A Very Jewish, Very Human Family
The text this week is Luke 2:41-52. This is the passage in which Jesus gets lost for three days and His parents cannot find him. The first thing this text should bring to the fore is the very Jewishness of Jesus. It is easy after 2000+ years to forget that this was a Jewish kid growing up in a very Jewish household. Today we would say that Jesus was raised by observant parents. This is clear by the fact that the text states that Jesus’s parents go up to Jerusalem for the Passover every year. Our equivalent today would be a Catholic family going to the Vatican for Easter every year.
Equally interesting, compared with our age, is the fact that these are not helicopter parents. They are not following Jesus around hovering about watching His every move. It is assumed that He is a responsible young man and will get home on His own. It is only after they do not find Him among friends and relatives that they get worried. Mary and Joseph would be under arrest for this in today’s world.
Also interesting is how normal and human is the response of His parents when they do find Him. Verse 48 lays it all out in ways we should all recognize: “why have you treated us this way…”. I don’t know about you but that brings back personal memories! The passage is revealing in that it shows us an utterly human Jesus living in an utterly human family. This shows us that God has truly taken on our humanity, family foibles and all.
A Slow Rolling Revelation
The other thing this passage shows us is a Jesus that is slowly revealing Himself to be a rather extraordinary figure. When Mary and Joseph do find Jesus, He is in the temple sitting among the teachers. Listening and asking questions. More than that when Jesus answers the teachers all are amazed at what He has to say. I am sure all were wondering where He got all this knowledge and insight.
Jesus’s response to His parents is also revealing. He tells them that “I must be in my Father’s house” (Verse 49). Verse 50 states, somewhat surprisingly, that “They did not understand what he said to them.”. Even given the amazing circumstances of Mary’s pregnancy, and Joseph’s acceptance of it, they are still unclear just who this person is and what His mission is all about. Many more whom Jesus encounters will also be unclear as to who He is but fortunately we do not need to be, as we know how the story unfolds. In the end these non-helicopter parents do not chide Jesus, as it would be hard to criticize a kid for wanting more religious instruction. They simply take Jesus home and go on with their lives.
At this point the story leaves us with Jesus being an obedient loving child and Mary treasuring this time in their lives. Jesus is said to have “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour” (verse52). Again, Jesus is shown to be both man and God and to be steadily revealing Himself to the world in a manner that fits God’s timeline.
Mary and Joseph’s response should be instructive for us. They accepted Jesus and let Jesus be Jesus, as should we. This was just the start of the faithful patience that these two extraordinary parental figures showed our Lord. In short, they start here, early in Jesus’s life, teaching all of us what it is to believe, then obey.
Praise Be to God
