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus and his stay at the temple.  It is interesting that Luke follows a story set in the temple, with another story set in the temple, only twelve years later. We get very little in the Gospels about the childhood of Jesus. Luke does tell us this one story, occuring when he is twelve years old.  The next time we see Jesus, he is thirty. 

Like we did in the temple, we see the great righteousness of Jesus’ parents.  Faithfully, every year, they would travel to Jerusalem for the Passover.  (The Old Testament had required the men to travel to Jerusalem three times a year for feasts: Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Darrell Bock states that it was considered acceptable for those who traveled a great distance would come for Passover, it being the major feast of the three. (Bock, 263.)) 

Bock also states that families traveled in large caravans for protection.  The 90 mile journey would take three or four days. Between traveling both directions and the Passover festival, if a family stayed for the entire festival, this journey would take at least two weeks. (Bock, 264.) It is not clear how long into the festival Joseph and Mary arrived at the Passover, but it does indicate that they stayed until the end of it.  When they left, Jesus remained behind in the temple.  They had traveled for the entire day before realizing that Jesus was not with them.  They had assumed that he was in the traveling caravan somewhere.  

Understanding that they already gone an entire day before realizing that Jesus was not with them, they had to travel another day back to Jerusalem to find him, but this time, one would assume, it was just the two of them, traveling without the protection of the caravan.  I wonder, was twelve-year-old Jesus alone in Jerusalem for three days or five days?  When did that three day search begin? Does it start on that first day when they realized he was missing, or did it start when they returned to Jerusalem and began searching for him? It is not clear.  What is clear, however, is that when they finally find Jesus, he is in the temple with the teachers, listening and asking questions, and those around were amazed by his quick understanding. 

So young Jesus is shown here as having a thirst for understanding and discussing spiritual matters. His discussions with the teachers of the law here are quite a contrast to the heavy disputes that he will have one day with the same group. 

When Mary and Joseph finally find Jesus, Mary scolds him a little bit, saying that they had been anxiously searching for him.  I have translated the word ὀδυνώμενοι (odynomenoi)as ‘in great distress,’ but the word actually means ‘to suffer pain.’  Mary expresses to Jesus great suffering on his account.  When Jesus responds to his mother, he asks, 'Why were you searching for me?’ He speaks to her as though it should have been obvious where he was.  The temple should have been the first place that they looked.  

He further responds with the word δεῖ (dei). The Greek word means 'it is necessary.' What he is doing is necessary.  What is necessary is not quite clear.  A literal translation from the Greek would be “in the …of the Father.’ It is as if a word was left out.  It is often translated as house or business. Bock makes a pretty good case for ‘in my Father’s house.’ (Bock, 269-270.) We see young Jesus having deep convictions about doing His Father's work.  

I am curious about young Jesus. Did he, at this point, understand who he was? Perhaps, perhaps not.  It does appear that he understood that he was more than a mere student of Judaism.  It is unclear how much of his mission Jesus understood at this point.  Something that is clear is that Joseph and Mary do not understand what Jesus’ mission is.  (I personally give them a pass on this, because how could they have understood his mission? Later on, the apostles did not understand it even when he told it to them.) 

After the affair in the temple, Luke records that Jesus returned to Nazareth with his parents and submitted to them.  Did the boy Jesus understand who he was?  Was God willingly submitting to these two human beings?  Well, at some point, he came to a full understanding of who he was, and apparently still submitted to his parents.  Now, somewhere along the way Joseph died, but we know from the story in John’s gospel of the wedding at Cana, that Jesus, even at thirty, was still willing to submit to his mother. God in the flesh was humble, submissive and respectful toward his parents. 

     Darrell Bock, Luke Volume 1: 1:1-9:50, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academics, 1994.